On 1 July 2008, Bouygues Construction presented the awards for its second Innovation Competition at a ceremony attended by its Chairman and CEO, Yves Gabriel.

In all, around 20 innovations were singled out for awards, from a total of 412 entries. The competition was an opportunity for more than 1,000 members of staff (managers, technicians, site workers) to present a project. All the entries were examined by the Group R&D Committee and the final selection was made by the Management Committee.

This year, two special prizes were awarded to two projects in the five competition categories (Engineering And Works, Business Development, Information Technology, Management/Finance/Legal, Human Resources):

- Robotics (special research and development prize)
The special R&D prize was for the development of robots that work in hostile environments and reduce the need for manual labour in some tiresome tasks: sanding robot, drilling robot, wallform cleaning robot. 

- "Oasis" program (special sustainable development prize)
The special sustainable development prize was for the development (in conjunction with the CSTB*) of a program that simulates construction site noise, using a 3D model of the site. This application, called "Oasis", received an award at the Tenth International Virtual Reality Conference in Laval, France (April 2008).

Some of the innovations that were awarded first prizes made a particularly strong impression on the jury:

- Tikopia housing concept (1^st prize in the Business Development category)
This new business development offer consists of an original "mini tower" concept that meets two essential requirements: urban densification and very high energy performance.

- Inovpac (1^st prize in the Engineering and Works category)
This innovation consists in building differently so as to achieve a "blank snagging list" at handover (development of partnerships with suppliers, use of more fully finished products, etc.).

- Warm-up before start of work (1^st prize in the Human Resources category)
The principle of this initiative is to have all site workers engage in a little physical warm-up before they start work. This is already being implemented on a number of the group's jobsites where warming up has reduced the number of accidents.

A number of the prize-winning innovations are already operational on construction sites (robots, physical warm-up, for instance) while others will gradually be implemented to enrich the best practices in force within the group.

Above and beyond the innovations that received awards, the competition encourages, publicises and develops the best practices put forward by staff. The wide variety of the ideas proposed indicates that innovation is a very real, integral part of Bouygues Construction's corporate culture and strategy.

* Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment – French building research establishment