Erélia, packaged and weighed!

Content provided by Bpifrance
Le Parisien editorial team

Founded in 1988, ERELIA operates in the confidential but essential market of metrology, i.e. the science of measurement that enables us to meet all global standards and regulations in weighing and quality control. The company develops highly innovative solutions that enable manufacturers to digitalize the statistical weight control of prepackaged products. Its processes are compatible with all brands of weighing machines, which is what makes it so special and offers so much added value.

Philippe Lhoste, an engineer from Arts & Métiers ParisTech, joined the eleven-employee company in 2012 as a partner and sales director, and took over as CEO in 2016. “At Erélia, we take a very old industry – we’ve been weighing since the dawn of time – and add our technology all along our customers’ value chain”. Most of these come from the food industry (Nestlé, Danone, Coca Cola, Intermarché, etc.), cosmetics (Yves Rocher, Sisley, Shiseido, Bioderma, etc.), pharmaceuticals (Sanofi Aventis, Dermophil, etc.) and chemicals (rubber, plastics, ingredients). “Our activity allows us to be at the heart of industry, to physically enter workshops and observe production stages. It’s a world we love! Our aim is to add value to it through technology and data.”

ERELIA is at the crossroads of pure industry and cutting-edge technology, thanks to the integration of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence into industrial processes. The company’s software platform, launched in 2000, provides solutions and modules to meet every need, from prepackage control and line processes to instrument metrology and R&D formulation.

“With the digital transformation underway in industry, we have a card to play by extending our functionalities beyond weight. In fact, our ambition is to position ourselves in the 4.0 connected scale, compatible with all existing systems, by providing a technological brick at software level that will enable us, for example, to carry out remote maintenance, regardless of the country in which our customers operate. This innovation, currently under study, is financially supported by Bpifrance through a zero-interest loan with deferred repayment, which gives us peace of mind during the R&D phases. At the same time, our strategy is to expand internationally. After Canada, Spain, Italy, Dubai and Thailand, we’re planning to set up in Germany. In this respect, Bpifrance’s “Assurances Prospection” are an invaluable tool for sounding out markets without taking financial risks.

A member from the outset of the French Fab, of which it is emblematic by merging software and hardware expertise, IT and weighing, the company, a member of the Bpifrance Excellence network, is highly committed to transmitting and energizing its ecosystem. For example, Philippe Lhoste launched the French Fab in Essonne (the dynamic region where the company is based) with his ambassador’s hat on at national level. “The idea is to federate the ecosystem and identify appropriate solutions to guide and support industries, and SMEs in particular, in their digital transformation. To those embarking on an entrepreneurial career, I always recommend being curious, critical and constantly on the lookout, as well as persevering and adaptable. Never give up on an idea until you’ve worked it out, but also be able to pivot, find solutions when difficulties arise, and not hesitate to get help.” The winner of the HR Telework Award (it was the first company in the Essonne region to implement teleworking) is not short of flexibility. In response to the Covid-19 epidemic, it has brought together the goodwill of the Ile de France region and its French Fab network to launch the solidarity operation “#UnMasqueUneVie”, with technical support from the Union Française des Industries Mode & Habillement union, to produce Afnor-approved fabric masks. “We pool the local skills of several textile companies in Champigny-sur-Marne and the region for their design, from sourcing raw materials to distributing them to home sewers, before relying on a network of retailers and volunteers to distribute them.” A fine illustration of corporate citizenship and solidarity in this extraordinary health crisis.

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