Alstom, IGE+XAO and Safran create a Centre of Excellence dedicated to rail electrical systems in Toulouse

12 October 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 and relying on its technical support, the Centre of Excellence will develop the railway electrical systems of today, from design to standardisation and operational maintenance of the electrical products of Alstom's transport solutions. Its activities will also focus on innovation by developing the systems of tomorrow.

As part of the agreement signed today with Alstom, IGE+XAO, publisher of software solutions for the design, simulation and manufacturing of electrical systems, is providing its expertise in terms of its software and associated services. Partners since 2011, Alstom and IGE+XAO have achieved a 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, the Centre 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 in this field, and the proximity of IGE+XAO’s teams, experts in the railway 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, which will benefit fully from its services.”

“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. The Centre 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 the actors of mobility today 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 migrating the sector’s good practices to rail. 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 facing a transformation of user habits and services. They must now be modular to facilitate operation, adaptable to meet local or individual characteristics, and scalable to incorporate new technologies (Wi-Fi, passenger comfort, management of passenger 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.