Edgard Frankignoul was a visionnary man in his time. More than 100 year after the patent of the first Franki pile, and after a whole lot of new techniques designed by the company, Franki Foundations keeps looking for innovative ways to bring your projects to live.
Latest innovation to date: the digitalisation of our production, or how to connect our work sites for more control and quality. Check out the video for a glimpse of the technological breakthrough of this new project, and get in touch with us if you want to learn more!
As key member of all major geotechnical and deep foundations federations (ABEF and GBMS in Belgium, FPS in the UK, EFFC in Europe, DFI and ISSMGE worldwide), Franki distinguishes itself by his desire to always find new solutions and export this knowledge across the whole profession and around the world.
The company participates in numerous working groups devoted to the deep foundations techniques (specifications and/or best practices), safety, respect for the environment or training.
To only mention one, we contributed, with the Belgian Construction Training Fund (now fvb-ffc Constructiv) to the creation of training manuals for the machinists and workers in charge of deep foundations. These training courses are now given by FOREM and VDAB in Belgium to job seekers of the construction field.
With this in mind, Franki Foundations maintains close and permanent links with the academic world and thus participates in the cooperation between technology and applied sciences.
The company's employees include a lecturer at the Haute Ecole Odisee of Aalst, a lecturer at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and lecturers at UCL and ECAM. The company also supervises students for their final work (for the Brussels Engineering School ECAM, and the Katholieke Industriele Hogeschool Oostende) or during their internships (especially from Polytech Grenoble, Katholieke Industriele Hogeschool Oostende, Institut supérieur du bâtiment et des travaux publics Marseille or ESITC Paris).
Innovation is not only part of Franki Foundations' history, it is also a value we share with the BESIX Group.
And to be a pioneer, BESIX Group count on his employees and partners.
See here what "open-innovation" and "unleashing your potential" means to BESIX.
These innovations are of course made with the necessary investments. Those are mostly used for the constant renewal of the equipment fleet, in order to follow the technical and performance evolution.
In the last years, we note the strategic purchase of a state-of-art cutter allowing the realization of very thick and deep diaphragm walls in the complex subsoils of the Grand Paris Express project, or the acquisition of Martello Piling, an innovative company in a niche market in full expansion. More recently, we focused on connecting our work sites and machines to gain in quality and time.