Innovation in France: TELEMAQ speeds up the time to market for cost-effective innovative products

The contract development company has moved in Sophia Antipolis for several months. Interview with Jean-Denis Sauzade, CEO of TELEMAQ

TELEMAQ is a contract development company that offers a range of tools that can be used to innovate quickly and cost-effectively. The company offers to support innovative organisations as part of a technological leap, incremental innovation, technology transfer, quick market launch, shared risk co-development or involvement in a European project.

Could you please describe your career?

My career is marked by the development of high-tech products but also by entrepreneurship and a passion for innovation. I held various management positions for Thales Underwater Systems, then in 1992 I created my first engineering company specialising in ultrasound. I returned to industry, holding the posts of Director of Development at ECA and CEO of Comat (space industry instrumentation). In 2000, I created TELEMAQ, which specialises in technological development under contract. My qualifications as an engineer (Ing. Arts et Métiers), researcher (Dr.Ing. Centrale Paris) and manager (EMBA HEC) allow me to tackle the different company issues simultaneously.

What is your view of innovation?

First of all, I am convinced that technological innovation is the most important and often least costly asset in allowing an industrial company to retain its competitive advantage and consequently jobs. Innovation is sometimes as simple as matching a well-identified market need with a technology that already exists somewhere. It is this association that is not always easy.  Today, we live in a world where technologies are in abundance, globalised and often hard to see, with TELEMAQ, I have worked to redevelop technology to help companies and people. 

How can TELEMAQ contribute to its customers' innovation process?

We give our customers access to a team, a technological expertise and a methodology that will boost the company's "innovation" process and identify and control risk. Since 2004, TELEMAQ has been approved by the French Ministry for Teaching and Research and our services are eligible for research-based tax credits in France. Our offer is organised like an innovation "toolbox" that can be used for the rapid and cost-effective validation of new concepts. We support our customers in their innovation process by demonstrating creativity, reactivity, rigour and ethics.  We can adapt to various organisations which allows us to handle each of the project's stages (state-of-the-art, concept generation, overall concept, validation through prototyping, industrialisation).

Why use TELEMAQ?

The one thing all our customers have in common is that they are convinced that controlling their innovation process is essential for their development. We help them to:

• Evaluate and test their ideas quickly.
• Identify and characterise the technologies that satisfy their requirements.
• Create their prototypes, cost-effectively, before beginning a project process.
• Take advantage of immediately available experts to strengthen their Research and Development teams.

What areas do you operate in?

We have a multi-disciplinary team made up of engineers and physicists able to integrate a product's different technologies: mechanical, plastics moulding, thermal, electronics, embedded systems, etc.

We can operate across the majority of industrial sectors: medical, domestic appliances, professional tools, measurements, automotive, games, aviations... TELEMAQ is already working with large industrial groups, market-leading SMEs and start-ups.

Can you give us some examples of the innovations in which you have been involved? 

We have successfully developed dozens of products. We have designed and created prototypes for one of the world leaders in medication dispensers in liquid or powder form. This assignment enabled the validation of a wide range of electronic functions; in particular controlling and recording the doses taken.

We have also developed an ultrasound nebuliser that makes it possible to deliver medication in a highly effective way due to its ability to generate a fog of micron sized droplets This device, used for intensive aerosol therapy treatments was developed in partnership with a SME which is a market leader in medical nebulisers.

One of the world leaders in airplane seat mechanisms also commissioned Telemaq to undertake the development and qualification of a silent, light and compact seat adjuster.

With the piezoelectric motor, a patented disruptive technology, we developed and manufactured a motor unit for a large industrial group specialising in home automation.

En savoir plus : www.telemaq.fr/