InBolt

It’s almost like a recipe for a startup: take three twenty-something co-founders, all currently finishing a Master’s degree, a final-year project based on a revolutionary idea, and an innovation-friendly context at the University of Berkeley. Mix them all together, and what you get is InBolt, a company which, despite its very young age, has big ambitions for the future.

InBolt was born of the realisation that manual processes within the aerospace industry are often a source of incidents and errors. With an aircraft containing anything up to 300,000 bolts, it is essential that manufacturers know that the right task is carried out in the right place. InBolt’s response to this is a portable unit that can be attached to any type of tool – drills, screwdrivers, torque wrenches –allowing it to be located and monitored in real time. The unit supports technicians as they apply their expertise in their day-to-day work. Whatever the tasks they carry out are, each one can be recorded. This not only provides flawless tracking of the processes, but also reduces the costs associated both  with faulty manufacturing and with quality control.

Inbolt is already working in collaboration with Thales – a supporter of the project from its very inception – with a view to testing a prototype on the Group’s assembly lines. It hopes that VivaTech will provide opportunities to showcase its technology and to demonstrate to other customers how it can be applied to any industrial tool in any sector of activity.