While trade wars and geopolitical tensions are causing unrest worldwide, Yitch is setting a clear counter narrative. By empowering manufacturing companies through digitalisation, automation and optimisation using data & AI, the company is working to keep production close to the respective sales market. A mission that is also literally taking shape in a new base in Bornem, the next logical step in the growth story of Yitch, which explicitly opts for impactful innovation.
Local entrepreneurship more important than ever
The industrial reality in Europe and by extension the whole world seems to have changed forever. ‘What we are seeing today is not a temporary shock,’ argues Yitch co-CEO Werner Fransen. ‘It is about a structural shift. Companies feel vulnerable because of global dependencies. The only right counter-reaction is to build resilience. We need to reinvent ourselves in Europe and show that we stand,’ argues co-CEO Werner Fransen. ‘And that starts locally. With smart processes. With production close to the market. With technology that enables companies to operate faster, more flexibly and more independently.’
It is a plea that Yitch has been making for some time, but which today has more resonance than ever. Also among customers: manufacturing companies in Belgium and Europe that want to invest not only efficiently, but also strategically.
New home, familiar ground
That ambition also requires space, literally. The current Yitch-site had been bursting at the seams for some time. So the company resolutely chose to erect a new building near its existing base of operations along the N16 (Temse-Breendonk trunk road). ‘We are deliberately staying in Bornem,’ says co-CEO Wim Van Soom. ‘It is centrally located on the Antwerp-Brussels axis, easily accessible and we feel anchored here. And that local connection, it's embedded in our DNA, in our core values.’
From insight to impact
Anyone who has followed Yitch in recent years will no doubt recognise the striking baseline: ‘NOT an automation company’. That caused conversations, reflection and - admittedly - sometimes confusion. The nuance sometimes appeared to be lost in the provocative.
A new baseline had to allow us to break away from the classic image of the automation partner,’ Fransen said. ‘It was time to formulate more positively and concretely what we stand for.’ That new positioning is now summarised by Yitch in a clear promise: ‘From insight to impact’ (and the more comprehensive ‘Building smart factories, from insight to impact’). It is a logical evolution, and the translation of daily practice within Yitch: generating insights, optimising processes and creating tangible value within industrial environments. ‘Technology, in other words, but always with impact.’
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