Robert Vinçotte (1844-1904) was a Belgian engineer who layed the basis for industrial safety management in his native country. He was involved in the founding of the two companies that would dominate the Belgian reliability certification market during the twentieth century.

Life and Work

Vinçotte was born in ?Schaerbeek?, a suburb of Brussels. He attended school in Liège, and graduated with a brilliant record in 1865, gaining the titles of "ingénieur honoraire des mines" (honorary mining engineer) and "docteur en sciences physiques et mathématiques" (doctor in physical and mathematical sciences). As an additional recognition of his intellectual capabilities, he was alotted a post as a teacher of mathematics at the Atheneum^[1] of Brussels.

His career might have remained inconspicuous were it not for Maurice Urban, a director of the National Railway Company of Belgium. In 1872 Urban asked Vinçotte to take charge of a new organisation, which would be created for the purpose of controlling steam boilers in factories. At the time, Vinçotte affirmed his full trust in reliability engineering, a discipline that was hardly studied until then:

[U]n examen détaillé, complet et fréquent, effectué par un homme compétent suffirait pour réduire de 75% au moins le nombre d'explosions d'appareils à vapeur, d'autant plus que toute machine peut, à la longue, évoluer vers un mauvais état qu'un examen détaillé permettrait de reconnaître^[2]

In August that year, 13 members of industry and engineers gathered and set up the provisionary organisation that was aptly named as "Association pour la surveillance des chaudières à vapeur" (Association for the Surveillance of Steam Boilers). Its purpose was twofold: it aimed both at preventing explosions of said boilers and promoting a more efficient use of them and energy in general. The association grew rapidly, and had near to five hundred members, all steam boiler propietors, by the end of 1872. A further measure of its success is the following statistic: by 1910, it inspected more boilers than the French and German associations conjoined. Soon, the organisation was to be renamed "Association Vinçotte" (AV) to pay homage to its director, and already in 1880, it participated in the world exposition, then held in Liège.

One year later, the Belgian government asked Vinçotte to undertake a period of study in the United States. There, he examined the safety measures America was taking to ensure the safety of its burgeoning industry. From his research, he compiled basic rules for calculating the reliability of the most important parts of steam boilers. For this and his other realizations, Vinçotte was awarded the title of knight in the Order of Leopold II in 1885. However, he was not the only beneficiary of the success of the association: in 1887, a budget surplus allowed AV to give every one of its employees a life insurance, a fund that could also be accessed at retirement age.

But Association Vinçotte would not remain alone in its field. 1889 brought competition in the form of the Association des Industriels Belges (AIB), founded by Henri Adan, director of the Royale Belge, an important insurance company. AIB was to be a non-profit organisation funded by its own members, who, in return for their money, would get regular inspections of their factories. There was certainly a need for such companies: in 1899 and 1900, the Belgian parliament passed laws that required employers to make their workspaces secure for their employees^[3] Vinçotte himself was involved in both these developments, as he gave technical advice to the lawmakers^[4] and became a counselor to the fledgling AIB while remaining a director of AV. This was not as contradictory as it sounds, for the early focus of AIB was much broader than that of AV: the former took an all manners of technical inspections, whereas the latter made a niche in steam boilers.

Robert Vinçotte died in 1904, and would be replaced as a director of AV in 1909 by his son, whose first name was the same as his. He is buried in Schaerbeek. In the same year of his funeral, his association was given its second golden medal for its exhibition in Paris.

Notes

^ The designation "Atheneum" refers to a secondary school organised by the Belgian state, in opposition to those schools linked to Catholicism
^ Quote from Litt, slide 5. Translation: "A detailed examination, carried out fully and frequently by a competent individual suffices for reducing the number of exploding steam boilers with at least 75%, all the more because every machine can, in time, become malfunctional, a state that a detailed examination can detect."
^ In 1891, an unidentified speechwriter, celebrating the 18th anniversary of AV, could still hail the legislative freedom of -then- liberal Belgium: "il est de la plus haute importance pour un petit pays de se joindre au mouvement international qui permet à l'initiative privée de l'industriel, de faire le bien sans qu'une loi coercitive lui prescrive ce devoir et le rendre odieux" ("it is of the highest importance for a small country [Belgium] to join itself with an international movement that allows the private initiative of the industry owner to do good without coercive law prescribing him this as an obligation and thus renders it odious").
^ De Jaer. M.J. [Speech given on the occasion of the funeral of Robert Vinçotte]. Robert Vinçotte. Liège: Association des Ingénieurs sortis de l'Ecole de Liège, 1904. Pages 5-6.

References

Anon. Speech. Handwritten manuscript, 1891.
Litt, Baudouin. "Vinçotte for CIMOB". Powerpoint Presentation. Vinçotte Academy, 2005.
Rapport Presenté par le Conseil d'Administration à l'Assemblée Générale du

2 Février 1876.Bruxelles: Association pour la Surveillance des Chaudières à Vapeur, 1876.

Robert Vinçotte. Liège: Association des Ingénieurs sortis de l'Ecole de Liège, 1904.
Van Overmeire, Marc. "Association des Industriels de Belgique". Powerpoint

Presentation. Vinçotte Academy, 2004.

Vinçotte, Philippe. "Histoire de Vinçotte jusqu’à 2004". Unpublished speech.

[1] The designation "Atheneum" refers to a secondary school organised by the Belgian state, in opposition to those schools linked to Catholicism

[2] Quote from Litt, slide 5. Translation: "A detailed examination, carried out fully and frequently by a competent individual suffices for reducing the number of exploding steam boilers with at least 75%, all the more because every machine can, in time, become malfunctional, a state that a detailed examination can detect."

[3] In 1891, an unidentified speechwriter, celebrating the 18th anniversary of AV, could still hail the legislative freedom of -then- liberal Belgium: "il est de la plus haute importance pour un petit pays de se joindre au mouvement international qui permet à l'initiative privée de l'industriel, de faire le bien sans qu'une loi coercitive lui prescrive ce devoir et le rendre odieux" ("it is of the highest importance for a small country [Belgium] to join itself with an international movement that allows the private initiative of the industry owner to do good without coercive law prescribing him this as an obligation and thus renders it odious").

[4] De Jaer. M.J. [Speech given on the occasion of the funeral of Robert Vinçotte]. Robert Vinçotte. Liège: Association des Ingénieurs sortis de l'Ecole de Liège, 1904. Pages 5-6.

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