Portalp, a company that defies the crisis

Founded in 1962 in Grenoble and chaired by Daniel Duponchel, Portalp, an independent family business, is the leading French manufacturer of automatic pedestrian doors.

The culmination of a sustained investment and external growth policy, Portalp now has a comprehensive range of products and services for opening and securing buildings. Despite a tense economic context, the Portalp group defied the crisis and continued to develop thanks to obtaining new large-scale markets.

PORTALP, a French family mid-sized company
dynamic

Portalp manufactures ranges of automatic pedestrian doors on its historic production site near Grenoble in Isère. Through various acquisitions of companies that complement its activity, Portalp has expertise in many areas related to its core business. This synergy allows it to offer a global range of solutions and systems intended to facilitate access and safety to all buildings (shops, services, hotels, restaurants, industry, health, transport, logistics) and to intervene from the study of a project until its maintenance. In order to be as close as possible to its customers, Portalp has set up a French network of 26 regional agencies, supplemented since 2007 by 6 subsidiaries around the world (USA, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Austria).

Each of these agencies ensures the installation and maintenance of all types of automation, whatever the brand. Inscribed in the company's DNA, this desire for proximity and services is also based on an international network of partner distributors covering many countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, North America and Latin America.

Today, the Portalp group, which has 900 employees in France and abroad, achieves a turnover of 100 million euros (2019).
With more than 450 installations worldwide and 000 items of equipment under maintenance, Portalp continues to develop in 78 despite a declining French market.

Large-scale projects, growth accelerators

With the support of its network of agencies, subsidiaries and partners, Portalp has won prestigious projects in France and abroad (Grenoble University Hospital, Santo Domingo Airport, partnerships with the largest networks of agencies banking ...). Its expertise for more than 20 years in platform platform doors was also illustrated in 2019 by winning three contracts of an unprecedented scale, in a consortium with ENGIE Solutions:

Obtaining the contract for the platform facades of the five stations of the new U5 line of the Vienna metro (Austria), including the supply of 1.300 linear meters of facades including 180 landing doors as well as maintenance over 25 years. This contract thus gave rise to the creation of Portalp Austria.
The award of two contracts linked to the GrandParis Express. On the one hand, the Société du Grand Paris entrusted the ENGIE Solutions-Portalp consortium with equipping sixteen stations on lines 16 and 17, i.e. 1728 linear meters of facades including 288 landing doors. On the other hand, RATP also opened the doors to the automated metro for the extension of line 14, for which Portalp will manufacture 1920 linear meters of facades, including 384 doors for eight stations. To respond to all these major current and future projects, which contribute to the sustainability and development of the company, Portalp has launched strategic investments, guarantees of success:
- The construction, still near Grenoble, of a factory in Saint-Égrève. At the forefront of modernity, this new industrial tool, with a production area of 6 m500, should enable the company to increase its capacity by at least 2% in 50.
- A new recruitment plan (engineers, installation and maintenance technicians, salespeople, etc.), while the company's workforce has already grown from 750 to 900 employees in one year.

These are the means that Portalp is giving itself to continue to place product innovation at the heart of its growth.

A policy of constant innovation

Portalp has built its strength and reputation on innovation and expertise by developing ranges fueled by the needs and expectations of its customers as much as by a vision for the future.

The company therefore offers:

Families of automatic pedestrian doors to meet all configurations (curved, sliding, hinged, fire-rated, made-to-measure, etc.) which integrate the PORTALP RS platform, a new generation of connected doors, launched in 2020
Solutions to secure building access
Platform doors and facades including the RS Metro module. Used in public transport, they are designed to optimize passenger safety and facilitate maintenance
Special tailor-made products to equip cable cars, funiculars and large wheels.

Certified and compliant with current national and international standards, all these ranges meet the highest quality and safety requirements. Designed and manufactured on the national territory, they bear witness to Portalp's attachment to its roots. This Made in France production is reflected in a supply policy favoring short circuits and by obtaining, in September 2020, the Origine France Garantie label.

In France, this global offer is accompanied by an integrated network of more than 300 technicians, spread over the whole of the territory to be as close as possible to customers, who provide maintenance 7 days a week, 7 hours a day.

A company looking to the future

Driven by the enthusiasm of its vice-president Maxime Duponchel, who takes over
gradually the torch, the family business Portalp intends
stay the course and continue this trajectory of success in 2021.

“Portalp has implemented a particularly deliberate growth plan, which has borne fruit with the opening of new markets with high potential, in parallel with the consolidation of our historical activities.
In 2020, we gave ourselves the means to transform and modernize our production tools but also to develop our R&D resources. During that same year, our workforce grew by 25%. These strategic axes help to assert our technological development and our "Made in France" know-how on an international level.
For 2021, new challenges await us. Resolutely turned towards the future, we are determined to continue our development around two major axes: customer satisfaction and innovation. Believe me, we are a real anthill, full of creativity, talent and ambitious projects! The story has only just begun ... "
Maxime Duponchel