Building an Innovation Ecosystem
Girbau, one of the world’s leading business groups in the manufacture of equipment for industrial laundry, launched in September 2018 Girbau LAB, the open innovation platform to foster innovation and transform the industrial laundry sector.
This initiative was created to respond to the growing need to add value to the laundry sector, working on new spaces of opportunity, based on the disruptive contribution generated by scientific and technological advances, as well as by new business models. of the market, mainly starring start-ups or emerging companies.
Girbau LAB wants to be a mechanism that improves the business of Girbau customers through the differential value of innovation and, at the same time, creates an ecosystem of innovation connected to knowledge, technology and talent. The current context has changed and this opens the door to an incredible potential for innovation that adds to the industrial baggage of Girbau, generated for 60 years by the company’s own technical team.
Girbau LAB has identified three thematic areas as the driving forces of its innovation:
1.-Digitization that becomes a key factor for the transformation of the Girbau business, with the ambition of being more efficient, contributing to the improvement of the Girbau customer business and increasing the approach of Girbau solutions to the end user needs. The Internet of Things, Big Data and Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, VR and Va or 3D Printing are some of the technologies of main interest for Girbau Lab and that contribute to this process of digital transformation.
2.-Sustainability and Circularity for the development of sustainable solutions as well as the transformation of the business towards circularity is a central area of work of Girbau LAB. Contributing to the saving of water and energy, the maximum use of the resources generated in the laundry process and the promotion of new business models aimed at a circular vision in the laundry sector are strategic axes.
3.-Person, Health and Welfare as an area that has a direct effect on people, future users of clean clothes. In this sense Girbau LAB works to develop adapted solutions that contribute to greater well-being and health of people. The lines of work go through the introduction of natural elements and the progressive reduction of chemical elements in the washing process; exploring laundry solutions for new fabrics; and the application of nanotechnological solutions during the washing or drying process to provide well-being and health properties to tissues.
Since its creation three years ago, Girbau LAB has launched more than 20 innovation projects, has built an ecosystem with more than 30 innovation entities and actors, has invested in 2 start-ups and -through all These activities, which we will detail below, have helped to foster a culture of open innovation in an industrial enterprise.
share