Interview of Jean-Christophe CALVEZ, Engineering and Industrialisation Director – AURES Group
In the below interview, we are pleased to introduce Jean Christophe CALVEZ, AURES Engineering and Industrialisation Director, who tells us more about the launch of the Group’s new KIOSK Business Unit in France.
You joined the AURES Group in September 2017 to set up and manage the Self-Service KIOSK R&D and Industrialisation Activity, the Group’s new Business Unit.
What attracted you in this project?
When Patrick ROSA, AURES OEM Department Director contacted me and presented the project, I was immediately interested in taking up the challenge. I had known AURES for a long time as an OEM Division Customer in my former SSK business activities.
I had worked closely with Franck GEIGER – Key Accounts Sales Engineer for the AURES OEM Division – for many years and I experienced the quality of the AURES equipment and products; same for the relationships with the AURES team, who always did their best to achieve great results, in sometimes very complicated and technical situations.
Of course, moving from a Purchasing/Resale and Support activity for the AURES OEM Division to a complete turnkey and customised KIOSK design and manufacturing activity is not without risk and difficulty.
One of the major issue of the project was related to the manufacturing capabilities.
This is where the intuition of Patrick CATHALA – CEO and Founder of the AURES Group – comes in, He made the strategic and key decision to acquire a stake in a French company CJS-PLV. Located only 35 minutes from the AURES Group’s headquarters – they have considerable expertise and know-how in the field of mechanical design and the entire integrated production chain, this is a key element for the development of our new activity.
CJS-PLV brings us a number of mastered skills that other players in the sector do not possess (laser cutting, bending, welding, paint line, assembly-integration), which is a major competitive advantage.
How do you assess these months at AURES and how do you see the rest of the operations?
This first year in setting up the essential elements for launching the project and the Business Unit was very rewarding on a personal level and enabled me to measure both the very strong motivation of the teams and also the difficulty to implement a new “production culture” oriented towards high added value products in terms of electronics, OEM sub-assemblies and cabling.
The KIOSK Business Unit and the AURES Design Office have already been able to create several kiosks in the traditional sense of the term (integration and OEM wiring), but also to develop the design and development of document scanning equipment; which is a new AURES Research and Development approach and industrial activity.
In October 2017, we had the fantastic opportunity to win a major project involving an extremely demanding customer in terms of the design aspect of the kiosks to be developed but also in terms of project logistics and production deadlines.
I would admit that we had some long evenings at the factory and moments of stress, but the fact is that thanks to the efforts of the entire team, these AURES kiosks are beautifully engineered and functioning well.
We have reviewed the feedback from this first production, and we are in the process of structuring ourselves to be ever more efficient. We are proud that several new developments for international customers are now on track.
From the outset, I also wanted to make sure that we complied with the requirements of the European Directives for the CE marking of our products.
For some players in the interactive kiosk market, the CE logo often boils down to a simple label affixed to the equipment. At AURES, we have called upon recognised testing laboratories from the outset, so that the safety and electromagnetic compatibility aspects are tested in real conditions and are the subject of certified test reports before production begins.
The CE marking of our kiosks is extremely important to us, we invested from the outset in test equipment with CJS-PLV, in order to perform electrical safety tests on each Kiosk we produced. We are therefore certain that each Kiosk manufactured will be perfectly safe from an electrical point of view.
The association with CJS-PLV offers us incredible perspectives in terms of R&D on innovative products.
The fact that CJS handles metal as well as countertop design and POS store layout by processing wood, plastics, and glass – offers unrivalled possibilities, that our customers will benefit from.
The AURES customised kiosks are not just a simple metal box. They can take the form of a counter or a complete piece of furniture at the POS, and can be nicely integrated in the layout of a store, reception area or lobby etc, matching exactly to what the customer initially wanted at the design stages of the process.
This opens the field of possibilities to a level where only AURES can position itself while leaving a lot of latitude to the Design Office and the Business Unit to propose innovative solutions.
With all this in mind, I am enthusiastic and believe in the development and success of the new AURES KIOSK business unit.