Keonys and ENSAM, the importance of bringing together schools and digital companies
The need for appropriate training
Founded in 2008, Keonys is the result of the sale of Dassault Systèmes’ division dedicated to the sale of PLM solutions for SMEs in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. The company supports the implementation of product lifecycle management projects in major industrial sectors. It offers its customers the opportunity to equip and optimize their engineering processes, improve their collaboration methods and develop new experiences with their own customers. Keonys customers include some of the biggest names in industry, numerous research laboratories including IRTs (Instituts de Recherche Technologique), but also, and historically, many high schools, IUTs and engineering schools. Keonys currently employs 175 people, including 145 in France, and generated sales of €54.5 million in 2014.
The successive development of increasingly collaborative solutions has gradually changed customers’ relationship with the tools, and led to the emergence of new training needs. For Keonys, the challenge was simple: to move away from purely mechanical solutions and design offices, but also to provide human resources capable of making optimal use of the new tools developed, and to disseminate a new way of working underpinned by the digital and service revolutions.
A shared interest in partnership
Keonys and ENSAM had a long-standing relationship. Keonys supplied ENSAM with PLM solutions, and trained many of the school’s teaching staff with benchmark courses, particularly in industrial design and process engineering. The meeting between two determined men, Mr Puechoultres, VP Strategy & Innovation at Keonys, and Mr Véron, Professor and Director of the Carnot Arts Institute at ENSAM, made both organizations aware of the common interest in working together.
This rapprochement took place gradually, thanks to a mutual taming and acculturation process. Open days were organized throughout France, at ENSAM network schools (Lille, Bordeaux, etc.), to present new PLM technologies to local manufacturers. These initial exchanges gave rise to the need and desire to take the partnership a step further, and jointly create a training program that would meet the specific needs of companies operating in the same ecosystem as Keonys, as well as ENSAM’s academic and student integration requirements. ENSAM provided academic excellence, supervision and structure. Keonys, its vision of the market and its network of companies, industrialists who quickly became partners, promoters of the training and recruiters of the first classes.
The “Management and Digital Product Engineering” specialized master’s degree, co-constructed by Keonys and ENSAM, was born with the ambition of training experts capable of meeting this major industrial challenge: mastering the industrial processes involved in the development of constantly evolving products, and managing them throughout their entire lifecycle.
The benefits of opening up to the world of teaching and research for an SME
However, for Mr. Puechoultres, over and above the recruitment and training of future PLM specialists, this partnership and openness to the worlds of research and teaching had other windfall effects, particularly in terms of R&D.
For a digital SME, R&D is a vital necessity for differentiation. It is also heavily constrained by organizational and financial aspects. The partnership with ENSAM has removed some of these obstacles. Indeed, Keonys has benefited from ENSAM’s in-depth knowledge of public R&D funding mechanisms, notably maximizing the use of the research tax credit, as well as its network and tools. As a result, ambitious joint academic projects have been launched, notably within the framework of theses, at costs that can be absorbed by the company, to solve theoretical and R&D problems in the fields of manufacturing and systems engineering.
The successes of Keonys and all the other companies sharing this approach are the best tools for promoting the quality of the French R&D ecosystem.