The engineering and technology group SENER has organised the ninth edition of FGROUP, which brings together the main users of SENER’s shipbuilding and design system, FORAN.
This event was held on 17-18 November at the SENER offices in Tres Cantos, Madrid, Spain. With a great turnout by the biggest companies using FORAN worldwide, this biennial meeting grows in stature with every edition.
The FGROUP is a meeting between SENER and important companies from across the world who use FORAN, whether for their size or their projects, in both the military and commercial sectors. It aims to serve as an exchange of ideas and experiences, in order to help define FORAN’s short- and mid-term development strategy.
The meeting format changed for this year’s edition, which welcomed attendees from seven countries, in order to provide a more open and participatory environment.
After giving a presentation on the FORAN vision over the period 2018–2025, which sparked a debate on the evolution of technology and the marine industry in the context of a rapidly changing world, SENER presented several contemporary topics throughout the sessions. These topics currently define the FORAN strategy such as ship series management, new developments in collaborative engineering, security, change and access control, and a new vision in the integration with Project Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools, without forgetting the considerable change that FORAN is enacting both in
its own definition such as a new marine functionality, and the constant optimisation of system performance.
Finally, SENER also presented the development plan, which is envisaged for the coming
years. The companies who attended were given the opportunity to put forward their own suggestions, which are vitally important for SENER from both a strategic point of view and in terms of specific FORAN developments. The opinion of FORAN users has always been a key factor when it comes to deciding its strategy, and SENER is therefore highly appreciative of the participation of clients in the FGROUP.