Partnership engineering training (FIP) can be undertaken with an apprenticeship contract (students aged under 30) or on the continuing education track (age over 30). Engineers are awarded the INSA Strasbourg diploma, specialization electrical engineering in partnership with ITTI Alsace (Institute of industrial engineering techniques Alsace). The CFAI Alsace (industrial apprentices’ training center) is responsible for running and administering the

Aims

To train hands-on engineers who are versatile and directly operational in the field of electrical engineering. The course prepares young engineers to enter either industry or the construction sector.

An engineer who qualifies through an electrical engineering sandwich course (FIP GE) will be capable of managing all the technical, organizational, economic and human aspects of projects in the main areas of electrical engineering: electrotechnics, electronics, industrial data processing, energy (production, distribution, uses), controls and systems architecture. He or she will also be capable of interacting with experts from other disciplines.

He or she will have in-depth knowledge and skills in the scientific and technical areas of the specialization. The course also enables students to apply their creativity and work across disciplines, in particular through cross-disciplinary projects and practical exercises throughout the training.

Training

It covers:

  • the design and dimensioning of technical solutions in the electrical engineering field.
  • the technical, financial and managerial study, dimensioning and monitoring of projects relating to industrial energy distribution networks and energy production.
  • the study, design and development of complex systems or systems relating to a new problem, the industrialization of new products in the electrical engineering field.
  • the project engineer role.

The course runs over 3 years and includes academic training, mainly provided by INSA Strasbourg and on-the-job training. The course alternates periods of two weeks in a company with 2 weeks at the school.

Academic training

The academic side of the course is common to sandwich course students (apprentices) and continuing education students and is provided by INSA Strasbourg. It consists of 1,800 hours of classes (including 1,465 over 32 weeks spread over a period of two years, in blocks of two weeks at a time) plus 600 hours spent on a final course project (PFE) relating to the student’s in-company activities, in the final year.

A large part of the academic training at INSA is project-based.

Examples of projects can be found on the electrical engineering and electrical engineering sandwich course blogs.

Digital engineering tools are systematically used, in both scientific and technical subjects: Autocad Electrical, Autocad-Revit, Cane co BT, Etap, Finite Element Method Magnetics (FEMM), JAVA, Labview, Matlab-Simulink, Mechanical Concept Designer (MCD), MPLAB-X, PROTEUS, PSIM, SIMIT, TIA PORTAL, WAGO ETS / DALI.

The teaching covers three areas:

Professional sciences and technology

The main professional areas covered are:

  • electrotechnics: electrical networks, industrial networks, energy, energy production, renewable energies, energy conversion, electrical machines.
  • industrial data processing, motion control, smart buildings: axis control, automatic controls, power electronics, field buses, communication networks, supervision, PLC networks.
  • the factory of the future, BIM, collaborative working: low-level data processing, computer security, digital factory and buildings, connected sensor networks, internet of things, innovation, remote collaborative working.
  • project management and management: business management, project management, team management, financial project management, intellectual property, innovation management.

Cross-disciplinary skills

The training includes teaching of human and social sciences as well as inter-disciplinary and inter-specialization projects: foreign languages, project management, labor law, communication, financial and accounting management, business management, professional uses of digital technologies.

General sciences and technology

The scientific part accounts for about 25% of the contact time: mathematics, applied physics, numerical calculus, scientific computation, modeling. These subjects are dealt with in the traditional way, lectures, seminars, practicals), but also – accounting for about 50% of the time – using digital simulation and calculation tools.

On-the-job training

Periods of on-the-job training totaling approximately 3000 hours focus on a specific objective for each year:

  • integration and knowledge of the company and its environment in Year 1
  • preparing to lead technical projects in Year 2
  • practical application of knowledge acquired through a complex project (final course project) which the student must conduct autonomously during the 2nd semester of Year 3

During these periods, which take place under the supervision of an engineer in the company acting as a tutor, different projects and assignments are carried out. The technical complexity and managerial dimension gradually increase to culminate, in the final course project, in a project of the type that might be entrusted to a junior engineer.

Final course project (PFE)

The final course project (PFE) places the student in a situation of complete responsibility to carry out a task entrusted to him or her by the host company. This must be a company-based project that pulls together the two aspects of the sandwich course: academic training and on-the-job training. The minimum duration of this project is 600 hours.

This project can be one of two kinds:

  • either a targeted study on a clearly identified subject. The study will represent a very large portion of the student’s work time. Of course, there will still be other related or ad hoc tasks to carry out in the company. These should not appear in the PFE report.
  • or the exercising of duties equivalent to those of an engineer in the host company. In this case, the PFE can be done as two separate projects, which must represent a large part of the total working time. The PFE report should present and analyze the various activities that are part of the position and demonstrate the breadth of the work carried out.

Project-based cross-disciplinary training

During the periods of academic training at INSA Strasbourg, three major projects are conducted in groups

Students have access to all the equipment available on the platforms, including three computer rooms with 48 terminals equipped with all the software they need.

“Interdisciplinary Design Project” in Year 1

Objective: to carry out an inter-specialization design project involving students in from the electrical engineering, mechatronics and mechanical engineering specializations covering problems connected to the three areas.

As well as applying their technical and scientific knowledge, the students learn how to work and communicate with students in another specialization.

This project is supervised by an English teacher and three members of the teaching staff from the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and mechatronics departments.

25% of the training time is in English.

Internet of Things and Connected Objects” project in Year 2

Objective: to deepen and broaden the students’ scientific and technical knowledge and skills by working on a topical subject. The project involves studying, designing, simulating and producing a network of connected objects. This may be a network of sensors or networks of PLCs connected to actuators.

Everything that can be connected in industry falls within this theme.

This project deals with hardware and low and high-level software, from the component through to the computer data.

25% of the training time is in English.

Innovation and research” project in Year 3

This project covers 82 hours, and requires a lot of individual or group work. It is supervised by an English teacher, the head of the FIP GE department (i.e. a teacher from the specialization) and 5 other teachers specialized in the subject in question.

Objectives: to provide an answer to a technological innovation or R&D problem. This problem will necessarily be an inter-disciplinary issue, and must include at least three different disciplines, for example: electrotechnics + power electronics + data processing or digital electronics + data processing + actuators, etc.

Depending on the project, the students will work either in one of the INSA Strasbourg research laboratories or in the project rooms with industrial equipment, not initially dedicated to practical classes. Previous projects have included: development of a 1000V/400A braking chopper for the Strasbourg tram controlled by a microcontroller; development of a 3D printer gun using the extrusion principle. This process applied to guns is an innovation – it is being developed at the LGECO research laboratory with students on the electrical engineering and plastics engineering courses; measurement and control of a building’s energy consumption, with the development of a measurement interface, setting up of a web server and remote control using an Android tablet.

30 % of the training time is in English.

Company visits

Three or four visits to companies are organized in Year 2. The aim is enable the students to discover, through the apprentice working there, the various organizations and strategies that exist in companies. Half a day will be devoted to each company with an apprentice. The visit is organized and led by the apprentice and will consist of four parts:

  • general presentation of the company
  • guided tour
  • technical presentation of its activities
  • evaluation of the half-day visit by the participants

International

The aim is to give students the chance to acquaint themselves with a different working environment and culture and to give them the responsibility for organizing their own trip. This period abroad counts as part of the on-the-job training.

Openings

The main sectors of activity concerned are:

  • transport industry (aeronautics, automotive, railways, etc.)
  • general industry, consumer goods
  • production, management and energy transformation
  • transport and distribution of electricity
  • electrical and industrial equipment
  • public and private research and development centers

Examples of graduate jobs:

  • R&D engineer
  • design office and design engineer
  • project manager
  • methods and test engineer
  • process improvement engineer
  • quality engineer
  • contract manager and sales engineer

Contact

Damien Flieller, head of the specialization

Françoise Bischoff, secretary of the specialization

This course is organized in partnership with ITII Alsace :

Micaele Gelhausen, +33 (0)3 89 46 89 92 – 06 88 63 89 10