[Press Release] TNO, Obeo and Altran manage the complexity of high-tech systems

TNO, Obeo and Altran manage the complexity of high-tech systems

Bridging the innovation gap 

Bringing advanced development methodologies for software engineering to the market

During the ESI symposium on 9 April, TNO, Obeo and Altran signed a memorandum of understanding to work together on solutions for this complexity. The theme of the ESI symposium is "Intelligence, the next challenge in system engineering"? More than 500 system engineers from the broad high-tech industry and academic network of ESI attended the symposium. 

The high-tech industry supplies products of ever-increasing complexity. This complexity is such that insight, perspective and, at the same time, keeping a grip on the details have become a great challenge and not a foregone conclusion. No matter how good system engineers are, the human brain can no longer simply grasp this complexity. ESI, part of TNO, has been working for years in open innovation with partners from the high-tech industry and academia on the development of methodologies to manage this complexity. It is partly thanks to these methods that the Dutch high-tech industry remains globally competitive. Implementing these advanced development methodologies have already led to engineering efficiency improvements ranged between 20% to 80%.

Bridging the innovation gap

ESI draws on the most recent knowledge of its university partners (TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, University of Twente and Radboud University Nijmegen) and further develops it into applications in industrial practice, including supporting tools. Berry Vetjens, Director Market at TNO ICT: "The big challenge in applied research is to bridge the innovation gap from research to industrial application. ESI, as Joint Innovation Centre of TNO, proves itself here again as a leading research group in the Netherlands for high-tech systems design and engineering." The developed methodologies have been advanced and validated among industrial partners (including ASML, NXP, Océ, Philips, Thales, Thermo Fisher Scientific). These companies have jointly invested in the development with TNO, previously along with the  with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and are prepared to share their knowledge with other industry sectors. Frans Beenker, business director of ESI: “ESI focuses on developing new methodologies while our partners must be able to rely on lasting support from ESI. This is why we have looked for partners who can help us to apply our results on a large scale within the companies. We found these at Obeo for getting tools to market and Altran for application and support for companies.”

Etienne Juliot, Vice President Obeo: "As a key actor of Model-Based System Engineering and Modeling tools such as Capella and Sirius, we are excited about working with ESI to bring to HW/SW architects the ability to perform early simulations. This partnership is the opportunity for the early adopters of research & Open Source projects to benefit from industrialised professional software. "

Lars Seegers, CEO Altran: “Altran is delighted to sign the partnership with ESI and OBEO that will bring advanced development methodologies and tools for software engineering to the market. We are convinced that the automation of software engineering is key to manage complexity and to improve the overall speed and quality of engineering. Our excellent capabilities in the field of model driven engineering supports the integration these methodologies and tools for high-performance engineering environments.”

About

About ESI (TNO)
ESI is an initiative of industry, academia and TNO. ESI focusses on the development of methods and techniques for system design and engineering. Its extensive research programme aims to advance high-tech industry in improving lead-time and effectiveness of their product innovation process, as well as the functionality and quality of their products. In addition, ESI provides specific programmes for innovation support and competence development of system architects and senior engineers.

The ESI strategic research programme focuses on the development of latest techniques for design and engineering of high-tech (embedded) systems and applications within a rapidly changing technology environment.

In the ESI research programme, multi-disciplinary teams of experts of renowned (multi)national high-tech enterprises and leading academic research groups work together on the latest technologies and innovations.This allows fundamental research results to be directly linked to industrial application.The ESI network represents a unique platform for open innovation that facilitates research cooperation and knowledge exchange across stakeholders.

Originally founded in 2002, the former Embedded Systems Institute (ESI) was integrated in TNO in January 2013. Its partners are industry-leading companies ASML, Océ, Philips Healthcare, Thales, Thermo Fisher Scientific and TNO, along with Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, Radboud University Nijmegen and Twente University.
ESI. Managing complexity. www.esi.nl

Obeo

Obeo is an independent innovative French software editing company set up in 2005 that has a global reach with offices in France (Nantes, Paris-Saclay, and Toulouse), a Canadian subsidiary in Vancouver, and several international partnerships.

Obeo provides visual tools to design and transform an increasingly digital world. Architects can rely on our softwares to confidently and competently design complex products, services, and organizations, and when collaborating on pioneering innovative solutions. Our open source technologies are already being widely used by major international companies across a broad spectrum of sectors around the globe (insurance, aeronautics, aerospace, telecommunications, transport, and more).

Obeo is actively invested in several Open Source projects including Acceleo and Sirius. Faithful to the Open Innovation principles, Obeo is also involved in the development of the Capella ecosystem, an Open Source Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) solution. At Obeo, we believe that MBSE is a key enabler in a strategy aiming at enabling multi-domain engineering

Obeo’s suite of products and services combines the openness of Open Source with the security of software editing. As a leading actor in the Open Source community, Obeo is also a strategic member of the Eclipse foundation, the Open Group, and several other innovative business networks.