Meet the team behind the "OneVoice MBSE" project that’s designing the aircraft of the future

Patrice Antoinette: Head of MSE (Methods for Systems Engineering) and Product Owner

Following his studies at an engineering school, Patrice devoted three years to research in aeronautics with the aim of completing a PhD. Looking for applied and diversified experience, he joined Akkodis to better understand the industry.

“OneVoice” was a 15-people strong cross-disciplinary project focused on developing new strategies for designing the next generation of airplanes. As a technical coordinator, Patrice had to define the short-term technical objectives and to link the various parties involved. This gave him the opportunity to put his research skills into practice. He had to break new ground in the aeronautical field, and deal with open-ended questions to which there were no ready-made answers.

Reflecting on the high points of his experience on this project, Patrice emphasized the interaction with other departments within the Systems Engineering Competence Centre: “Usually, we see a very limited number of divisions involved. In this case, the diversity of skills was an integral part of the project.”

As head of a relatively young department (created in 2020), Patrice has to deal with issues common to several systems, and therefore several aeronautical departments. This means that team management and collaboration are key challenges of his job: “An engineer at MSE needs to be versatile and flexible enough to work across divisions. Likewise, different units must be flexible enough to accept external collaborators, for a benefit that is only visible in the long term. ”

Patrice is convinced that without the support of numerous Akkodis collaborators, the department would never have seen the light of day: "The challenges for a multi-disciplinary department of this type are numerous. But the support and efforts of various players - commercial, technical and recruitment - seem clear and are making a major contribution to the progress of this project.”

Arno Cuq: MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) Engineer

With his advanced mechanical engineering degree in hand, Arno was looking for a dynamic company and a challenging project. He came across Akkodis on social networks. Soon, he had found not only a project that suited him, but also a good working atmosphere.

As an MBSE engineer, Arno is responsible for developing a model to be used as a concept for a larger project. He has weekly meetings with the customer to define the project's future developments. These give him the opportunity to exercise his requirements management, multiphysics simulation, and interpersonal skills.

The “OneVoice” project has opened up new horizons for him. As he puts it: “When I arrived, I was unaware of the methods used on this project, the rigor to be adopted when modeling or writing reports. I quickly had to get to grips with these aspects, which really helped me later on.”

Another aspect that stood out was the variety of tasks. Given the scale of the project, every day was different: one day dedicated to writing, then onto requirements management, modeling, and the testing phases.

Talking about the support provided by his company to give his best, Arno highlighted two key points: the importance of mutual help and cooperation, and the presence of several experts with a wide range of skills. This helped him to progress more rapidly in different areas: “In just a few months I gained enough experience to be able to give my all to the project. And last but not least, the opportunities for career development through various training courses are also very interesting - giving everyone the chance to plan their career as they see fit.”

Clément Chevallier: Work Package Leader

Clément joined Akkodis following his final year work placement for his Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Automation master's degree in Toulouse. He brought his MagicDraw and Caméo software skills, as well as his knowledge of the UML language. He was involved in creating UML models representing a complete software architecture, with full traceability to a system architecture and a link to the developers who received the files generated from the model. His role and activity are, in his own words, “a driving force in the software development process in a complete (or near-complete) modeling workflow.”

This modeling work was the fruit of numerous brainstorming sessions, in-depth feasibility tests and adjustments in collaboration with the tool's editor to check its relevance. During this phase, Clément particularly appreciated the support of the other Akkodis employees, which works both ways: “Of course, we were able to call on experts, but we were also able to present to our colleagues what we had learned or perfected within the business. These discussions covered customization of MagicDraw, model merges, collaborative working, modeling constraints and file export.”

Now Clément can focus his career on project and team management: “I'm slowly learning to delegate tasks, to gauge my colleagues' interests so as to distribute activities appropriately, and to train them on certain tasks.”

It seems that Clément's voice, and the voices of his colleagues, will be soaring for years to come.

Inspired by the work of Patrice, Arno and Clément? Want to work on engaging, rewarding projects like this? To find out more about our first-class opportunities for career development, get in touch today.