Interview Mr Jourdin, maintenance manager and in charge of the renovation of attractions

What is your role within the Astérix amusement park?

I am the park’s maintenance manager and in charge of the renovation of 42 attractions (mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic and electrical maintenance).

What do your tasks involve?

I have several tasks: team management, planning maintenance operations, implementing maintenance strategies and also planning and preparing winter overhauls, in other words annual maintenance.

In addition, we subcontract some of our train maintenance, which requires keeping a quality monitoring file on these trains, monitoring the planning of work undertaken during the winter and preventive maintenance. We have around 150 various preventive maintenance measures to set up (whether daily, weekly or monthly).

Looking more closely at the modification of the robotics of the new attraction, the Tonnerre 2 Zeus, can you tell me about the initial requirements?

The first version of the Tonnerre de Zeus goes back a little more than 20 years, so it was getting old. We needed to retrofit the wooden track. In parallel, we wanted to replace our trains in order to make them more comfortable for visitors.

We entrusted the mechanical and wooden part to a partner. We just needed an integrator capable of replacing the American company we had been working with in the past. We wanted to work locally and, regarding standards, to use the same types of diagrams, drawings, units of measurements or symbols, which are different to the American ones.

What were the aims of this renovation?

The retrofit was necessary as some of the attraction’s mechanisms were starting to move away from what could be expected of an attraction these days, particularly in terms of comfort. Twenty years ago, we wanted rides which brought a lot of brutal sensations, but today we’re still looking for extreme sensations, but smoother and better calibrated.

How did the various phases and exchanges go with DV GROUP?

At first, we drew up the various phases of the project with theoretical elements: on plans, in a conceptual way. We then developed towards more concrete elements during the reception of the trains and manufacturing the track, which allowed us to adapt to the reality of the project. We had to make compromises and adapt when faced with such a renovation project.

Why did you choose DV GROUP?

I had good feedback on the quality of DV GROUP’s work and collaborating with a multi-brand integrator was a prerequisite for us.

If you had to draw one conclusion from our collaboration, what would it be?

It was an excellent experience. Deadlines were respected and the quality of the installation was great. All the fine tuning part went very well. In spite of external constraints, your experts did everything they could to open the ride within the deadline. Both humanly and professionally, I was very pleased with our collaboration. I will contact you again for our future ride retrofits!

Pluses following the retrofit:

• An increase of around a hundred visitors per hour for the ride
• It has allowed a level of serenity and reliability to be retrieved
• Increased comfort for visitors with ergonomic harnesses

Some key figures:

• The ride carries out around 250 and 300 cycles per day, on average
• 26 seats available on an average of 27 to 28 starts per hour
• Maximum speed reaching 85 Km/h.