Coriolis celebrates aerospace history, anticipates automotive future, at JEC

Coriolis Composites SAS (Queven, France) held a press event at its stand to celebrate its 15th year at the JEC Europe event. Company president Clementine Hamlyn spoke about the company’s journey from its first, small JEC stand with a prototype robotic arm, to its current size of 120 people, six additional locations throughout the world, and €14 million (US$15.15 million) annual turnover. “We started the company while at technical school” — the Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard — “and have crossed three ‘valleys of death,’” quipped Hamlyn. Those challenges were to find investors willing to fund the enterprise, to find a launch customer to buy a machine and, lastly, to develop from a research laboratory into a commercial entity capable of producing equipment for timely customer delivery. As it turned out no less than Airbus (Toulouse, France) bought that first machine and, today, Coriolis boasts an impressive customer list. In the near term, customers will produce (among other parts), A350 XWB fuselage panels for Airbus, Safran engine nacelles and parts for Bombardier and many more. Hamlyn added that Coriolis also has developed and is selling machine-control software, called CAT Fiber and CAD Fiber, which can work on any robotic machine. “Our next big challenge is the automotive industry,” she concluded, and hinted that some big announcements are on the horizon.