The Emitech Group announces the creation of an Innovation Department, dedicated to researching and implementing innovative solutions to prepare the future of testing. The mission of this new organisation, which emphasises the need for partnerships with academic contributors as well as industrial players, is to position Emitech at the forefront of the testing sector, anticipating tomorrow's needs and responding to today's challenges with creativity, agility and expertise.
« Innovation has always been part of the Group's DNA, but we now need to structure it in a way that better identifies growth markets and focuses our efforts and investments on those markets’» With these words, Mr Ben Abdelkader, Director of Research, Development and Innovation for the Emitech Group, begins his presentation of the new entity.
In the past, we have always demonstrated our ability to meet our customers' expectations as their new needs emerge.
For example, the design and development of the EMCEM test facility, launched in 2022, is the result of the expertise of the various subsidiaries that make up the Emitech Group in response to an unmet market need. Designed to help manufacturers of motors for electric vehicles, the EMCEM test bench offers an innovative solution for testing these motors in real rotation, unlike previous methods which simply blocked the rotation shaft. It is the synergies between Emitech's expertise that have made it possible to create a solution that is unique on the European market for the reliable characterisation of electric motors.
« We have established that more and more manufacturers in France are concentrating their R&D on their core business and no longer have the resources associated with their validation needs and, more generally, their testing needs. Whether for economic or structural reasons, these needs fall outside the scope of their R&D and associated technology watch. As a result, there is a growing demand for the services we offer, such as the design of new generations of test benches and the adaptation of our resources to new requirements. At the same time, we are also noticing that our customers are increasingly keen to entrust us with packaged test campaigns, leading us to move from the status of a test/validation laboratory to an engineering company offering a much wider range of services' », explains Mr Ben Abdelkader.
« Today, given the proliferation of subjects such as batteries dedicated to mobility, ADAS, cybersecurity and so many others, Emitech has decided to structure this support by setting up a dedicated innovation centre, with teams operating in project mode and having to manage schedules, milestones and deliverables for each subject. The aim is to guide our choices and investments in line with the Group's development strategy. Our starting point is factual, with market studies followed by feasibility studies. Emitech is expanding its core validation business by becoming a company that supports its customers throughout the entire V cycle. »
The Innovation Department is built on two main pillars. The first is our internal resources, federated by our management team. This team's mission is to define and validate orientations in line with Emitech's strategic objectives. Its work is based on issues raised by the operational teams, who report on emerging industrial issues. The rapporteurs are engineers selected within the Group for their expertise. Organised in working groups, they study the technological and economic challenges upstream through feasibility studies. This organisation enables the Innovation Department to identify promising topics, prioritise them and draw up a timetable for their launch.
The second pillar consists of partnerships with research centres, universities and industrial companies, as well as investors and structures that can help finance projects.
« While Emitech is a key player in the industrial process, it is not the only one. We need the point of view of all the contributors if we are to innovate: academics, industrialists and funders » comments Mr Ben Abdelkader.
The development of batteries for electric vehicles requires new technologies to limit the risks inherent to their technology. One of these risks is thermal runaway, which is associated with a number of qualification test requirements.
Mr Ben Abdelkader explains: « Emitech's Innovation Department, in partnership with universities in the Paris region that are carrying out fundamental research on this subject, has embarked on a process aimed at gaining a better understanding of the thermal runaway process inherent in all batteries. This approach involves using the data collected during the dozens of test campaigns carried out in our laboratories, and correlating them with behavioural laws obtained by digital simulation to deduce models that will make it possible to predict, and therefore anticipate, the runaway phenomenon and thus better manage tests while improving their safety. This work will also enable us to support our customers further upstream in their development cycle by providing them with reliable data on the behaviour of their batteries and, in particular, areas for improvement. This acceleration is necessary, because today everything moves very fast, particularly in the automotive sector. Manufacturers can no longer afford to spend years on R&D; they need data to be used quickly. »
There are many subjects that are being developed in collaboration with our partners or that are still open to collaboration: EMC validation of vehicle ADAS, development of solid vehicle batteries, support for H2 combustion engines, etc.
Tomorrow's tests are a reflection of the innovation that drives the players in our various economic sectors: transport, defence, energy and medical. Every innovation needs to be validated, qualified or certified.
The main purpose of our Innovation Department is to anticipate these needs with our partners in order to accelerate the deployment of future solutions.
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