Alstom, IGE+XAO, Safran Create Centre of Excellence

MONTREAL, Canada, Oct 12, 2018 – Alstom, IGE+XAO and Safran are strengthening their collaboration by creating a Centre of Excellence in Toulouse for the engineering of onboard railway electrical systems. Located on the site of the aeronautical equipment manufacturer Safran Electrical & Power, this international Centre of Excellence will be able to accommodate up to 100 engineers. Using the packages of the software publisher IGE+XAO andrelying on its technical support, the Centre of Excellence will develop railway electrical systems, from design to standardisation and operational maintenance of the electrical products of Alstom’s transportsolutions. Its activities will also focus on innovation.

As part of the agreement signed today with Alstom, IGE+XAO, is providing its expertise in terms of its software and associated services. Partners since 2011, Alstom and IGE+XAOhave achieveda significant milestone with the signature of a technical and commercial contract over a 5-year period. IGE+XAO will provide its software suites dedicated to the lifecycle management of electrical systems, as well as a service offer ranging from software validation to user assistance, including training and management of the hardware platform.

Similarly, Alstom and Safran are signing an agreement today focusing on electrical product design. The agreement follows a partnership between the two groups announced in 2017. This new stage in the collaboration between Alstom and Safran responds to an increasing need to share best practices between the worlds of aeronautics and rail. Safran Electrical & Power, the world leader in the field of aeronautical cabling, is providing Alstom with a team of experts in the design and standardisation of electrical systems.

“With its new development methods, theCentre of Excellence will help to strengthen Alstom’s skills and responsiveness in the field of onboard electrical systems, by benefiting in a collaborative environment both from the best practices of the aeronautical sector, which is leading the way inthis field, and the proximity of IGE+XAO’s teams, experts in therailway electrical industry. It will be one of Alstom’s assets in meeting the challenges of tomorrow’s mobility,” said Thierry Best, Alstom’s director of operations. “This Centre of Excellence will thus contribute to developing projects such as the Athens tram, the new-generation RER or the future TGV.”

“The creation of this Centre of Excellence is a first for IGE+XAO. It is the culmination of, on the one hand, a fruitful partnership with two customers of reference, Alstom and Safran, and, on the other, the maturity of our PLM software suite dedicated to the design, simulation and manufacture of electrical systems. TheCentre of Excellence we are creating today, in terms of its outlook and composition, is a world premiere, and our teams are proud to work in it and be counted among theactors of mobilitytoday and tomorrow,” said Alain Di Crescenzo, chief executive officer of the Group IGE+XAO.

“It’s through our subsidiary Safran Engineering Services that we will provide Alstom with our two-fold competence in engineering and electrical services. In recent years, our teams have been involved in the development of major programmes in aeronautics and are enthusiastic about the idea of migratingthe sector’s good practices torail. Managing complexity, concurrent engineering and the global dimension of the teams and the customers are all bridges between these two sectors,” said Alain Sauret, president of Safran Electrical & Power.

Rail mobility solutions are facinga transformation of user habits and services. They mustnow be modular to facilitate operation, adaptable to meet local or individual characteristics, and scalable to incorporate new technologies (Wi-Fi, passenger comfort, management ofpassenger flows, increased safety of goods and people, new connected products, predictive maintenance). The Centre of Excellence will thus make it possible to study the needs of passengers and operators in a pre-emptive way, while benefiting from a collaborative environment, the “Trinity LAB”, conducive to reflection on requirements in the field of mobility. 

About Alstom

As a promoter of sustainable mobility, Alstom develops and markets systems, equipment and services for the transport sector. Alstom offers a complete range of solutions (from high-speed trains to metros, tramways and e-buses), passenger solutions, customized services (maintenance, modernization), infrastructure, signaling and digital mobility solutions. Alstom is a world leader in integrated transport systems. The company recorded sales of €8.0 billion and booked €7.2 billion of orders in the 2017/18 fiscal year. Headquartered in France, Alstom is present in over 60 countries and employs 34,500 people.

For more information, visit www.alstom.com.

About Safran Electrical & Power 

Safran is an international high-technology group, operating in the aircraft propulsion and equipment, space and defense markets. Safran has a global presence, with more than 58,000 employees and sales of 16.5 billion euros in 2017. Safran is listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange, and is part of the CAC 40 and Euro Stoxx 50 indices. Including Zodiac Aerospace, acquired by Safran in February 2018, the Group has over 91,000 employees and would have around €21 billion in adjusted revenues (pro forma 2016).

Safran Electrical & Power is one of the world market leaders in electrical systems in aeronautics, number 1 in wiring and number 2 in power systems. A key player in the field of more electric aircraft, the company employs more than 13,000 people in 12 countries.

For more information, visit www.safran-group.com and www.safran-electrical-power.com.

About IGE+XAOGroup

For over 32 years, the IGE+XAO Group has been a software publisher designing, producing, selling and supporting a range of CAD, product lifecycle management (PLM) and simulation software dedicated to electrical engineering. These software products have been designed to help companies in the design and maintenance of the electrical part of any type of installation. This type of CAD/PLM/simulation is called “Electrical CAD/PLM/Simulation”. Since mid-2014 with the takeover of Prosyst, IGE+XAO also offers a complete software range for electrical installation functional simulation. IGE+XAO employs 380 people around the world in 33 sites and in 22 countries, and has more than 90,800 licenses distributed around the world. IGE+XAO is a reference in its field.

For more information, visit http://www.ige-xao.com.

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