gategroup
One Factory. Infinite Ways to Explore.
Details
Clients
gategroup
Industry
Inflight caterer
Introduction
When Gategroup set out to redefine its presence at the World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo (WTCE) in Hamburg, the ambition was clear: create more than a booth create an immersive brand world.
How do you turn operational excellence into something people can actually see, explore and understand? For gategroup, we built an interactive digital twin of their new production facility in Madrid, bringing their gateOPEX programme to life in one immersive experience. The facility, its production zones and the technologies behind them were modelled and animated in 3D, complemented by photography and video from the real site. First launched on a huge curved LED screen at WTCE 2026, the experience has since moved beyond the trade show floor and is now used online by gategroup’s management and sales teams. One build, multiple touchpoints — and a much more interesting alternative to the usual PowerPoint.
01
The Challenge
gateOPEX is gategroup’s global programme for operational excellence, bringing together Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, standardisation and continuous improvement across its operations worldwide. The new Madrid facility is a pretty impressive example of that thinking in action. Multiple production zones, sophisticated processes and a whole range of new technologies, all working together to make things smarter, leaner and more efficient. The challenge? Showing people how it all fits together without reducing it to a stack of slides. So we turned the facility itself into the presentation: a detailed digital twin that lets people explore the site, dive into individual processes and discover the technology behind them at their own pace. No bullet points required.
Experience
Welcome to Madrid. Users can move through the different zones, from Make&Pack to Pick&Pack and Wash&Pack, with every area carefully modelled in 3D. New technologies used by gategroup were recreated and animated to make complex machinery and processes easier to understand, while photography and video from the real facility bring the digital environment firmly back to earth. A fresh UI and UX keeps the experience easy to navigate, without getting in the way of exploration. Start with the bigger picture, zoom into a production zone, discover a technology, and see how all the pieces fit together. The first outing was WTCE 2026, where the experience took over an immense curved LED screen and was controlled through a touchscreen. It made quite an impression on the show floor, but we weren't interested in building something that would have its five minutes of fame and then disappear into a hard drive somewhere. So after the event, the experience went online. Management and sales teams can now use the same interactive environment to take prospects through the Madrid facility, wherever they are. And when the real facility changes, the digital one can change with it. New technologies and developments can be added without starting the whole thing from scratch. That's a pretty useful upgrade from PowerPoint.
Collaboration
There’s more to an experience like this than a good-looking 3D model. We brought together 3D modelling, animation, interaction, UI/UX, photography and video to make a complex production environment feel surprisingly simple to explore. That meant getting into the details: understanding the facility, figuring out how the different processes connect, and translating all of that into an experience that works just as well on a giant LED wall as it does on a regular screen. And because gategroup is constantly evolving, we made sure the experience could do the same. The digital twin isn't a snapshot of the facility. It's a living representation that can keep pace with what's happening in the real world.
04
Impact
The experience made its debut at WTCE 2026 and quickly proved its value as a way to attract attention and explain gategroup's smart production approach. But its second life is where things get really interesting. Today, the experience is available online for management and sales teams, replacing the standard presentation with something they can actually explore together with their prospects. One experience now works across the trade show, online and in sales conversations — while continuing to evolve alongside the real facility. From a curved LED wall to a sales meeting somewhere else entirely, the same story keeps working. Create once. Showcase anywhere. That's Roam in action.
Recent work
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