An Airbus A320 has two million fasteners, in other words screws, nuts, bolts… And very often, their life begins in Solliès-Pont, in the Aresia premises. First known under the name BD Fix, before being bought by ÆDS, the entity where around thirty employees work today is one of the eight SMEs which gave birth in 2022 to the ETI Aresia, via a LBO operation led by a consortium of funds and family offices such as HLD or ACE specializing in aeronautics, around the Rafaut group, the core of this adventure. “Dassault and Airbus wanted to have a large, first-tier equipment supplier and it was to meet this demand that Aresia was born” explains Thierry Perardel, head of institutional relations for the group, which currently has a turnover of 165 million euros and nearly 700 employees spread throughout France. “The idea was also to preserve skills linked to industrial employment areas, not necessarily aeronautics either” continues the manager. Including BD Fix, historically shared between the watchmaking sites of Bonneville, in Haute-Savoie, and the Toulon basin, marked by the defense industry. “Bonneville specializes in very small parts (between 0.8 and 32 mm) and Solliès-Pont between 30 and 300 mm” explains Matthieu Derulle, who has just been appointed head of Aresia’s fasteners division, made up of the two factories. The activity is growing, with a turnover of 7.5 million euros this year, it is targeting 9.5 million euros next year, driven by the resumption of activity in the sector. Airbus has announced a production rate of 75 monthly A320s by 2025, compared to 40 currently, while Dassault is expected to multiply by 4 or 5 the number of Rafale produced each year… And the manufacturer is one of the three main customers of Aresia Solliès-Pont, alongside the specialist in complex weapons systems MBDA and the subsidiary of the Safran aeronautical group, SLS.
Quality
A world where precision and high standards are obviously a prerequisite. “Aresia’s strength is to be in both civil (30% of activity) and defense, and the idea is not to achieve parity but that neither of the two segments suffocates the other” explains Thierry Perardel. The teams therefore combine technical performance, but also productivity, with delivery times of around 24 weeks to Solliès-Pont for screws and 20 weeks for machining. Equipped with a large fleet of machines, digitally controlled or of previous generations, the Var factory and its Savoyard sister have some 56,000 references to their credit, including 3,000 active.
Everything most often starts from a simple steel bar, first cut into pieces called in metallurgical jargon “slots” which then go through “hot stamping”, a strike on the heated piece head, which then gives rise to the screw embryo. Several other steps will be necessary until the finalized part is engraved, so that its traceability is ensured. “We operate in a world where even if a batch of parts is compliant, if the associated documentation does not accompany it, the customer will not take the risk of using it.” explains Matthieu Derulle, in front of the heat treatment oven through which nuts and other screws pass to homogenize their technical characteristics following hot stamping. A laboratory is of course dedicated to the control of all batches, the results of which are kept in the company’s archives.
Which counts in its ranks very specific skills, to deal with sometimes tailor-made tasks, such as deburring, consisting of ridding parts of their imperfections, by hand, with precision tools.
A multitude of products
It must be said that these small elements whose dimensions are measured in millimeters are all essential components for the manufacture of hundreds of different aircraft, in France but also abroad where Aresia is present in some 66 countries. Because the Var site is at the heart of a network of factories which makes it possible to offer, under the Aresia brand, almost all the equipment necessary for the flight of a civil or military aircraft.
Pylons and eye-catchers, these systems installed under the fuselage of the aircraft which allow weapons, or observation tools to be attached, but also auxiliary or even external drop tanks, of which Aresia is a great specialist, wheels , braking systems, carriages and ejectors… The list is long and might grow further, since the group is prospecting for new acquisitions.
The factory has a solid fleet of machines. It is recruiting quality controller profiles but also digital control adjusters. M.-C. B..
