ALTEN Belgium: The new era of the railway sector - ALTEN Group

ALTEN Belgium: The new era of the railway sector

The Belgian market is undergoing an important transformation. More and more clients are seeking consulting companies that can work on the commitment to results in the long term, which is precisely what ALTEN offers with its Workpackages solution.

“The shortage of engineers or people with a Master’s degree contributes to an extreme solicitation of our consultants, by industrialists or competitors. Our projects with a commitment to results at our clients’ sites enable us to provide better follow-up, appropriate training and, above all, a career development perspective for our employees. This is why ALTEN Belgium invested in its own Technical Department with the Group’s support and guidance three years ago.

ALTEN Belgium is thus positioning itself as the partner of choice for its customers. In April 2018, Alstom Charleroi’s Top Management clearly informed us of their strategic challenges for the next 3 years and entrusted us with new projects. Thus, ALTEN Belgium continues to support Alstom Charleroi’s teams with premises near the site which has been inaugurated early 2019.

This positioning in Specialized Consulting reassures our clients, contributes to the career development of our employees and differentiates us in the recruitment of new consultants. It is a new era for ALTEN Belgium”.

Mickaël M., Managing Director ALTEN Belgium

An intensification of our activities with Bombardier since 2018

At the end of 2017, our teams working for Bombardier on the Engineering of the M7 project in Bruges reported future needs to help our customer during the Industrialisation phase. This collaboration, which began on January 1st 2018, very quickly led to additional needs. 12 Months later, ALTEN Belgium had a team on site within the Industrialisation department and supported the customer in deploying the first Workpackage on site. Among the achievements, we can mention the production launch of more than 1 000 product evolutions, the validation of several hundred workshop operations and the implementation of a new assembly line.

“We are working on the M7 programme at an exciting time: the train is leaving the screens to become real and it is up to us to make this happen. We also have a constantly growing team and have transformed our business into a Workpackage. This creates many challenges to take up and a great experience for everyone involved!”

Pierre A., Team Leader for Bombardier Bruges.

Alstom: successful outsourcing

The dynamics of major projects in the rail sector makes it ALTEN Belgium’s second largest one in terms of number of projects.

Since September 2017, the ALTEN Group has been increasingly involved in the validation of embedded software in signalling equipment. This is why Alstom expressed the wish in February 2018 to start a highly committed business with the Group.

Since the project began, the number of ALTEN consultants working on it has been constantly increasing. In October 2018, we outsourced the activity to ALTEN offices near the Alstom Charleroi site. We have moved to the work unit catalogue in the second quarter of 2019 (still outsourced).

In the same time, ALTEN has won a second externalization project that will involve people in the design and validation of on-board computers and human-machine interfaces. This project, which began in October 2018, is continuing in the new ALTEN offices in Charleroi.

ALTEN has also developed activities in Consulting, Engineering, Supply Chain and Quality in Production environment.

We are also working on the production of traction boxes for the new RER-NG of ‘Grand Paris’.

Whatever the positioning of our activities, in Consulting or Workpackage, the ALTEN Belgium team in the rail sector consists of more than 80 consultants, which places us in first position among the preferred suppliers in Engineering.

The transformation and outsourcing of activities by ALTEN meets a need expressed by Alstom in order to have better control of its services in terms of quality, cost and lead time. These steps further position us as a privileged partner of Alstom.

“We are in charge of the Design and V&V (Verification & Validation) of Alstom’s ERTMS Trainborne projects. The team, outsourced from the Alstom site, has many challenges to meet in order to transform the activity into a Workpackage. Expertise, dynamism and flexibility are our assets to remain a partner of choice and quality”.

Philippe R., Team Leader for the Alstom Engineering project


Click here to find out more about career opportunities
in the railway sector at ALTEN Belgium