The Romanian company KIM, founded in 2012 by Vicențiu Corbu and specialised in providing software solutions for digitising business processes in the naval, oil and gas, logistics or production industries, plans to scale the business in other markets as well. With a solid background in international IT projects, most of which are for the aviation industry, but also climatology and software architecture, Vicențiu Corbu wants to integrate KIM solutions not only in factories, corporations and SMEs in Romania, but also in the companies from Asia. Thus, he estimates that in 2021 the company will reach a turnover of 1 million euros, but also to double this figure in the next year. So far, KIM has digitised 7 factories, 3 multinationals and several SMEs.
“I started my own business motivated by a real problem on the local market at that time, the lack of mobility. Over the years, I managed to develop 100% Romanian software solutions, which digitise, automate, simplify and streamline the business processes of the companies. Today, we are developing new technologies and we plan to scale into international markets, focusing as much as possible on launching products that can be easily integrated in markets from Asia and Western Europe. The positive development since the beginning of the year has given us great confidence in the future. The Romanian business environment has changed a lot and is increasingly oriented towards digitalisation”, says Vicențiu Corbu, Founder and Managing Director of KIM.
From one idea to a business of 1 million euros
In the manufacturing industry, there were thousands of hours of labor performed in production plants that were introduced in the companies computer systems at a distance of days, sometimes even weeks. Also, in the service industry, where maintenance people performed their work, the result was a report written on a paper. In 2012, our solution was represented by the phrase “KEEP IT MOBILE” and that was how KIM was defined. But in the following years, technologies evolved and we took our products to another level, optimising our clients production flows, the work of people in the field, and finally increasing productivity. Thus for 2021 the phrase that best defines what we do is Know, Improve, Maximise.
“In 2012 we introduced NFC technology on the market for the industry area, and in 2014 we managed to implement the first solution based on this technology at OMV Petrom for the traceability of their fire extinguishing systems. In parallel, we were working on our own solution for managing barcode warehouses. I was among the first companies to implement scanning solutions on the Android operating system, on Motorola devices, currently Zebra.
In 2015, we were the first qualified Romanian company in the second phase of the most important innovation program of the European Union – Horizon 2020, with the solution for monitoring maintenance works. In 2015, we started digitising the first Romanian production plant – Comelf Bistrița, a company with over 500 employees, listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Today, through our newly launched platform – www.kim4industry.com – we want to scale on international markets”, said Vicențiu Corbu, Founder and Managing Director of KIM.
If, during 2012-2015, there was some reluctance towards digitalisation from Romanian companies, in the context of the pandemic, more businesses have begun to feel the importance of managing the operations remotely, to automate the operational flows, to know at any time the stage of production in a factory. At the level of the whole country, however, we face a much greater need for digitalisation compared to other states. KIM comes with software solutions that automate the business processes of companies in any field and thus, offers real-time visibility of all operations in the field, a growing need in recent times.
“I think that 90% of Romanian managers are aware of the urgency of digitalisation, but unfortunately we still have quite a few companies that are at the pen and paper stage, so our only chance to keep up with the economy and technology developments is through digitalisation. The current challenging economic environment must be a wake-up call for all companies that have not upgraded or changed their systems.
Through digitalisation we improve and maximise several components of a business: we automate the repetitive tasks of the employees and reduce the ”dead times”, we increase the employees productivity, in some cases by up to 50%, we make more efficient the consumption of raw materials, we plan better the working hours labor and we increase the quality control”, adds the entrepreneur Vicențiu Corbu.
KIM current business and future plans
Last year, the company focused on completing the development of its own solutions, in which invested over 1 million eurosand this year, in the context of a rebranding, KIM launches the platform www.kim4industry.com with their 3 own solutions for automating production processes: KIM for Manufacturing, for the logistics sector: KIM for Logistics, but also for the field work: KIM for Field Service.
“We come up with simple solutions, we do not try to turn people from industry or other companies into IT specialists, but we want to make their repetitive tasks easier through scanning or a push of a button, simple actions that would transform the business processes from any industry “, adds Vicențiu Corbu
For the first time on the market, KIM also brings a new module with VR / AR capabilities to increase the employees productivity in factories, so that machine operators can see in real time the orders they have been allocated to and can mark immediately their competed tasks.
