Industries
Every day, over 1800 engineers work side by side with customers in a wide range of sectors.
Our history
Our story begins in 1988, when Jesus Prieto created Cad Tech Iberica for the purpose of helping industrial companies be more effective and competitive. Having worked in the United States and Germany, Jesús turned his back on the benefits and lifestyle as expatriate of a multinational company in Germany to focus on a mission to introduce IT solutions and services for product and manufacturing engineering departments of industrial companies in Spain.
Without realizing it, Jesús had been preparing for this moment for years. His engineering and MSBA degrees and the experience in a multinational organization, gave him the confidence to start from scratch in Spain, a country that was becoming more prosperous after joining the European Union. He could fill this niche in the market by combining entrepreneurship, technology and a market opportunity.
In September 1988 he founded CADTECH, a reseller of Cadam Inc a Lockheed firm, and from day on the company went in a direction that set itself apart from others. Integrity or keeping commitments, honesty, accountability, dedication, technical excellence, consistency, flexibility, vocation of service and longterm relationships towards customers and employees, helped the company grow rapidly, and it soon became a leading supplier to some of the most important industrial firms in the country.
Jesús built a team of dedicated professionals around him who shared the same values and passion for engineering solutions and for technology that ensured the growth of a solid relationship. The results of this can be seen as evidenced by the fact that Vicente Egea and Joan Font became shareholders having spent a period of time working as employees of the company.
Cadtech enjoyed sustained growth both in terms of turnover as well as geographically. New centers were established across Spain, to tailor services to its customer and sector needs. A decentralized organization allowed to empower decision-making to local managers while keeping centrally common operational and reporting systems.
The company soon found more niche areas to expand into and began to explore other technologies including engineering data communications, systems integration and engineering services. These activities were nurtured within Cadtech with the most promising ones treated as spin-off’s. They were given their own management structure, income statement and finances, and were launched thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of the people within the organization.
CT Ingenieros was born out of this, and it soon became the umbrella for a variety of development activities and engineering projects. After several years working with technical offices around the country, more and more projects were coming in, with an increasing number of clients seeking its services. The company began to outsource engineering work-package projects and underwent a very significant amount of growth in a very short space of time.
First came the automotive sector, one in which Cadtech had a large customer base who already knew the expertise of the company. The aviation industry followed next and experienced incredible growth. The shipping and rail sectors followed over the following years, the company diversified into the fields of oil, gas and renewable energy, and finally into acquiring its own software as well as hardware products.
As CT celebrates its 35 years, maintening the same mission, the company is one of the top suppliers for services and solutions through the engineering life cycle, to the most relevant European OEMS in the aerospace, defense, naval, automotive, industrial plants, etc. with strong presence in France, Germany and Spain, and the largest private owned engineering solutions company based in Spain.
MILESTONES:
1988. IBM Spain helps CADTECH kick off by providing space at the SIMO IT trade show, becoming Agent for Engineering Solutions for Pro CADAM. The company 1989 results exceeded Business Plan estimates.
1990. The company is IBM CATIA Agent, providing technical support and training, and gets involved with engineering services with design and stress calculation activities on their behalf. Personality based hiring starts.
1994. CT INGENIEROS begins operations, under the lead of internal entrepreneur Vicente Egea, to focus exclusively in Engineering, a business quite different than CADTECH´s reselling of software. Soon, self-developed operating procedures embedded in Lotus Notes help to guide and track operations providing a quantum leap in the level of service, setting a trend. The company adheres to Peter Senge´s continuous learning organization culture which helps expand its capacity to create results and sets an entrepreneurial and empowering spirit.
1995. Spreading the concept of “Collaborative Engineering” helps the company to earn customers’ will to outsource, resulting in engineering projects for the automotive and trains sectors, expanding operations to Barcelona, Bilbao and Vitoria adding relevant customers
1996. Die Making industry and other specialized consulting services grow along with product engineering design and stress calculations on behalf of customers, primarily in automotive and trains sectors and their supply chain.
1997. The company embraces the culture of the 7 Habits of the Highly Effective People, that sets the tone of CT´s culture ways for years to come. The first relevant innovation projects start, with funding from Atica initiative and CDTI. The Aeronautical design practice is launched with the help of CASA engineers at CT INGENIEROS’s premises.
1998. The company participates in key structural design projects for the Airbus 318 and 340-600, CASA C295 and the EFA 2000 programs including tool design and NC programming, while growing in other sectors.
1999. Awarded the design of the Empennage for Dornier´s 728, a team of 6 experienced engineers from CASA join at CT premises to help form CT´s first successful engineering work package. The company is partner in TANGO, EU´s largest aerospace research project. The Digital Manufacturing business unit is launched offering simulation and model manufacturing processes with Delmia. Workforce is 150 employees and Franklin Covey’s 7 habits have become an integral part of the company’s horizontal organizational culture.
2000. Airbus´s A380 program consolidates. The company receives “Work Packages” with delegated design authority; four sections of the Belly fairing, and additional WPs in collaboration with Airbus (Tail cone Section 19, HTP torsion ribs, Wing composite ribs, Landing gear doors, etc). Structural design work begins on the HTP for Dassault’s FALCON 7X a WP awarded by EADS/MTAD with delegated design authority including HTP MAIN BOX & TIP, structural definition, internal load distribution, design, test specification, durability damage tolerance, concurrent engineering with manufacturers, input for SRM, full-scale test analytical correlation, MRB support.
2003. The company is known as a place where people matter and where the long-term benefits win over the short-term gains. Staff turnover ratios each year attested to that and the work environment was consistently valued by its employees. The company was named in 2003 by “Great Place to Work” as one of the best companies to work for in Spain.