NEWARK, Del. & HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today Air Liquide and its U.S. subsidiary, Airgas, inaugurate the Advanced Fabrication Center (AFC) at the Air Liquide Delaware Innovation Campus in the U.S. As a manufacturing expertise center, the AFC focuses on helping industrial customers adopt new manufacturing technologies and more efficient and cost effective production processes.
Air Liquide’s AFC was created with Airgas and OEMs to support the world’s largest metals fabrication market in the U.S. The AFC will deliver a continuous flow of development projects, including affiliate operation support, key innovations and exploratory R&D. Air Liquide’s manufacturing expertise in welding gases and advanced fabrication processes will be on display to manufacturing customers at the center.
The AFC involves customers and industrial collaborators early in the innovation process to address technological challenges - from finding optimal process gas compositions to process efficiency and operation’s safety, health and sustainability. The AFC puts the needs of customers from manufacturing and metal fabrication industries at the heart of its operations to help customers improve performance and production processes.
The AFC features dedicated “R&D studios” equipped for specialized research and staffed with experts who will be dedicated to key segments such as Welding and Cutting, Digitization and Visualization, Additive Manufacturing, Cryo-assisted manufacturing, as well as Robotics and Cobotics automation. Leveraging the team’s expertise at the Delaware Innovation Campus, the Center opens its doors to OEMs to test state-of-the-art equipment and serves as a collaboration space for end-users, OEMs, academic and research institutes, in order to innovatively develop and optimize new fabrication technologies.
Commented Michael Graff , Executive Vice President & Executive Committee Member of Air Liquide S.A. and Chairman & CEO of American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc.: “Air Liquide is devoted to innovation through application-focused research development and technological solutions. The AFC provides new, state-of-the-art facilities to support customer centric projects, improve and develop more efficient manufacturing technologies and encourage innovation to help sustainably meet the challenges of tomorrow.”
The world leader in gases, technologies and services for Industry and Health, Air Liquide is present in 80 countries with approximately 65,000 employees and serves more than 3.5 million customers and patients. Oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen are essential small molecules for life, matter and energy. They embody Air Liquide’s scientific territory and have been at the core of the company’s activities since its creation in 1902.
Air Liquide’s ambition is to lead its industry, deliver long term performance and contribute to sustainability. The company’s customer-centric transformation strategy aims at profitable growth over the long term. It relies on operational excellence, selective investments, open innovation and a network organization implemented by the Group worldwide. Through the commitment and inventiveness of its people, Air Liquide leverages energy and environment transition, changes in healthcare and digitization, and delivers greater value to all its stakeholders.
Air Liquide’s revenue amounted to 20.3 billion euros in 2017 and its solutions that protect life and the environment represented more than 40% of sales. Air Liquide is listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange (compartment A) and belongs to the CAC 40, EURO STOXX 50 and FTSE4Good indexes.
