What is the meaning of this partnership?
Jean Souchal, Chairman of the Management Board of POMA – The meaning of partnership, it is simple: it is that we are both actors of mobility, old actors with obviously a lot of experience and a world in front of us which is full of hope. The idea was really to think regarding this mobility which is completely changing and to think regarding the long term: how we can be even more virtuous, how we finally integrate all the needs with our respective research and development skills to lead to real innovations. Good from an environmental point of view, but beyond the environment, [bonnes sur le plan de] the acceptability of things: the part that concerns noise, the part that concerns the recycling of products, finally everything that today gives meaning to our footprint in mobility.
Michelin is the rubber, the tire. Is there a lot of rubber in a Poma installation?
It’s not just the rubber, and the tire – but Michelin would talk regarding it much better than me! I believe that they are above all also people full of talent and ideas. Indeed we have products of this type, so there are things to do on a ski lift…
Where’s the rubber, the flexible parts on a lift?
There are lots of places: we see it at the top of the pylon, we see it inside the cabins, we see it in our stations… finally there are lots of places where we have these materials composite hoses on which we can completely work and that is what is at stake in this partnership.
Concretely, what are you going to do together?
We will go slowly! We said that we would announce things in June on the concrete. You can imagine that we have already worked together for 4-5 years. We’re going to take it slowly, but we really have this desire of century-old companies on both sides for this long-term marriage – since we are really in the long term.
