VINCI 2007 Innovation Awards Competition: VINCI showcases employees' best innovations and presents awards to final winners

4 December 2007 - Events

During the closing ceremony on 4 December, VINCI presented the final awards for this year’s competition. Over 2,000 people attended the event, which was held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

The Grand Prize for the 2007 competition was presented to the Freyssinet team (VINCI Construction) that developed a system to reinforce tubular structures using carbon fibre rods and cement slurry.

This innovation reinforces metal pylons on which sending and receiving antennae for mobile phones, television, the army, etc. are installed so that more antennae can be added without causing traction or compression problems. Until now, the solution was either to erect a new pylon beside the existing one or to strengthen the existing pylon by means of a metal structure. In both cases, a building permit was needed and the existing antennae had to be removed – and service interrupted – before the work could be done.

The 11 award winners included a Eurovia team that wrote a play, “Danger! Roadworks ahead!”, pinpointing risk prevention problems at Eurovia (Management Prize), as well as a joint VINCI Park and Cofiroute team, which developed the use of the Liber-t remote toll payment tag as a means of paying for parking in VINCI Park facilities (Marketing and Services Prize).

All the award-winning innovations will now be circulated throughout VINCI, from worker to engineer, enhancing their know-how and the way they perform their tasks.

The final winners of the 2007 Innovation Awards Competition

 

THE VINCI INNOVATION AWARD COMPETITION:
REWARDING THE INNOVATION INITIATIVES OF ITS ENTREPRENEURS

VINCI, the world’s leading concessions, construction and related services group, organised its first Innovation Awards Competition in 2001. It has run the event every two years since then, inviting its 142,500 employees worldwide to enter the innovations they have devised in the field. The aim is to ensure full use is made of these innovations and to disseminate them throughout the Group. The decentralised organisation of the competition reflects VINCI’s management model and its conviction that innovation comes from the ability of its entrepreneur-innovators – its employees – to listen and be inventive. The competition is divided into 10 regions in France (North, West, South-West, South-East, Rhone-Alpes, East and Greater Paris) and around the world (Northern Europe, Central Europe, and International and Central Activities), each of which awards regional prizes and selects the projects that will participate in the grand final. Prizes are awarded for five categories (equipment and tools, processes and techniques, materials, management, and marketing and services), illustrating a pragmatic approach to innovation. In addition, the various juries award special prizes depending on the projects submitted.

This year’s competition was a great success: almost 1,100 projects were submitted by over 2,500 employees representing all the Group’s four core businesses (construction, roads, concessions, energy).

A competition that reflects the Group’s management model

By virtue of its decentralised organisation, the Innovation Awards Competition aims to showcase the initiatives of employees in the field, working in all the Group’s businesses.
The competition therefore takes place in two stages: at regional level first and then at Group level, when three to five regional award winners compete in the grand final.
To participate in the Innovation Awards Competition, employees submit their innovations via the VINCI intranet. The projects are then studied by regional selection committees (known as “Innovation Committees”), made up of a leader, a general secretary and business line correspondents (construction, concessions, roads, energy). The best projects shortlisted by experts are presented to the jury, comprising equal numbers of personalities from within and outside the region, who vote independently on the 10 to 15 innovations of their choice.

The regional juries met in May and June, and regional award ceremonies were held in September and October. Each region then chose the innovations to go forward and compete at Group level. The 4 December ceremony closed the competition for this year, with the best 11 innovations Group-wide receiving prizes.

 

About VINCI
VINCI is a global player in concessions, energy and construction, employing 280,000 people in more than 120 countries. We design, finance, build and operate infrastructure and facilities that help improve daily life and mobility for all. Because we believe in all-round performance, we are committed to operating in an environmentally, socially responsible and ethical manner. And because our projects are in the public interest, we consider that reaching out to all our stakeholders and engaging in dialogue with them is essential in the conduct of our business activities. Based on that approach, VINCI’s ambition is to create long-term value for its customers, shareholders, employees, partners and society in general.