Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Mariam Buch from ESI Group:
Q: Mariam, can you tell us something more about ESI Group?
A: ESI Group is a global player in virtual prototyping for industries. Concretely, we provide reliable and customized solutions anchored on predictive physics modeling and virtual prototyping expertise to allow industries to make the right decisions at the right time, while managing their complexity. We act principally in automotive & land transportation, aerospace, defense & naval, energy and heavy industry. The group is present in more than 20 countries and employs 1200 people around the world.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: On the corporate side, the company recently appointed a new HR Vice-President, Yannick Charron. As a global and multicultural company with a values-based culture, human resources functions are of core importance for ESI Group.
Yannick and his team are working on the enhancement of our global practices, processes and tools to position ESI as an attractive employer and a great place to work for its talents. He’s also preparing the new ways of working of the Group with compelling actions like the implementation of a No Meeting Day – one day a week without meetings, allowing employees more flexibility in the organization of their work, pivoting from stressful days to focus and efficiency.
Over the last months, we highlighted the added value of our collaboration with different customers during events like ESI Live Heavy Machinery and through joint press communications – namely with Bentley Motors, Volkswagen Do Brasil or Audi.
• Bentley eliminated NVH and reduced physical prototypes in the test phase of its Flying Spur
• Volkswagen do Brasil accomplished a world premiere: to do 100% of a vehicle development in virtual reality.
• Audi achieved maximizing the driving range and acoustic quality of its new e-tron
In each case, our customers were able to make informed decision, to save costs and time and to go through a more sustainable process.
Recommended: HEAL Software Develops Preventive Healing Software That Powers IT Operations Teams To Fix Problems Before They Happen
Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: We notice that the industry is facing more and more challenges (regulations, disruptive technologies, intensifying competitions and shortening response time). Coupled with these, customers are getting more demanding on quality, reliability, safety, and production deadlines in the business. Indeed, end-users are no longer looking for products but for results (flight hours instead of engines, number of possible kilometres instead of electric car, etc.) and they seek for committed and responsible industrials to motivate their byes. At ESI Group we have understood these preoccupations and we have defined four primary solutions answering our customers’ expectations.
• The first one is the Pre-certification and Validation, enabling gains in performance and productivity. The purpose is double: meeting certification and validation requirements like crash, safety and fatigue issues in the first attempt and then increasing productivity with predictive models and process automation.
• The second outcome is Smart Manufacturing, which enables to establish the right manufacturing processes to meet the performance indicators for industrial products and processes.
• The Human-Centric Product and Process Validation, our third outcome, focuses on humans by implementing an operator-centric approach to ensure the efficiency of assembly, maintenance operation, and the safety of human interactions.
• The last one, Pre-experience, is the most advanced solution of ESI Group. Here, our customers and the operators do not look at the product itself, but virtually experience a product, component, subsystem, or system under numerous conditions and environments.
Using these approaches, we identify industry challenges from the customer’s perspective and support them in achieving their results.
Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: The management announced a 3Y plan to be introduced on October 5th. Our plans will be presented at that time.
Recommended: Bringing The New-Tech Vision To Dubai – TekRevol Launches In Dubai To Change The Technology Landscape
Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: ESI Group is a French high-tech nugget. It is involved in transforming industries and, more generally, society. Indeed, our purpose is to boost human creativity to drive industrial performance to ever higher levels. With our solutions, we intend to enable manufacturers to meet two main challenges: safety and sustainability.
• We enable them to optimize safety for workers on production lines for example (using the human-centric approach). Products developed with virtual prototyping also tends to be safer, for instance Renault Clio 5 obtained a 5-star rating at the Euro NCAP safety test (the maximum).
• At the same time, thanks to our solutions manufacturers can optimize the manufacturing process (scrape rate reduction (material usage reduction), energy consumption in the plant) and thus follow a more sustainable process. In addition, the finished products will have a lower impact on the environment as the choice of materials used can be optimized (e.g. a car like the Bentley Flying Spur is less heavy, due to material usage reduction, and therefore less polluting as emitting less Co2).
