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Innovative working methods

To constantly increase its innovation capacity, Safran gives pride of place to the sharing of know-how. Through various initiatives, Safran embraces its employees’ ideas to improve the Group’s performance and to enable it to adapt to new technologies that are transforming manufacturing processes.

Intrapreneurship

Safran offers its employees the opportunity to get involved in intrapreneurship through the “We love intrapreneurs” initiative. Intrapreneurship is a voluntary and demanding process that enables the Group’s employees to become “internal entrepreneurs”. It consists of managing an innovative project from start to finish, providing added value to the company and its customers thanks to support from coaches inside and outside the Group and the application of agile methods. The program was structured in such a way as to bring new products and services onto the market quickly (two to five years) and to develop and disseminate an entrepreneurial culture. This voluntary initiative, which requires considerable personal investment, enables employees to participate actively in innovation at Safran, test new, life-sized working methods, create cross-functional relationships and reveal their talent.

Participative innovation

The creativeness of Group employees, whether regarding disruptive technology or day-to-day improvements, is celebrated every year at the Safran Innovation Awards. Participative innovation is primarily a state of mind and an integral part of Safran culture, as well as a essential component if the company’s competitiveness.

Intellectual Property at Safran

Safran is a leader in markets that demand firm control of technologies that set companies apart; Intellectual Property (IP) is an essential part of its strategy. In all of the markets in which Safran is a leader, technological excellence is key to its competitiveness. To retain its lead, the Group constantly seeks to innovate by pursuing an active patent-application policy.

Augmented reality

1,300

patents filed by Safran in 2023

No. 1

in France for patents filed

51,500

IP titles in the Group patent portfolio at year-end 2023

The Factory of the Future

The Factory of the Future uses methods and technologies that were inconceivable only a few years ago: guides, simulation tools - new production-engineering methods, virtual reality, augmented reality, cobotics, digital controls, additive manufacturing, use of industrial data. These new methods are transforming industrial processes and have brought about new occupations or changes to existing occupations in many different areas. They require the application of change-management processes and new training courses for personnel and teams who benefit from acquiring long-term skills, and they introduce new collective ways of working. In Safran’s “Factory of the Future”, these new approaches benefit the Group in terms of competitiveness, quality and manufacturing agility and speed. The end result of this transformation process is a plant that has been redesigned for and around people.

Automatic line of rectifiers

Composite draping robot

Blade preparation robot for assembling low-pressure compressors, with Deep Learning functions

Dalmec arm

Augmented reality / GE Passport nacelle

Titanium unit, machining

Virtual reality

Adding coils of carbon fibers to the loom

“Delivery lead times, quality, costs: the Factory of the Future embodies the realization that we had to improve performance in the plants to make our products more competitive. It is also a matter of making use of digital solutions whose level of disruption has not been seen in 40 years. Finally, it is a response to unprecedented developments in the aviation industry, such as our LEAP® engine dedicated to the Airbus A320neo, Boeing 737 MAX and COMAC C919 programs.”

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