New building in Beersel becomes a lever for innovation, inclusion, and sustainable employment
Beersel/Brussels, 26 March 2026 – Today, the customised-work company Amab officially opens a new building in Beersel. This new site also serves as the starting point for a strategic partnership with Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), in which both organisations will collaborate to build the customised work of the future: innovative, inclusive, and socially relevant.
The new building in Beersel accommodates a growing group of employees within Amab, which currently employs approximately 800 people across three locations (Asse, Beersel, and Zaventem). The site will become a central hub where new working methods, technologies, and collaboration models are tested and applied in practice.
A response to a fast-changing reality
The collaboration between Amab and VUB emerges in a context where social enterprises (customised-work companies) are facing radical changes. Assignments are becoming more complex and less repetitive, experienced staff are retiring, and support needs are increasing. At the same time, traditional business models are under pressure.
With this partnership, both organisations are consciously choosing a long-term vision. They are pooling their expertise around four central themes: sustainable work, personal growth, new value creation, and knowledge sharing. This approach is intended to lead to a future-oriented model in which economic performance goes hand-in-hand with inclusive employment and social impact.
Innovation that works on the shop floor
The primary focus is on creating sustainable and manageable work. How can complex and variable assignments be translated into feasible, high-quality, and flexible processes for employees? To answer this question, Amab and the VUB are taking immediate, concrete steps. In the new building, innovative applications will be developed and tested, such as: AI-supported digital work instructions, projection-based instructions on the shop floor, systems for competence assessment, low-threshold satisfaction surveys, and quality control via image processing. Usability is key: projects are tested and implemented immediately within daily operations.
Marc Dedobbeleer, Chairman of Amab: "For Amab, this collaboration is essential to give purposeful shape to our transition. We want to keep work manageable, offer people opportunities for growth, and simultaneously respond to a rapidly changing market."
Bridging research and practice
What makes this collaboration unique is the explicit choice to bridge the gap between academic research and practical application.
Instead of standalone research projects, Amab and the VUB have opted for an integrated approach centred on co-creation, field testing, and implementation. This results in solutions that are not only innovative but also immediately deployable and sustainably anchored.
Impact for the entire sector
The ambition extends beyond their own organisations. In the long term, Amab and VUB intend to share their insights, methods, and applications more widely, contributing to innovation across the entire customised-work sector.
Peter Schelkens, Vice-Rector for Innovation and Industry Relations at VUB: "As Vrije Universiteit Brussel, we want to connect our scientific expertise with concrete social challenges. Together with Amab, we are building solutions that are not just researched, but also tested, applied, and sustainably embedded in practice."
Watch Ring TV’s report on the grand opening of the new Amab site here.