With 36,000 m² and 1,300 employees, the Alstom site in Villeurbanne is strategic for the French multinational. This is where railway electronic systems and products are designed and manufactured. Dive into the heart of a unique site.
It is in Villeurbanne, in the Bel Air district, that one of Alstom’s strategic sites is located. Established in the region for more than 50 years (see box), the transport giant set up Epsilon there ten years ago, its site specializing in railway electronic systems and products, the real brains and nervous systems of trains, trams, metros and rail networks.
The Villeurbanne site is strategic because it is involved in all Alstom projects
With 1,300 employees, this site is unique in the mobility market because it “concentrates all skills, from design to maintenance in operational conditions. We have the critical size necessary to maintain skills, particularly for products designed more than 40 years ago”explain Christian Rothdirector of the site who thus ensures the development, validation, industrialization, logistics, manufacturing and maintenance of these products and systems, and who manages projects for on-board electronics. “It is a strategic site, because it is involved in all Alstom projects”he continues.
A 3,000 m² workshop for manufacturing and repairing electronic cards
To understand why this site is strategic, you have to go into the belly of the machine. The building, which covers more than 36,000 m² and four levels, is made up of offices, laboratories and a production site. The 3,000 m² workshop is located on the ground floor where around a hundred employees work.
And it is from here that more than 40,000 electronic cards and 10,000 integrated systems come out each year. “Each card includes around a thousand components, mainly from Asia”explain Damien Autranresponsible for the workshop.
Once received, these components are soldered onto the card using a multi-zone oven. The assembly is then checked automatically, then the through components are stitched by hand and brazed. “The cards are then stressed in a climatic chamber, in order to check that the assembly is solid”continues Damien Autran. Then, the cards are tested and then protected by applying a varnish. “The cards are designed for a lifespan of twenty years, but they are kept on the market and used for forty years », explains the workshop manager.
Signaling and traction calculator
These cards can be integrated into two types of computers: signaling products on board the train or on the ground (which makes it possible to check that the train complies with the railway highway code) and traction products (which turns the engines).
Once assembled, these systems are also stressed in different climatic chambers at temperatures ranging from – 25°C to + 70°C, for 12 to 24 hours, before undergoing various quality controls or functional tests. Note that the workshop also carries out 9,000 repairs per year.
Just a few steps away, Alstom Villeurbanne also has its own accredited environmental qualification testing laboratory Cofracwhich allows it to test, during the design phase, its own products, but which can also be made available to external players.
50 years of presence in Villeurbanne
Since 1973, Villeurbanne has been home to an establishment specializing in traction electronics: the Traction Electronics Department (DET) of the Electro Mécanique Company (CEM). It was in 1983 that the company Alsthom Atlantique, the ancestor of Alstom, absorbed CEM.
This article comes from our special issue « Champions of innovationto be found here.