GRIF at the heart of Industry

GRIF at the heart of Industry: How GRIF Expertise is shared

Published on 11/08/2026

5 min reading time

The GRIF software suite has been used for more than forty years to carry out reliability, availability, and risk analysis studies. Over the years, the work conducted around GRIF has also been promoted through publications, conferences, university teaching, user training sessions, and exchanges within the GRIF community. These various initiatives help disseminate, beyond the software itself, the methods and best practices associated with dependability to industry professionals, academia, and users of the software suite.

A Presence at International Conferences and Events

Knowledge sharing around GRIF is supported by participation in numerous specialized events held in France and internationally. These include the Lambda Mu Congress, ESREL, ESA RAMS, OTC Asia, Energy Asia, and ADIPEC, which bring together professionals from industry, research, and engineering to discuss reliability, availability, and risk analysis across a wide range of sectors.

This involvement is also reflected through the publication of technical papers, active participation in national (IMdR) and international working groups (ISO/TR 12489, ISO 20815, ISO 14224), and ongoing exchanges on methods, best practices, and industry standards in reliability and risk analysis. The objective is twofold: to contribute to the visibility of TotalEnergies' expertise, a pioneer in this field, while maintaining a high level of excellence through continuous monitoring and engagement with international peers.

Sharing Knowledge with Future Engineers

Knowledge transfer also takes place through teaching activities in academia. Members of the GRIF team teach students at the University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour (UPPA), sharing their expertise and raising awareness of challenges related to reliability, risk analysis, and decision support. Dedicated courses on these topics are included in university programs.

GRIF also welcomes students to the Pau site for educational visits. These visits provide an opportunity to present TotalEnergies’ activities, the role of GRIF in RAM studies, and innovative topics such as data science, simulation, and artificial intelligence applied to industry.

These exchanges help familiarize future engineers with real industrial challenges and introduce them to careers related to reliability and risk analysis.

Maïder Estécahandy has been responsible for the GRIF software suite at TotalEnergies since 2021. After discovering the software during her internship in 2012 and later through her PhD within the Company, she continued her work in the fields of reliability and industrial risk management. A member of TPA, actively involved in ISO/TR 12489 activities, and a lecturer at UPPA for nearly eight years, she plays an active role in strengthening knowledge transfer between academia and industry.

"Sharing these methods
with universities helps
prepare future engineers
for the tools and approaches
they will encounter
in their professional careers
while strengthening
connections between
academia and industry"

At UPPA, I teach subjects related to reliability, availability, maintainability, and industrial risk management. My objective is to provide students with the knowledge and tools needed to understand, analyze, and improve the behavior of complex systems. The courses combine theoretical concepts, modeling methodologies, and hands-on practice using the GRIF software suite. They also draw extensively on industrial feedback, particularly the experience compiled in ISO/TR 12489, to illustrate theoretical concepts through real-world cases.

Knowledge sharing is an integral part of the GRIF project’s mission. The challenges related to reliability, availability, and risk management are relevant across many industrial sectors. Sharing these methods with universities helps prepare future engineers for the tools and approaches they will encounter in their professional careers while strengthening connections between academia and industry. Today, GRIF is used by more than one hundred companies and numerous universities worldwide, helping to extend this expertise far beyond industrial projects.

The connection is very direct. The methods presented in class are the same ones used in industry to design safety barriers, assess the availability of production systems, optimize maintenance strategies, and analyze risks. Behind the models and calculations are real decisions that impact people’s safety, environmental protection, operational performance, and business continuity.

My professional experience allows me to illustrate theoretical concepts through practical examples and lessons learned from major industrial accidents. These analyses show that incidents often result from a combination of technical, organizational, and human factors. They also help demonstrate how reliability and risk analysis methods have evolved over time to improve the safety and performance of industrial systems. Through these examples, I aim to convey the importance of anticipation, rigorous analysis, and feedback as key elements of dependability engineering.

Training Users Worldwide

The GRIF software suite is also supported by dedicated user training programs. These courses enable participants to discover the capabilities of the different modules and master their use for reliability, availability, and risk analysis studies. To meet the needs of an international community, training sessions are delivered to users from various countries and in multiple languages.

Training Courses for RAM and Safety Engineers on the GRIF Software Suite

Building and Sustaining a User Community

Each year, the GRIF Club brings together users from a wide range of industrial sectors to share experiences, present use cases, and discuss developments within the software suite. The 2026 edition welcomed more than 70 participants from over 50 companies operating in industries such as defense, aviation, nuclear energy, and oil and gas.

Technical presentations, collaborative workshops, and roundtable discussions allow participants to compare practices, identify opportunities for improvement, and contribute to the continuous enhancement of the GRIF software suite, a TotalEnergies technology.

This spirit of collaboration now continues throughout the year thanks to Teams channels launched in 2026. Open to trained GRIF users, these channels provide a dedicated space for exchanging experiences, asking questions, connecting with other users, and accessing useful resources.

Over more than forty years of use, GRIF has helped develop recognized expertise in the fields of reliability and risk analysis. By sharing this knowledge with students, users, and industry professionals, GRIF continues to spread this expertise across a wide range of industrial sectors in France and around the world.

GRIF at the heart of Industry: How GRIF Expertise is shared

A Presence at International Conferences and Events

Sharing Knowledge with Future Engineers

"Sharing these methodswith universities helpsprepare future engineersfor the tools and approachesthey will encounterin their professional careerswhile strengtheningconnections betweenacademia and industry"

What are the main topics you teach at UPPA?

Why is it important for GRIF to share its knowledge beyond industrial projects?

How do the concepts taught at UPPA relate to challenges encountered in industry?

How does your experience with GRIF and reliability studies enrich your teaching?

Training Users Worldwide

Building and Sustaining a User Community

"Sharing these methods
with universities helps
prepare future engineers
for the tools and approaches
they will encounter
in their professional careers
while strengthening
connections between
academia and industry"