The laboratory complex will serve the subsidiaries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and will also host the headquarters of three global departments focused on promoting internal innovation, the circular economy, and the optimization of water consumption
Fluidra boosts its innovation department and strengthens its commitment to talent and the industrial fabric of Catalonia. The leading company in swimming pool equipment has just launched a new R&D&i center in Polinyà (Barcelona) that will serve the entire EMEA region, which integrates the countries where the company operates in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. According to the company chaired by Eloi Planes, this laboratory will allow "to centralize knowledge" generated in different markets and improve efficiency.The objective is to be able to develop products that are innovative and sustainable to guarantee the company's success in the future.Globally, the group has more than 200 engineers working in R&D and holds some 1,400 patents. The R&D center began construction in the last quarter of 2021. Now the first phase has been inaugurated, basically offices where it has centralized the group's various engineering departments, which has its corporate headquarters in Sant Cugat del Vallès. The new complex in Polinyà will grow with a second phase that will include new hydraulics laboratories, a product testing area with several pools of different sizes, and also a laboratory focused on theInternet of Pools (IoP), a business area that develops new digital solutions.
"The center aims to centralize knowledge to consider the pool as a whole and not as a sum of different equipment, gaining in efficiency and focus. This will allow Fluidra to unite the R&D teams, forming a powerful multidisciplinary team, consolidating and transferring knowledge," says the Catalan listed company, which is part of the selective Ibex 35.
The commitment to Polinyà, however, is much broader.In addition to the R&D+i center for Emea, Fluidra has located three other global departments in these facilities. On the one hand, the program's headquarters have been installed in the complexFluidra Lab, which promotes innovation within the organization and coordinates open innovation activities. This department has managed 75 initiatives so far, of which 12 are in the study phase, 6 in the development phase, and 14 have been transferred to the corresponding business unit and are in the monitoring phase. The second global unit located in Polinyà isSustainable Product, a department whose mission is to incorporate the principles of the circular economy into both Fluidra's design and production processes, with the challenge of reducing the group's environmental impact. Thus, the multinational has set the goal that by 2035, 80% of sales will come from products classified as sustainable. Eloi Planes, executive chairman of Fluidra. Finally, another of the new areas included in this center is the area ofWater Managementwhose objective is to offer the best solutions to optimize water and energy use in the pool system, minimizing environmental impact, but always maintaining optimal water quality and pool environment to provide the best experience to users. Present in more than 45 countries, Fluidra operates with brands such asAstralpool, Zodiac, Cepex y Polaris. In 2021, the groupbilled 2.187 million euros and obtained a net profit of 252.4 million. It has more than 7,000 employees and 35 production centers and divides its activity into different business areas such as residential pools, commercial pools, water treatment, fluid handling, irrigation, and industrial uses. The company is currently worth more than 3.7 billion euros on the stock market. Last September, Fluidra grew in the United States with theacquisition of S. R. Smith, an Oregon company that bills one hundred million euros and is one of the benchmarks in furniture and accessories for swimming pools, such as slides.
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