OVER 40 YEARS OF HISTORY
The history of the Assystem Group began in 1966 with the creation of a French company called Atem by a team of nuclear engineers and technicians.
Specializing in the commissioning of industrial units, the company’s growth was fueled by the major nuclear power plant-building program initiated by the French government after the first oil crisis of 1973.
In the 80s, the company began to diversify into project management, focusing mainly on control systems and industrial IT for the automotive, steelmaking, space and defense industries.
1989 saw the creation of Alphatem, a company owned jointly with COGEMA, and originally focused on the testing and commissioning of COGEMA capital expenditure programs at La Hague and Melox (France). In 1995, the Group adopted the name of Assystem and was listed on the Paris stock exchange.
1996 marked the end of major state investment in nuclear power both in France and internationally, and the start of a new phase in the life of Assystem, as the company diversified decisively towards product engineering in the aeronautic and automotive industries without losing any of its skills and expertise in nuclear power.
The merger with Brime Technologies in 2003 established Assystem as a major player in advanced technology consultancy and opened the door to the Group’s globalization. A series of significant acquisitions, including Inbis Ltd., which became Assystem UK Ltd., as well as SKI and Atena in Germany, would then remodel the face of the Group. In 2008, Assystem’s presence in India was further reinforced by the formation of Silver Atena; a company specialized in onboard critical safety systems.
ASSYSTEM INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER
The Assystem Group is one of the leading global players in Engineering and Innovation Consultancy. Working at the heart of industry for over forty years, Assystem supports its clients with the development of their products and the optimisation of their industrial investments over their lifecycle. The Group has over 8,500 employees worldwide, and posted revenue of €613 million in 2009.
Assystem has developed core competences in two very different fields: optimisation of industrial investments over their lifecycle (process engineering and production support), and outsourced R&D (product and electronic engineering, IT and software).
By bringing its industrial investment optimisation activities together under the Plant Engineering & Operations division, the Group has reaffirmed its leadership position in the design and management of projects involving factories, power plants and other facilities, in testing and commissioning and in operation and training. Assystem offers its clients knowledge of complex, heavily regulated environments, built up on its long experience in the nuclear industry.
In the field of outsourced R&D, Assystem is active throughout the product engineering value chain, from functional analysis to validation, not to mention design, computing and testing. Its expertise in mechanical engineering has made Assystem’s Aerospace Mechanical Engineering division a European leader in the aerospace field.
The Technology & Product Engineering division houses the key expertise required for hardware and software development, systems integration and validation in the automotive, rail transport and new technologies sectors.
Its ability to identify and bring together cutting-edge resources makes Assystem one of the leading engineering partners of major international industrial players, as can be seen from its reference listings at EADS, Alstom Transport and Siemens.
With an organisation that is firmly grounded in the realities of its markets, Assystem offers the flexibility and expertise sought by its clients, enabling it, both in times of crisis and growth, to ensure the company’s long-term sustainability.
MARKETS AND CLIENTS
Assystem’s stature and international positioning are key to its credibility and competitiveness. They enable it to recruit worldwide, and for its clients represent a decisive selection criterion in terms of the definition and spreading of risks. One of the essential components of this approach is the Group’s sales structure. Drawing on that of its major buyers, it is cross-company and global. Assystem has assigned each of its key accounts to a single account manager, who can provide them with an unified offer covering all of their needs and benefiting from optimal allocation of its resources, from one country to the next. With expanded and transnational resources, Assystem supports its clients with their international expansion, and thereby shares expertise as close as possible to mature or emerging markets. This strategic choice provides the Group with the necessary responsiveness to maintain a close relationship with its clients.
It enables them to identify their needs, even before they are expressed, to put in place the human resources necessary to meet them, or to launch upstream training programmes to respond to them the moment they will appear. The cultural affinity with major nuclear players like EDF and Areva thus represents a considerable advantage for the Group.
Because it has built up expertise in all the fields in which it operates and is able to provide it to its clients right where they need it, the Assystem Group is a preferred supplier of leading global buyers. Assystem in fact offers its clients a unique set of core competences. Competences that it has built up over forty years in the nuclear field, from plant design to the combustion cycle, working on major projects worldwide for clients such as EDF, Areva, the CEA and British Energy. Recognised internationally, this expertise earned it a part in the ITER project. A testament to the trust placed in it by EDF, Assystem helps train its plant operators, engineers and technicians. In response to changes in how clients are contracting out work, marked by the widespread use of fixed-price arrangements, the Assystem Group expanded its recruitment globally, merged its teams and internationalised its project culture. This adaptation to the globalisation of the operations of its clients has, for example, enabled Assystem to become one of the leading European Design Offices in aerostructures.
The scale and structure of the Assystem Group enables it to work side-by-side with its clients no matter where they are, using shared resources and expertise. The Assystem Group supports them, under offset agreements, and is even moving into emerging markets, via offshore activities. It thus mirrors the presence of leading global aerospace and automotive manufacturers in Romania, Morocco and India.
