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Industrial Merchant

At work in everything going on around us

Air Liquide’s Industrial Merchant business line serves more than 2 million industrial customers worldwide, from craftsmen to large companies in sectors as diverse as food and beverage, steelmaking, energy, chemical, automotive, construction and aeronautics. The Group offers comprehensive, innovative industrial gas solutions, including advanced technologies, equipment and related services.

  • 2 million customers worldwide

  • 20+ M Air Liquide cylinders in circulation worldwide

  • 33,000 employees representing 50% of the Group's workforce

  • Every 12 seconds somewhere in the world Air Liquide delivers liquid gas to a customer

Innovating with impact to meet the challenges of tomorrow

Present in a wide variety of markets, Air Liquide is in a privileged position to observe trends and detect new needs and uses.

Drawing on the infinite potential of essential small molecules, Industrial Merchant employees are constantly inventing new gas applications that contribute to our customers' operational efficiency and address the challenges of energy transition as well as those of new markets.

Pascal Vinet

Our Industrial Merchant teams are committed to delivering innovative, competitive solutions to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow in every industry.

Pascal Vinet

Executive Vice President, Member of the Executive Committee overseeing the Industrial Merchant World Business Line

An activity that relies on the power of digital

Perceived very early on as a formidable performance lever, digital technology is now increasingly integrated into our offers and our day-to-day working methods. This evolution has been carried out in a few years at all levels: production, logistics, customer sites, sales, safety on board our trucks.

Automation of the preparation of orders

Our first robotized order-picking line at a gas cylinder packaging plant was launched in 2019 in Feyzin, France. Direct benefits: operational efficiencies, a significant improvement in service quality and less handling for operators.

 

24/7 gas ordering and management

Either on a computer, a tablet or a smartphone, our customers in Europe (13 countries) have a safe access to our platform to order their gas easily, manage their account or find the nearest distributor.

 

Convenience and connectivity with Qlixbi

Designed with and for welders, Qlixbi combines a new generation gas cylinder with an easy-to-use "Weld in just a click" connector. The offer integrates a range of digital services to facilitate the daily supply and management of cylinder stocks for customers.

 

Providing a multi-channel customer experience

In the United States, our subsidiary Airgas offers a unique approach that combines a network of more than 900 retail points of sale throughout the country, sales and telesales teams, an e-procurement platform and the Airgas.com e-commerce portal. These are ways to help our associates offer the customer the best possible service: efficient, simple and fast.

 

Optimizing our supply chain

Launched in 2017, the Integrated Bulk Operations program aims to connect all assets in the liquid gas supply chain (customer storage, delivery trucks... ) in order to collect data to better serve our customers (forecasting their consumption), optimize our operations (truck routes) and participate in reducing our carbon footprint.

€11,975 M revenue in 2023

43% of Group revenue in 2023