“There is this ability among the group’s men and women to get ready for battle, stand together and unite their efforts in the most critical situations. This shared commitment to customer service is one of the strong values on which ACTIA is built. ACTIA is a deeply human company, where open-minded enthusiasts who are resolutely focused on the future give the company its soul, a little something extra that makes it unique.”
Jean-Louis Pech, CEO of the ACTIA group
Extract from RNTP Press Kit, Toulouse 2021.
ACTIA now runs neck and neck with the major players in the sector
Founded in 1986 in south-west France, the group cultivates its uniqueness in many ways. Chosen by major international cities to equip their buses, underground trains, and trams with on-board systems, such as London, Madrid, Brussels, in Germany and across the Atlantic, in Boston and Canada, ACTIA now runs neck and neck with the major players in the sector as regards international public transport tenders.
Ours is a company on a human scale which has been able to adapt to changes, to the needs of the international market, to its technological breakthroughs, to the crises that come its way and to new opportunities. The group now offers electronic systems, on-board solutions and services related to vehicle connectivity. This offering, which is aimed at the entire value chain, is without any doubt one of the most comprehensive on the market. It makes ACTIA the preferred partner of both public transport operators and manufacturers.
Unique through its size : an international company on a human scale
ACTIA’s culture draws its richness from the pioneering spirit that has driven the group since its creation. ACTIA was built on its ability to acquire an international reach in world markets, while consolidating a local dimension in each of the countries where the group operates. The group is now present in fifteen countries around the world and has a workforce of around 3,600 employees.
A human-sized company
With its head office in Toulouse, ACTIA defines itself as a family-owned MSE (Mid-Sized Enterprise), an industrial group rooted in its region and with international reach. The Occitanie region in the south of France is full of cutting-edge technology players, including manufacturers, laboratories and institutes, clusters, schools, and start-ups. A prominent figure in the regional ecosystem, it is in this stimulating environment that ACTIA cultivates Innovation as the key to competitiveness in increasingly demanding markets.
Unique through its capacity for resilience
We see increased tension around the world in terms of the environment, procurement, security, health, politics and other areas, and the group, which has to address international issues in this increasingly difficult and competitive environment, demonstrates its adaptability, agility and resilience.
Unique through its positioning on the public transport market
What other company in the public transport sector is able to meet the embedded equipment and service requirements of manufacturers, operators, managers and integrators of public transport vehicles, be they city buses or underground trains/trams?
ACTIA covers the entire value chain of the passenger transport market. This unique positioning is based on historical expertise in electrical and electronic vehicle architecture. ACTIA, a technological forerunner, actually spearheaded electronic vehicle multiplexing and pioneered electronic automotive diagnostics.
This position alongside all of the public transport players allows the group to get its timing right and anticipate and meet the different needs of the market.
Unique through its comprehensive offering for public transport
ACTIA’s know-how for public transport is part of a global value creation for all market players and for all vehicles – buses, coaches, underground trains, trams, and trains:
- embedded architecture
- driver cockpit and displays
- driver assistance, eco-driving, speed limit assistance, fleet management
- electronic diagnostics, remote maintenance, and predictive maintenance
- electrification of vehicles
- on-board passenger information and entertainment systems
- passenger ticketing and counting systems
- embedded video protection, rear-view cameras, etc.
Unique through its industrial capacity
ACTIA is an industrial group, one of the few mid-size OEMs to integrate its industrial resources. The ACTIA group has production sites on three continents.
Its plants in France, Germany, Tunisia, and the United States offer a comprehensive range of production services and electronic services in fully certified environments. They are regularly audited by major international contractors.
The 5th Industrial Revolution: a decisive shift for ACTIA
For several years, the ACTIA group has been involved in reconfiguring its manufacturing facilities in order to deploy on its various sites the organisations, processes, skills, infrastructure and equipment necessary for implementing the Factory of the Future.
For ACTIA, the Factory of the Future must first and foremost be modular and reconfigurable to integrate new technologies related to the IOT and AI, among others, with a view to an overall organisational transformation. Incorporating this digital ecosystem within a production factory entails many major changes within the organisation, both in terms of new products and job development.
Industrial transformation projects are therefore accompanied by major training and skills development programmes. For example, the implementation of Cobots in factories allows operators to train so that they can devote themselves to actions with higher added value.
People lie at the heart of these transformations, because a “smarter” industry is necessarily more respectful of teams and the environment.
ACTIA’s state-of-the-art electronics unit in Occitanie is located in Colomiers.
An industrial showcase for the group, the Colomiers site employs 350 people and has a total workshop area of 5,100 m2. In recent years, the plant has benefited from significant investments in infrastructure and production facilities with the introduction of lines for medium and large production runs. This means the plant can offer versatile and modular production facilities in a highly certified industrial environment. Its various production capacities promote speedy execution and an unprecedented industrial agility, which is essential in order to cope with the current severe shortage of electronic components.
Local production: a major issue for the group
The industrial synergies within the group enable us to pool tools and developments, as well as decentralise the industrial management of units. Thanks to the international presence of its production facilities, ACTIA is able to transfer production to other continents to address other markets in response to local specificities.
This industrial strategy is beneficial against a tense international backdrop in terms of the supply of materials and components, where producing in line with needs helps to optimise the supply chain and contributes to the group’s capacity for resilience.
What to remember about the “ACTIA model”
- A local company with international reach
- A human-sized company
- A capacity for resilience provided by the teams
- A technological forerunner
- A comprehensive offering covering the entire value chain of the public transport market
- An industrial dimension embedded in the group’s DNA.
