• As part of its Industry 4.0 plan, Thales is equipping its sites at Cholet, Brive and Laval in France with several hundred Samsung Enterprise Edition terminals to meet the mobility requirements of production personnel and improve their working conditions. The Group will be the first French company to deploy the system at its facilities.
• Samsung’s fully secure mobile terminals allow Thales operators to work more flexibly and efficiently anywhere on the production line.
• The new terminals are part of the Group's industrial transformation, which involves further digitalisation of its production facilities, the introduction of new tools and methods, and continuous training of production personnel to serve customers in highly demanding markets as effectively as possible. This first pilot project has been successfully rolled out and should be expanded to include other Group sites later.
• Thales was presented with the "Vitrine Industrie du Futur" (Industry Showcase of the Future) award on 6 September 2021 by the French Minister of Industry and the Chairman of the Industry of the Future Alliance (Alliance Industrie du Futur).

Saint-Ouen and La Défense, 7 February 2022 – Samsung Electronics France and Thales, a leader in the aerospace, defence, security, ground transportation and digital identity & security markets, are joining forces to transform the production lines at Thales’s Cholet, Brive and Laval sites in France. Thales is the first French company to use Samsung smartphones and tablets instead of fixed terminals at its facilities. Several hundred devices are planned. The pilot phase was completed successfully at the end of 2021, and other Thales industrial competence centres are expected to adopt the system later.

Thales operators are now equipped with Samsung Galaxy Enterprise Edition terminals with DeX mode functionality (Galaxy S20, Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Tab Active3). Fully compliant with Thales’s stringent security and cybersecurity requirements, the new terminals will enable the Group to meet the growing mobility requirements of its production teams.

Supporting Thales’s industrial transformation

As part of its Smart Mobility for Industry initiative, Thales embarked on the transformation of its industrial capabilities and information systems a year ago, in part to support the growing mobility needs of staff at the Group’s industrial competence centres.

More than 1,600 people work at Thales's flagship facility in Cholet, near Nantes in western France, producing civil and military radios, cybersecurity solutions and ground stations for satellite communications networks. Higher production rates have increased employees' reliance on digital solutions to save time and optimise data quality.

Samsung DeX: pushing back the limits of mobility

Thales has chosen Samsung terminals capable of operating in DeX mode to optimise productivity and performance at its sites. DeX mode allows the operating environment of the Samsung Galaxy smartphone or tablet to be displayed on an external monitor using an HDMi/USB-C cable, or even wirelessly when the monitors incorporate Miracast technology. When used in combination with a keyboard and mouse, the Samsung terminals offer users an operating environment similar to that of a conventional computer, without the need for an additional PC. DeX mode was a key factor in Thales’s decision to partner with Samsung to transform the workstations of radio production line operators and logistics teams wherever mobility delivers a significant advantage. Thanks to DeX, a single Galaxy terminal can function as a smartphone, tablet and computer. In addition, rather than simply mirroring the smartphone screen on the monitor, the telephone’s built-in software and optimised user interface provide a user experience that is similar to that of a PC.

Security, administration and customisation

The terminals in the Samsung Enterprise Edition range will also provide Thales’s teams with the full spectrum of mobile fleet security, administration and customisation possibilities of Knox Suite, offering information systems departments a made-to-measure, ready-to-use way of securing and harmonising their equipment fleets.

Enterprise Edition terminals also come with a five-year software update and patch download agreement¹, ensuring optimum security throughout the product lifecycle.

Knox Configure makes it easy for IT teams to configure large mobile device fleets remotely. At the same time, it allows them to customise terminals on an individual basis, change interface colours to match corporate brand standards, select applications, define employee access rights and restrictions, and update all configurations. KNOX E-FOTA, meanwhile, lets IT teams manage operating system versions across the equipment fleet to ensure that the correct version is installed at the right time on each device.

Cholet: the industry showcase of the future

As production rates have risen in some of the Group’s sectors, notably defence and security, Thales has embarked on an initiative to transform its industrial capabilities, based on four key pillars: automation of the most repetitive manufacturing tasks; a simplified information systems interface for repair activities; resource planning and visualisation; and implementation of mobility solutions for higher operator efficiency. Industrial activities at Cholet, Thales’s flagship site for Industry 4.0, have been completely re-invented thanks to the “Industry of the Future” project, which combines a technological component (cobotics, augmented reality, data-driven operations, 3D printing, etc.) and a management component (shop-floor 4.0 lab, activity management cockpit, etc.). This transformation has enabled the Cholet site to reduce repetitive, low added-value tasks, boost supply chain responsiveness by involving suppliers at an earlier stage, speed up production engineering processes and promote versatility to help attract new talent.

“We are proud to support Thales in its industrial digitalisation process and to help the Group to improve the productivity of its manufacturing lines while meeting stringent requirements in terms of agility, security, administration and customisation. Innovative, high-added-value services like Samsung DeX further boost the potential of the Samsung Enterprise Edition ecosystem of terminals. The solution will provide Thales teams with greater mobility and offers a simple way to replace the computers previously used by operators, enabling them to use their Samsung smartphones interchangeably to work on the production lines and in an office setting." Frédéric Fauchere, Director, IM B2B Division, Samsung Electronics France.

“In combination with our data-centric strategy, the rollout of Samsung smartphones and tablets will allow operators to focus on high added-value tasks while improving their quality of life at work. Based on the success of this approach at our pilot sites, we are planning to expand the scope of this project to improve the competitive performance of all of Thales’s competence centres and boost the attractiveness of our activities.” Philippe Chamoret, VP Industry & Services, Thales.

Click on the link to find this press release in the Samsung Electronics France online newsroom:

https://news.samsung.com/fr/samsung-thales

 

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI, foundry and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com.

About Thales:

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies, investing in digital and “deep tech” innovations – connectivity, big data, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and quantum computing – to build a confident future crucial for the development of our societies. The Group provides its customers – businesses, organisations and governments – in the defence, aeronautics, space, transport, and digital identity and security domains with solutions, services and products that help them fulfil their critical role, consideration for the individual being the driving force behind all decisions.

Thales has 81,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2020 the Group generated sales of €17 billion.

 

¹5 years for Galaxy S21, Note20, XCover 5, Tab active3; 4 years for other products. Monthly over 3 years, quarterly in the final year (except for the A40 and Tab Active Pro – quarterly updates over 4 years).

 

Samsung Electronics France :
​Press line
​Tél. : 01.56.03.12.29
​samsungpresse-france@bm.com