Bouygues Energies & Services has acquired robotics firm SEA Productique for an undisclosed sum.
The French company also works on industrial IT solutions and automation for industry, primarily to help firms improve their processes in the manufacturing, food and pharmaceutical industries.
Bouygues Energies & Services, a subsidiary of the French multinational firm, has taken on 80 staff from the €16.8m (£14.5m)-turnover firm and it will become part of the company’s automation business unit in France, which works in similar areas.
A statement from Bouygues this morning said the move will supplement its global offer and expand its territorial coverage in France.
Atos International: Atos, Axione and Siemens to manage multi-service network and monitoring of three new metro lines in Paris », the largest urban transport project in Europe.
The project includes the construction of an automatic metro around Paris to avoid passing through the center of the French capital. The contract awarded to Atos, Axione and Siemens is worth €153 million and will continue until the construction of the Grand Paris Express is completed.
The new automatic metro lines (underground and overground), which will span 129 km and have 49 stations, will serve not only business and residential districts and airports, but also numerous local amenities. These transport lines will help create a new dynamic by increasing economic and social opportunities in the Paris region and beyond.
Bouygues is set to build a new COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing facility for producer Valneva.
The group’s Energies & Services division, a subsidiary of Bouygues Construction, has been chosen for the design and build project in West Lothian, Scotland. The factory will allow Valneva to scale-up its manufacturing capacity to produce the required doses of its coronavirus vaccine.
The project will house two manufacturing streams and testing laboratories for the vaccine. French pharmaceutical company Valneva partnered with the UK Government for its vaccine in September last year. Under the agreement, if vaccine development is successful, Valneva will provide 60 million doses to the UK in the second half of this year. Its vaccine, which is in the first phase of clinical study, is the only vaccine candidate that is inactivated, meaning it consists of virus particles that have been grown in culture and then lose their disease-producing capacity.
Why Covid-19 is an opportunity to rethink wellbeing within construction
The construction sector faced major workplace health, safety and wellbeing challenges even before the logistical and financial problems generated by Covid-19. But, as Ian Caminsky argues, the pandemic has also created an opportunity for construction firms to regroup, examine internal data and prioritise the wellbeing of workers.
Coronavirus has caused industry leaders to rethink their approach to work. While for many sectors this has meant a review of where and when we work, for the construction sector the changes that can be made in the workplace are more subtle in nature.