ESI Group, pioneer and world-leading solution provider in Prototyping for manufacturing industries, was invited to participate in the French-German Digital Conference, held on October 27 at the Elysée Palace in Paris. During the conference, French Minister Emmanuel Macron and German Minister Sigmar Gabriel presented their "Action Plan" for an ambitious digital strategy in Europe, and related societal challenges. They were then joined by French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Junker to witness demonstrations of selected innovative technologies, including ESI's Immersive Virtual Prototyping solution as used by aircraft manufacturer Daher.
French company Daher uses ESI's Virtual Reality solution ESI IC.IDO to optimize their assembly lines and increase productivity. Thanks to Virtual Reality, Daher's engineers can assess assembly processes very early in the product development phase, before they commit to major investments and before any real prototype is built. The demonstration at the Elysée showed officials how Daher uses ESI's solution to fine-tune the final assembly lines (FAL) of the TBM 900, the latest addition to the Daher's very fast turboprop aircraft family.
Nicolas Orance, Chief Innovation Officer of Daher comments: "One of the current challenges of industrial companies is the digital transformation, and Daher has been implementing a number of solutions for the Aerospace and Nuclear sectors. Virtual Reality helps us bridge the gap between design solutions and ideas, and the shop floor implementation, by gaining time and efficiency."
During the demonstration, an ESI engineer connected from the Elysée Palace in Paris to a colleague based at ESI's subsidiary in Stuttgart, Germany. Remotely, both engineers were immersed in the same 3D scene. They demonstrated a typical collaborative project review, working on the same virtual prototype - a best practice to enable reliable decision making, upfront in the product development process.
Vincent Chaillou, COO, ESI Group comments: "With its unique Virtual Prototyping offering addressing various industrial sectors, ESI is well equipped to support European initiatives for developing digital technologies, such as Industries du Futur and Industry 4.0."
Fouad El-Khaldi, General Manager of Strategy and Innovation, ESI Group, puts it in the context of the local economic development "This event illustrates the great potential of European companies, and especially Mid-Cap companies, to drive industrial growth in Europe with the help of digital technologies. Such collaborations with industrial players, as well as governmental bodies act as an efficient catalyst to increase Europe's innovation ecosystem and industrial competitiveness. To this aim, ESI takes part in many research projects financed by the European Union through Private-Public Partnership, including EFFRA and EGVI."
