Lesaffre Group

Lesaffre Group: Transforming pilot-plant operations with digital workflows

At Lesaffre’s pilot plant in Lille, France, engineers and operators collaborate daily on dozens of fermentation trials. These pilot projects are essential to test new strains, new raw materials, or process optimizations before they scale to industrial production.

But until recently, the entire workflow was based on:

• printed Excel sheets,
• handwritten logbooks,
• long walks between equipment and desks,
• and hours of manual data entry for engineers.

Together with Factry, the team decided to fully digitalize the pilot plant from planning to data capture, experiment templates, traceability, and performance KPIs all in one platform.

“We completely changed the way we work. We moved from a 20th-century paper process to a modern digital workflow. - Frank Hille, Director of Process Industrialization

‍About Lesaffre

Lesaffre Group is a global leader in yeast, fermentation, and biotechnology with €2.2B turnover and 11,000 employeesworldwide.

Its pilot plants, like the one in Lille, bridge the gap between R&D and industrial production testing and validating new technologies, processes, and microorganisms before they scale across plants.

The challenge: Paper, Excel, inconsistency, and inefficiency

Before Factry, daily operations at the pilot plant looked like this:

• Engineers designed experiments in Excel → printed → handed to operators.
• Operators wrote all measurements on paper while walking between lab benches and equipment.
• At the end of each day, engineers re-entered handwritten notes into Excel to reconstruct the experiment.
• Each engineer used slightly different layouts or formulas.
• Data quality and traceability varied heavily.
• Collaboration with international sister labs (e.g., in the US) was inconsistent and slow.

For a pilot plant running ~50 projects per year, each with multiple phases, parameters, and datasets, the workflow had reached its limit.

“We were printing everything. Copying everything. And wasting a huge amount of time.” - Jennifer, Industrial Pilot Plant Manager

The solution: A fully digital pilot-plant workflow with FactryOS & Historian

Factry and Lesaffre redesigned the entire workflow to make data capture and experiment execution effortless, structured, and real-time.

1. A digital planning calendar

All pilot projects are now centrally planned:

• engineers schedule trials,
• operators see what needs to be done,
• managers monitor progress without needing to physically check the lab.

Everyone shares the same real-time picture of what’s happening in the pilot plant.

2. Digital logbooks on tablets (no more paper)

Operators now use tablets to record:

• temperatures,
• timings,
• pH values,
• weights,
• pressure readings,
• cycle steps,
• observations,
• and any deviations.

Entries are captured instantly and become available in the Historian without any copy-paste or transcription.

“Today we avoid printing paper, copying data, and relying on manual notes. The data quality has improved a lot.” - Jennifer Imbert Pogodorski - Industrial Pilot Responsible

3. Standardized experiment templates

One of the biggest wins: engineers now create and reuse digital templates to structure their pilot-plant tests.

This ensures:

• consistent inputs across the whole team,
• faster preparation of trials,
• easier onboarding of new engineers,
• and aligned experiment methods between the Lille and US teams.

“Having one format across sites was a big improvement. Factry helped us unify the way we work.”

4. Real-time data, dashboards, and KPIs

With all data flowing automatically into Factry Historian:

• engineers analyse trials immediately,
• operators track live values,
• managers follow KPIs,
• and quality teams have full traceability.

The Lille team even added Lean performance KPIs to monitor the efficiency of the pilot plant  something they hadn’t initially planned, but Factry made easy to implement.

What changed for the team

For operators, the shift was immediate. Paper disappeared from the workflow, along with the need to walk back and forth between equipment and desks. They now enter measurements directly on tablets and follow standardized digital steps that guide them through each experiment. No double entry, no transcription, just clean data captured in real time.

Engineers felt the impact just as strongly. They no longer spend hours reconstructing experiments from handwritten notes or fixing inconsistencies in Excel. Templates give them a consistent starting point, preparation is faster, and comparing trials becomes far simpler with all data available in one place.

Managers finally gained real-time visibility into everything happening in the pilot plant. Reporting takes less time, KPIs are always up to date, and collaboration with international teams improved thanks to shared methods and shared data. The entire workflow became clearer, faster, and easier to scale.

“Handling 50 pilot projects per year on paper would be impossible. With Factry, it’s manageable, structured, and scalable.” - Baptiste Angibaud, Industrialization Project Manager

How we implemented it

1. Co-designing the workflow

Factry worked closely with engineers and operators to map the pilot-plant reality and design a digital workflow that felt natural on the shop floor.

2. Iterative rollout

The solution was tested on a small number of trials before scaling to full operations, allowing teams to give feedback.

3. Weekly cooperation

Joint weekly meetings between Factry and Lesaffre aligned the team around templates, KPIs, priorities, and new ideas.

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The results

✔ One shared digital backbone

Operators, engineers, and managers now work in the same system, with shared templates and consistent data.

✔ Faster, higher-quality experiments

No transcription errors, no missing values  and far less administrative work.

✔ Real-time visibility

Trends, deviations, anomalies, and experiment outcomes are visible instantly.

✔ Stronger collaboration across borders

Teams in France and the US now share methods, templates, and KPIs effortlessly.

✔ Scalable to other sites

The Lille setup forms a blueprint to replicate in other pilot facilities.

✔ Ready for advanced analytics & AI

Clean, structured data flows into SQL automatically , enabling next-step usage like predictive analytics, process benchmarking, or quality models.

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