DEVELOPMENT

Serving mobilityand infrastructures since 2005


Novium specialises in special-purpose machinery, for railworks, public works and land- and sea-based defence equipment. We design, build, maintain and retrofit the machines, and assist in their development.
Novium develops an innovative approach to all its business lines, making safety our core concern, so our clients enjoy the utmost peace of mind when it comes to availability, machine performance, and team safety.

Novium’s raison d’être is also to help improve personal mobility and citizen safety. Whether it’s inventing OTM, designing machines for major civil engineering projects, or adding our experience to defence and maritime activities, or design hydraulic sub-assemblies, Novium’s extensive skillsets and know-how and our expertise in innovation and safety are there when you need them.

VISION

Unity is strength, sharing nurtures intelligence

Mission

Help resolve the major challenges ahead, in particular to improve personal mobility and citizen safety.

SINCE 2005

A short history


Hydro 3M was founded in 2005, based on expertise in hydraulic power equipment for moving machinery, and set up in the maintenance building that once served the coalmines of Montceau-les-Mines in southern Burgundy. This vast, fully renovated former building on a branch line to the national rail network saw the company’s initial core business of retrofit maintenance for railways, major public works and the French navy grow.

The spirit of innovation, and the drive to put forward increasingly high performance solutions to our clients, pushed our team to take the leap into railway maintenance and works equipment. The guiding principle was to develop machines that deliver a precisely targeted solution to the issues faced by our partners, and even exceed their expectations through original, tailor-made proposals.

The company designs and builds its first work machines. The versatility of Hydro 3M’s teams adds this new skill to its original business as a maintenance services provider.

In 2013, Hydro 3M becomes Novium, underlining this extension to its scope of business and reflecting its permanently innovative aspect.
With a mind to helping improve the entire railway maintenance and works sector,

Novium initiates and supports the creation of the Mecateamcluster of specialist companies in the Creusot Montceau basin, and remains one of its driving forces.

In 2017, Novium welcomed French President François Hollande, who came to congratulate the company on its ability to innovate and its drive towards excellence.

In the same year, Novium also takes part in the programme to modernise the French military’s equipment stock.

In 2019, Didier Stainmesse buys out the company, along with seven of the company’s managers, and becomes the chairman and majority shareholder. The team builds its strategy around cooperation.

At Novium, we believe that we are stronger together and that intelligence comes from sharing.

Novium is constantly evolving in line with changes in its areas of expertise and related regulations and safety standards. In February 2020, the company was one of the first to be certified ECM (Entity in Charge of Maintenance). This new business line is a natural addition to the company’s activities and its relations with clients that are built on trust.

Now, Novium is also able to provide a full range of maintenance work in the area of railway safety and ensure that machines are fit to travel in complete safety along the railway network. In 2021, Novium’s ECM certification was confirmed for the next 5 years.

Novium increases its premises by 500 m² and constructs a specialist workshop for its defence business.

More than values,convictions


COMMITMENT

Strong CSR policy, towards commitment and improvement


Novium operates entirely within a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) development context, notably towards environmental protection and by creating working conditions that are conducive to employee wellbeing. These are not constraints, but a shared desire, even a need for each person to leverage their skills and exercise their responsibilities to satisfy the needs of our clients and help to develop the practices of our business lines in a virtuous way.

We intend to contribute to the changes imposed by environmental issues, by constantly seeking solutions that protect the natural world and its resources.

We are constantly investing in in-service training to ensure our employees flourish and build their skills, and we support knowledge transmission within our teams.

Our skills development plan encompasses the full range of training programmes that have been set up to enable us to anticipate technological and organisational developments and their implications for personnel training.

Naturally, our company represents a driving force in our local area, and is proudly established in the historic industrial catchment area of Creusot-Montceau, helping to generate its dynamism, in particular through its real-estate investments and the jobs and business it creates.

Novium also takes part in the collective considerations of the industries in which it works. It is by contributing to these different industry networks that we can best discern current and future issues and challenges. For example, Novium is involved in the railway maintenance sector through the formation of an engine arm for Mecateamcluster, a structure that places high value in the notions of cooperation, research and development, training and partnership.

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
VISION

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

Aristotle
resources

Means/investment


Novium operates from and with leading-edge premises and equipment, which aid us as we work towards excellence. Our 70 employees work in a 2,000 m² workshop connected to the national rail network, on a site with 6 km of railway lines on which we can perform field tests. Novium is supporting its growth through continuing investment in the site, and is in the final stages of building a 500 m² office extension.
The company plans ahead for the materials it will need to serve its target markets. To support our growing stature in the Defence sector, Novium is building a design and engineering office and a shopfloor that are tailored to the confidentiality requirements of our partners, including controlled access, and a dedicated, ultra-high security I.T. system.

70

Employees

2000m2

workshop

1

Connection
to the National Rail
Network

6Km

Of railway test lines

STRUCTURE

Governance


Novium has been an inherently collective project since it was founded. We believe that our main strength comes from our employees, and is best expressed within a climate of trust that helps nurture exchange, emulation, transmission and responsibility.
This collective approach leads to a horizontal operation. In it, each person

at their level contributes the best they can in meeting the requirements of our partners.
Our management team does not see itself as the “bosses”, but as driving forces that set the tone for a collective work to which everyone contributes. They are leaders, but no more and no less than our employees.

The group

Provide the resources that allow the entities to focus entirely on their environment.

Factovem & Option Automatismes


Novium works in close concert with its sister company Option Automatismes, which brings 30 years of experience in electrical circuit design and expertise in command-control and automated systems.

Option automatismes
Option Automatismes is an independent operation that rolls out automated task solutions for embedded systems, and for industry, notably the metallurgical and timber industries.
Option Automatismes’ industrial capabilities complement and feed Novium’s own. Resolving related problems within a specific environment is part and parcel of the group’s dialect, which draws from the skillsets of both companies to elevate its level of expertise in all relevant fields.
Option Automatismes provides a full range of supplies and services that cover every instrumentation and control requirement of production systems and machinery. The company is involved from the design and build stage of full equipment systems and assemblies, and can follow them through to the maintenance and part or full retrofit stages.

Factovem
Factovem is a holding company that provides the basis and the back office functions to Novium and Option Automatismes. By drawing on the solidity offered by the group, each company can focus on its core business and customer-oriented solutions. Factovem carries out the centralised management, human resources management, quality control, welfare and communications functions. The holding company gives access to its back office operations, to the quality level that this collaborative model allows. Clients of Novium and Option Automatismes enjoy the assurance that comes from the remarkable solidity a group offers, as much as the continuous agility it also accords.

Discover

Our culture

Novium’s culture is characterized by a spirit of innovation, the mastery of its various fields of activity and businesses, and a desire for reaching excellency and an harmonious working relationship.