Member Article

French building technology firm open Manchester base

French Building Information Modelling (BIM) firm, Polantis has opened its first UK base in Manchester Science Parks.

The firm has established an R&D centre in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). BIM is an advanced architectural computer-aided design process that enables users to better plan and design buildings by manipulation 3D components and data attached to them.

It allows architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and contractors to better communicate and design, during and after the construction.

Polantis aims to create 3-6 jobs over the next twelve months, and hopes to create up to 20 by 2016. Manchester Investment Development Agency Service (MIDAS) helped to facilitate the move by providing initial research, site and property visits.

Itai Cellier, CEO of Polantis, said: “Thanks to MIDAS, we’ve decided that Manchester would be our UK base of operations. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how welcoming the Mancunians are: we’ve become part of the business and academic community. It’s a real pleasure to work here and we hope to begin creating jobs and transferring knowledge.

“In the current economic situation, our main aim is to show a tangible return on investment to our customers. We place our clients products inside architects’ projects via their CAD and BIM software, this means, simply - more sales for manufacturers of AEC products and materials. We’ve been the market leaders for more than 4 years now and we intend to import our high standards to the UK AEC Market.”

Tim Newns, Chief Executive of MIDAS said: “With a strong architecture and design cluster in Manchester, both commercial and academic, we were really keen to attract Polantis to add additional expertise and technology to the market.

“The science park will be the perfect base for them to bridge academia and the commercial sector and we look forward to seeing the fruit of their work with the universities.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .