Document Template - cordis.europa.eu€¦ · Web viewFinal versions should be 1.0 for first versions, and 1.1, 1.2 for further updates if required. CONTENTS. 1. Introduction 5. 2

Project number: 512841

Knowledge-Based Intelligent Design Assistant

Final Report

Consortium Partners:ASSANAKIS

BINKE

CTOOLS

PRAESENTIS

RAIR

TECASA

THIELE

LABEIN

ATB

I2S

Gr

D

UK

E

Gr

E

D

E

D

Gr

SME Partner

SME Partner

SME Partner

SME Partner

SME Partner

SME Partner

SME Partner

RTD Performer

RTD Performer

RTD Performer

Document Ref.: ASSIST/WP1/D1.2 Version: 1.0Date: 14/11/2006Distribution: Internal, CEC

This document is a property of the ASSIST consortium. You may not copy or use it in part without written permission.

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DOCUMENT CHANGE LOG

Change Control ProceduresEach change or set of changes made to this document will result in an increment to the version number of the document. Minor changes will increment the decimal point of the version number. The change log will record this process and will identify for each version number of the document any modification(s), which caused the version number to be raised.

Version Date Reason for Change

0.1 21/07/2006 Draft document. Structure of the Final Report

0.2 01/09/2006 Partners’ inputs included0.3 19/09/2006 Final draft

0.4 31/10/2006 Partner input

0.5 02/11/2006 Partner input

1.0 14/11/2006 Final version 1.0

Use incremental, sequential version numbers (eg. 0.1, 0.2, ..). Final versions should be 1.0 for first versions, and 1.1, 1.2 for further updates if required.

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CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................ 5

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (PUBLISHABLE)..............................................................................................6

2.1 CONTRACTORS............................................................................................................................................ 62.2 CO-ORDINATOR CONTACT DETAILS:............................................................................................................. 72.3 WORK PERFORMED...................................................................................................................................... 72.4 RESULTS ACHIEVED..................................................................................................................................... 72.5 END RESULTS.............................................................................................................................................. 72.6 INNOVATION EXPECTED............................................................................................................................... 72.7 INTENTIONS FOR USE AND IMPACT............................................................................................................... 8

3. PUBLISHABLE FINAL ACTIVITY REPORT............................................................................................9

3.1 PROJECT EXECUTION................................................................................................................................... 93.1.1 Project Objectives.............................................................................................................................. 9

3.1.1.1 Business Objectives.......................................................................................................................................93.1.1.2 Scientific and Technical Objectives...............................................................................................................93.1.1.3 Societal and Policy Objectives / Targets......................................................................................................10

3.1.2 Contractors...................................................................................................................................... 113.1.3 Co-ordinator contact details:........................................................................................................... 113.1.4 Work performed............................................................................................................................... 113.1.5 Results achieved............................................................................................................................... 123.1.6 Main Exploitable end results............................................................................................................123.1.7 Relation to State of the art................................................................................................................12

3.2 DISSEMINATION AND USE.......................................................................................................................... 183.2.1 Overview of each exploitable result..................................................................................................183.2.2 ASSIST System................................................................................................................................. 183.2.3 ASSIST Methodology........................................................................................................................ 183.2.4 Exploitation plans............................................................................................................................ 193.2.5 Dissemination of knowledge.............................................................................................................19

4. FINAL PLAN FOR USING AND DISSEMINATING THE KNOWLEDGE............................................20

4.1 EXPLOITABLE KNOWLEDGE AND IT’S USE..................................................................................................204.1.1 Overview of each exploitable result..................................................................................................204.1.2 Exploitation plans............................................................................................................................ 214.1.3 Internal exploitation......................................................................................................................... 214.1.4 External exploitation........................................................................................................................ 234.1.5 The Strategic Impact........................................................................................................................ 234.1.6 The Business Risks........................................................................................................................... 234.1.7 ROI- Exploitation of ASSIST as a product........................................................................................23

4.2 DISSEMINATION OF KNOWLEDGE...............................................................................................................254.2.1 Overview of dissemination................................................................................................................254.2.2 Description of Dissemination Actions...............................................................................................26

4.2.2.1 The journals, trade magazines targeted for publication of papers and articles:..............................................264.2.2.2 Specific Conferences / Exhibitions to be targeted:........................................................................................26

4.2.3 Project Web Site............................................................................................................................... 264.2.4 Internal Dissemination..................................................................................................................... 264.2.5 European Commission Dissemination Actions..................................................................................274.2.6 Trade Associations........................................................................................................................... 274.2.7 User Interest Groups........................................................................................................................ 27

4.3 PUBLISHABLE RESULTS.............................................................................................................................. 274.3.1 ASSIST System................................................................................................................................. 274.3.2 ASSIST Methodology........................................................................................................................ 28

5. FINAL MANAGEMENT REPORT............................................................................................................ 31

5.1 CONSORTIUM MANAGEMENT TASKS..........................................................................................................315.2 CONTRACTORS.......................................................................................................................................... 335.3 PROJECT TIMETABLE AND STATUS.............................................................................................................335.4 CO-ORDINATION ACTIVITIES...................................................................................................................... 335.5 JUSTIFICATION OF MAJOR COST ITEMS AND RESOURCES...............................................................................34

5.5.1 Work performed by each contractor during reporting period............................................................34

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5.5.2 Major Cost items.............................................................................................................................. 365.5.3 Budget.............................................................................................................................................. 375.5.4 Budgeted person-months.................................................................................................................. 385.5.5 Major budget deviations................................................................................................................... 39

5.6 SUMMARY FINANCIAL REPORT................................................................................................................... 40

6. FINAL REPORT ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE COMMUNITY’S CONTRIBUTION.................46

7. FINAL SCIENCE AND SOCIETY REPORTING QUESTIONNAIRE.....................................................47

8. FINAL REPORTING QUESTIONNAIRE ON WORKFORCE STATISTICS.........................................47

9. FINAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC REPORTING QUESTIONNAIRE.............................................................47

10. SUPPLEMENTARY FINAL REPORTS.....................................................................................................47

11. Residual obligations....................................................................................................................................... 47

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1. IntroductionThis document is deliverable D1.2 of the project ASSIST - Knowledge-Based Intelligent Design Assistant.

The ASSIST project is aimed at achieving a breakthrough in the use of advanced knowledge management techniques in real industrial practice, within an innovative ICT solution affordable to SMEs. The main business aim is to produce a leap forward in industrial design performance in SMEs.

This document is the result of task T1.2 in Work Package WP1. The objectives of this work package are to plan, monitor, co-ordinate the project, control the finances, and report on the project. This document covers the whole duration of the project.

This document consists of:

Chapter 1 Introduction – which describes the purposes of this document, the position of this document with respect to the whole project, and provides a brief overview of the contents of the document.

Chapter 2 Publishable executive summary

Chapter 3 Publishable final activity report

Chapter 4 Final Plan for using and disseminating the knowledge

Chapter 5 Final management report

Chapter 6 Final report on the distribution of the Community’s contribution

Chapter 7 Final science and society reporting questionnaire

Chapter 8 Final reporting questionnaire on workforce statistics

Chapter 9 Final socio-economic questionnaire

Chapter 10 Supplementary final reports

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2. Executive Summary (Publishable)The ASSIST project was aimed at achieving a breakthrough in the use of advanced knowledge management techniques in real industrial practice, within an innovative ICT solution affordable to SMEs. The main business aim was to produce a leap forward in industrial design performance in SMEs.

Knowledge useful to design engineers comes in many forms and useful knowledge can come from many sources inside and outside the SME. A common need amongst SMEs is to be able to acquire and process this knowledge so that a greater, richer, centralised source of knowledge and information is available to produce better designs, faster, with greater innovation, and with less re-inventing of the wheel. The most important needs of SMEs with regard to design are to get good products to the marketplace quicker, and to reduce costs related to design.

ASSIST is a unique knowledge management approach meeting these needs. Knowledge is key to this, as the right knowledge and ideas in a well-structured manner will help designers to improve their design performance. With the wide diversity of knowledge to be acquired, managed and processed, this requires research into the latest thinking in terms of semantic and context sensitive knowledge. It requires the investigation into knowledge management systems that can understand the knowledge and the environment it comes from.

ASSIST developed an approach to be able to understand the semantics of the knowledge that it acquires to be able to effectively manage it for the designers. This enables ASSIST to effectively process context-specific knowledge, which exists in the industrial design domain, and to be able to process it into useful forms and present it to designers in a structured manner. The results are be the ASSIST methodology and prototype ASSIST system, implemented in 7 demonstrators.

2.1 Contractors

Partic. Role

Partic.Type

Partic. no.

Participant name Participant short name Country

CR SMEP 1 ASSANAKIS A&K Co ASSANAKIS Gr

CR SMEP 2 NORBERT BINKE UND PARTNER BINKE D

CR SMEP 3 CHARLES ROBINSON (CUTTING TOOLS)

CTOOLS UK

CR SMEP 4 PRAESENTIS, S.L. PRAESENTIS E

CR SMEP 5 RODOS AIR LTD RAIR Gr

CR SMEP 6 TECNICAS DE CALENTAMIENTO, S.L TECASA E

CR SMEP 7 THIELE SPEZIAL KAROSSERIEBAU GmbH

THIELE D

CO RTD 8 FUNDACIÓN LABEIN LABEIN E

CR RTD 9 INSTITUT FÜR ANGEWANDTE SYSTEMTECHNIK BREMEN GmbH

ATB D

CR RTD 10 INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEMS SA

I2S Gr

CO = Coordinator

CR = Contractor

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2.2 Co-ordinator contact details:

Coordinator name: Dr Mikel SORLI

Coordinator organisation name: LABEIN

Coordinator email: [email protected]

Coordinator fax: +34- 94-6073349

2.3 Work performed

The project Quality Plan was generated for the control and communication for the project. The ASSIST project web site has been set-up (http://www.labein.es/assist), and the project presentation brochure has been produced. The SME industrial requirements have been collected and analysed. A requirements matrix has been drawn up and was be used to validate the results. The ASSIST concept has been developed and the ASSIST system structure has been detailed. The first version of the ASSIST system design was completed, and an early prototype was produced, which was evaluated by the SME users.

The final version of the ASSIST system design was completed containing all the designs and specifications for each part of the ASSIST system and modules. In parallel the ASSIST methodology was finalised and validated. The ASSIST system was completed and delivered to all partners. After evaluation and testing, a second version was also delivered to all partners having been improved. Demonstrator scenarios were developed and demonstrators set up in each of the Users’ sites. Demonstrations were carried out for the User Interest Groups. The ASSIST results were fully assessed by the Users, and recommendations were provided by the Users for future enhancements.

2.4 Results achieved

The following results have been achieved:

D1.2 Quality Plan

D2.1 Internet homepage - http://www.labein.es/assist

D3.1 Requirements analysis

D4.1 ASSIST system structure

D2.2 Plan for using and disseminating knowledge

D5.1 System design

D5.2 Early prototype tools

D4.2 ASSIST Methodology

D5.3 ASSIST System

D6.1 Demonstrators

D6.1 Assessment report

2.5 End results

The results of the project are:

ASSIST methods, in the form of a Methodology and hypertext guidance system.

The ASSIST software system to support the design process in SMEs.

2.6 Innovation expected

Currently, there is no advanced KM approach solution like the ASSIST Results for SMEs.

The project developed a major new technology for industrial SMEs in the development of new cognitive methods for the management and best use of knowledge that is available to design engineers (if only they could get at it). The project is also novel, as it seeks to encourage participation in the design process for all people who are involved with the product lifecycle. It also encourages team working between people from

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different sites (and working off-site), and between organisations, customers and suppliers. All this knowledge, handled properly will radically improve the design performance of industrial SMEs.

Specific innovations are:

Developing an advanced methodology and Knowledge Management system for radically improving Design in SMEs based on semantic solutions and context-sensitive approaches to the collection, management and processing of knowledge for Design.

A novel approach for collaboration on Design within extended SMEs. ASSIST focuses on technologies, engineering methodologies, novel tools, methods and work environments that facilitate collaboration, creativity, resource use efficiency through holistic approaches to product Design in SMEs.

The project investigated collection and re-use of knowledge needed for Design along all product value creation stages, from conception, design, configuration, to production, delivery maintenance, and disposal.

Interactive solution to be able to take raw knowledge, and develop them (by collective working throughout the extended enterprise), into product innovations.

Development of diverse knowledge from multiple sources into workable innovative designs (for industrial products).

2.7 Intentions for use and impact

The project results apply to a huge number of manufacturing SMEs in many sectors. The most applicable industrial sectors are those which need to provide continual innovations in their products, such as automotive, engineering, and manufacturing engineering sectors.

The SMEs will benefit from the results by increased competitiveness. Using the project results, manufacturing companies will be able to bring innovations to the marketplace faster. By using the extended enterprise to get more people involved in the design of innovative products, it is expected that the products will be better than before.

All these benefits will result in companies being more competitive, and customer oriented. The objectives of the project are focused on business benefits to improve the competitive performance of manufacturing or engineering companies.

Furthermore, the SMEs will benefit from the results financially by the joint venture, and selling the results to other SMEs.

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3. Publishable Final Activity Report

3.1 Project Execution

3.1.1 Project ObjectivesThe ASSIST project was aimed at achieving a breakthrough in the use of advanced knowledge management techniques in real industrial practice, within an innovative ICT solution affordable to SMEs. The main business aim is to produce a leap forward in industrial design performance in SMEs.

Knowledge useful to design engineers comes in many forms and useful knowledge can come from many sources inside and outside the SME. A common need amongst SMEs is to be able to acquire and process this knowledge so that a greater, richer, centralised source of knowledge and information is available to produce better designs, faster, with greater innovation, and with less re-inventing of the wheel. The most important needs of SMEs with regard to design are to get good products to the marketplace quicker, and to reduce costs related to design.

ASSIST is a unique knowledge management approach meeting these needs. Knowledge is key to this, as the right knowledge and ideas in a well-structured manner will help designers to improve their design performance. With the wide diversity of knowledge to be acquired, managed and processed, this requires research into the latest thinking in terms of semantic and context sensitive knowledge. It requires the investigation into knowledge management systems that can understand the knowledge and the environment it comes from.

ASSIST developed an approach to be able to understand the semantics of the knowledge that it acquires to be able to effectively manage it for the designers. This enables ASSIST to effectively process context-specific knowledge, which exists in the industrial design domain, and to be able to process it into useful forms and present it to designers in a structured manner. The results are the ASSIST methodology and prototype ASSIST system, implemented in 7 demonstrators.

3.1.1.1 Business ObjectivesThe project partners expect that the following objectives will be achieved within two years from the application of the project results:

1) Reduce the time to market for new products by at least 15 %.

2) Reduce the cost of the design projects by at least 15 %.

3) Improve the quality of the designs, generate solutions faster, and offer more innovative solutions and/or products. The target is 10% increase in sales.

4) Increase the number of innovative ideas / suggestions on products from employees, customers and suppliers by at least 35%. Shorten the time needed for collecting and implementation of these ideas by 50%.

5) Improve the design performance in terms of “getting it right first time”. To reduce the amount of rework by 25%.

6) Improve the environmental aspects of product design by 25%. Integrating innovative ideas in new designs will help to use environmental friendly elements. Old products used to employ more environmental friendly materials that previously were replaced due to their increasing costs, (i.e.: wood) by cheaper but more damaging ones (i.e.: plastics). Use of old ideas will help to recover natural materials. Measure: Percentage of components able to recycle, re-use or recover. (This is also part of need number 3 (see 4.1.2) in satisfying the wider need to make better products)

3.1.1.2 Scientific and Technical ObjectivesOur aim for knowledge management is to capture knowledge as part of the design process, so that a system, which captures this knowledge can be updated continuously as new knowledge is entered into the system. To achieve this, ASSIST provides designers appropriate tools to capture and structure design

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knowledge as this would encourage them to accomplish these tasks while designing and minimise the overhead in capturing this knowledge.

Our aim is also to make best use of the extended knowledge resource of SMEs, by involving customers, shop-floor employees, field engineers, and suppliers (where appropriate), in the design process. This is managed via the ASSIST system. The most challenging objective is to implement KM support for the innovative solution reuse in the new designs.

Detailed technical objectives are:

o To develop an intelligent, web-based software system to support authoring and maintenance of a knowledge base with accumulated knowledge related to product design (requirements, conceptual designs, detailed designs, drawings, usage reports, problem situations, etc.) as well as collaboration and teamwork between design teams and all people who come into contact with the products. For a detailed description of the ASSIST system, please see section 7.

o To develop an intelligent, context-sensitive user interface, which is personalised taking into account user specific needs.

o To develop KM tools for searching and selection (reasoning) of information, problems, and knowledge important for design.

o To develop the functionalities (tools) for the very quick construction, refinement, and discarding of iterations in rapid succession during the early phases of designs, to be well suited to ill-structured problem solving as well so as participants can produce, evaluate, modify, refine and replace design knowledge rapidly.

o To develop the predefined output pattern for the requirements specification to be used as the basis for the next phase of the design process. It should be developed in a way to take into account all aspects of the later design phases and to support integrated design approach (See ASSIST system description). The connectivity with external programmes, documentation models and costing models should be supported as well.

o To demonstrate the use of ICT as an easy, practical and cost-effective means of creating a virtual product development think-tank across the extended enterprise (to collect ideas), and enhance real business benefits.

o To make use of old drawings, to be able to regenerate them. This will reduce the need of doing new drawings for specific components, for maintenance purposes, etc. Measure: mean time of the designers for every new design.

o To involve Trade Associations from the SME business sectors to provide SMEs for collecting a wider set of requirements, and for assisting with validating the results. The Trade Associations provided a wide forum for dissemination, and for marketing the results.

o To validate the results to ensure that the requirements and needs of the SME proposers (and the wider SME community) have been met.

o To evaluate the potential business offering that the Methodology and ASSIST prototype system bring, using the Trade Associations.

3.1.1.3 Societal and Policy Objectives / TargetsSome clear objectives in the societal and policy arena are reached as outcome of the present project:

It is intended to solve “trust and confidence” problems associated with the use of technologies, by making the “ASSIST” system easy to use, secure, dependable, and to protect intellectual property.

Waste reduction will be an output from the improvement of design phases so reducing the need of physical trials with prototypes.

The results of the project enable sustainable growth and competitiveness for industrial SMEs by facilitating eWorking practices to improve designs and enable more efficient design processes.

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“ASSIST” enables the knowledge resources across the SMEs to be harnessed and provided to the designers. This enables knowledge sharing across the SME. It also provides the ability for SMEs to share and swap knowledge where there is clear mutual advantage.

Environmental friendly products will be a must in the requirements arising from the use of the “ASSIST” system.

ASSIST is an easy to use system that strengthens social cohesion by providing a simple to use intelligent system for learning and team working.

3.1.2 Contractors

Partic. Role

Partic.Type

Partic. no.

Participant name Participant short name Country

CR SMEP 1 ASSANAKIS A&K Co ASSANAKIS Gr

CR SMEP 2 NORBERT BINKE UND PARTNER BINKE D

CR SMEP 3 CHARLES ROBINSON (CUTTING TOOLS)

CTOOLS UK

CR SMEP 4 PRAESENTIS, S.L. PRAESENTIS E

CR SMEP 5 RODOS AIR LTD RAIR Gr

CR SMEP 6 TECNICAS DE CALENTAMIENTO, S.L TECASA E

CR SMEP 7 THIELE SPEZIAL KAROSSERIEBAU GmbH

THIELE D

CO RTD 8 FUNDACIÓN LABEIN LABEIN E

CR RTD 9 INSTITUT FÜR ANGEWANDTE SYSTEMTECHNIK BREMEN GmbH

ATB D

CR RTD 10 INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEMS SA

I2S Gr

CO = Coordinator

CR = Contractor

3.1.3 Co-ordinator contact details:Coordinator name: Dr Mikel SORLI

Coordinator organisation name: LABEIN

Coordinator email: [email protected]

Coordinator fax: +34- 94-6073349

3.1.4 Work performedThe project Quality Plan has been generated for the control and communication for the project. The ASSIST project web site has been set-up and is now “live”, and the project presentation brochure has been produced. The first version of the plan for using and disseminating knowledge has been issued. The SME industrial requirements have been collected and analysed. A requirements matrix has been drawn up and was used to validate the results. The ASSIST concept has been developed and the ASSIST system structure has been detailed. Some work has been done on the ASSIST methodology. The first version of the ASSIST system design has been completed, and an early prototype has been produced, which is being evaluated by the SME users.document.doc 11

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The first version of the ASSIST system design was completed, and an early prototype produced, which was subsequently evaluated by the SME users. The final version of the ASSIST system design was completed containing all the designs and specifications for each part of the ASSIST system and modules. In parallel the ASSIST methodology was finalised and validated. The ASSIST system was completed and delivered to all partners. After evaluation and testing, a second version was also delivered to all partners having been improved. Demonstrator scenarios were developed and demonstrators set up in each of the Users’ sites. Demonstrations were carried out for the User Interest Groups. The ASSIST results were filly assessed by the Users, and recommendations were provided by the Users for future enhancements.

3.1.5 Results achievedThe following results have been achieved:

D1.2 Quality Plan

D2.1 Internet homepage - http://www.labein.es/assist

D3.1 Requirements analysis

D4.1 ASSIST system structure

D2.2 Plan for using and disseminating knowledge

D5.1 System design

D5.2 Early prototype tools


D5.3 ASSIST System

D6.1 Demonstrators

D6.1 Assessment report

3.1.6 Main Exploitable end resultsThe main exploitable results of the project are:

ASSIST methods, in the form of a Methodology and hypertext guidance system.

The ASSIST software system to support the design process in SMEs.

3.1.7 Relation to State of the artProduct Design is an area with a lot of potential for knowledge management (KM) [Beitz et al. 1997]. Product design knowledge is bound to people and distributed across the whole company. This know-how represents an essential resource for successful competition in the market and should therefore be preserved and used as efficiently as possible. A way of reaching this goal exists in the use of knowledge based systems which contain accumulated product knowledge on different aspects during the product life cycle (e.g. design, manufacturing, usage, recycling). However, although knowledge management (KM) is currently a buzzword, it is not a big topic in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

Many SME’s lack the financial capacity either to invest in the latest technology as it reaches the market or to hire specialists to integrate new methodologies and systematically to improve their products. Most of the KM-tools are conceived for large organisations and hard to implement in SMEs, where lightweight, "plug-and-play" solutions are needed.

Product development management

During the last decades, product development management has become an established area of research in the management field. Nowadays, high rates of innovation and dramatically reduced product development lead and cycle times have been shaking both practitioners and researchers of product development management. An array of ideas have been introduced under various labels: "cross-functional teams", "design for manufacturability", "concept to customer", "computer aided engineering", "black-box engineering", “platforms”, "networked development", and “knowledge management” are just some such labels. Such

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concepts have created new challenges to the organisation and management of the technical functions in the firms.

Another very important issue in any new product design and development is the manufacturers’ capacity to add innovation in their new products and designs. The relentless race to develop new, higher quality products and simultaneously reduce time to market and reduce product cost is a major challenge for all companies, especially for SME’s. Notwithstanding, actually there is a lot of Knowledge throughout the company that is practically very difficult to reuse: it is in old forgotten drawings, it is in the brains of employees and may be recorded in old experiences from which the “lessons learnt” have not actually been learnt.

Innovation in Design Methods

The only known and probed ways of generating innovative ideas are currently based on generic means helping human brains to open their focus, use the lateral thinking and try to be creative. Some creative tools have been developed along the years: Brainstorming, lateral thinking, 6-3-5, think-tank, affinity diagrams, etc. based on the psychological sciences upon the works and ideas of known people as Osborne (creator of the brainstorming and the innovation check list), De Bono (Six Thinking Hats, The Lateral Thinking) and others.

TRIZ – Theory of inventive problem solving. TRIZ is a methodology giving a more systematic and technological approach promoting not only idea generation but also a consistent comprehensive method to convert ideas into feasible concepts.

Tools that support the innovation in design process

IDEATION/TRIZ, Invention Machine, as far as we know there are two software tools based in the TRIZ methodology for inventive problem solving: IDEATION/TRIZ and INVENTION MACHINE. Both use schematic representation of problems and automated analysis of generated diagrams that guides the user to the abstract solution. Technical information and examples are included for helping the user in the particularisation of the solution. However, these are both aimed at the scientist level of user, and not at the industrial SME level.

Ideafisher, Inspiration professional edition, is another tool for helping to generate ideas. However, again this is aimed at the specialist level, and is not appropriate for industrial SMEs.

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IT Tools to support design management and collaborative design

PDM solutions

Product data management (PDM) solutions attempt to integrate data management with document or drawing management, CAD, and materials resource planning (MRP).

Figure 1 PDM Solutions

The development of PDM solutions has principally arisen in large systems integration firms, typified, for example, by the aerospace industry, the energy sector, and defence. These systems manage a large number of work products (documents), including requirements, schematics, drawings, test reports, users manuals, etc. They establish a formal protocol for exchanging design and contractual information among customers, suppliers, subcontractors, regulatory authorities, test laboratories, etc. Usually this formal protocol relies on distribution lists and sign off records, acknowledgements, clarification requests and so forth. The system itself stores only metadata, i.e., data about the actual design data. This allows the system to access design data stored in distributed databases across the project team. The principal vendors of product data management systems in the closely related to Engineering document management systems are largely the same as the traditional CAD vendors: AutoDesk, Bentley, Parametric Technology, Intergraph, etc...

Collaborative engineering products

In today's big industrial organisations, product definition has been extended beyond geographical boundaries. More and more businesses are involved in the product development process, a growing percentage of manufacturing is being outsourced, and supply chains are becoming globalised and more complex. For that reason, considerable attention has been given in recent years to integrating the project design team through web-based collaborative engineering, and in so doing significantly shortening the time required for design.

Commercially, the products that support collaborative engineering typically are grouped into three categories: groupware, teamware, and taskware. Groupware includes such things as e-mail and communication, negotiation, and meeting support software. Teamware supports teams interacting in product development. Typically, it is embedded within a process model, and provides a capacity to share work products. Taskware focuses on particular tasks, and typically cannot be shared across tasks, as is typical of most current engineering applications software.

It needs to be noted that many of the products available in the market place provide both product lifetime management and collaborative engineering facilities. Good examples are: SMARTEAM V5 from IBM and SMARTEAM (supports product lifecycle management and collaboration across the extended enterprise), ENOVIA (supports product knowledge management for the entire product life cycle from initial concept to product in service, as well as collaboration and teamwork), I-deas NX (support product design in the extended enterprise).

However, all the above products are oriented towards very big organisations; they are very expensive and require expensive hardware and software infrastructure in order to operate as well as skilled IT people for their administration.

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In the case of SMEs, there are certain requirements for tools for managing knowledge in product design, arising from

- the special situation in SMEs concerning personnel, culture and infrastructure,

- the special needs and wishes of product designers.

The most important requirements can be summarised as follows:

- easy to use, fast to implement,

- low hard- and software requirements ("lightweight" applications),

- integration with other knowledge resources - especially the ones already existing.

The Role of Semantic and Inference in the Semantic Web

The semantic web vision is a "new form of web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities". This vision relies on transforming web content from a form that facilitates human interpretation (i.e., HTML) to a form that is designed for interpretation, reasoning, and manipulation by computer (based on XML). Computers will eventually become the prime consumers of raw web content, acting as knowledge intermediaries, transformers, and brokers, for the end consumers, humans. In this vision, humans are consumers at the top of a "knowledge food chain" that rests upon a fundamental layer of semantics and inference technologies.

Standards such as XML provide a convenient mechanism for bypassing the HTML layer and connecting producers more directly to consumers of semantic content. Nevertheless, XML by itself is not capable of conveying semantics. So why should using XML make the job of any easier? XML only conveys semantic to the extent that humans representing producers and consumers agree ahead of time on the meaning of the tags.

Standards such as XML Schema function as software engineering design specifications for programs and play a role in checking whether XML is well formed or not. XML Schema does not convey the semantics of the data; the semantics must be agreed to at design time.

User Interfaces

The user interface has to fulfil many different needs. It should be flexible in the way that it can be used on different platforms and devices (e.g. PC, PDA, WAP-phone etc.). It also should also be customisable by the end-user so that he can "create his own" user interface, which is still easy to use.

To fulfil these needs the use of an Enterprise Information Portal, which is using open standards like Java and XML and SOAP, is getting more popular. A portal makes network resources (applications, databases and so forth) available to end-users. The user can access the portal via a web browser, WAP-phone, pager or any other device. Such a portal acts as the central hub, where information from multiple sources is made available in an easy to use manner.

The data presented in a portal should be independent of content type. This means that content from for example XML, RSS or SMTP can be integrated. The actual presentation of the data is handled via XSL and delivered to the user for example via the combination of Java Server Pages (JSPs) and HTML.

Information Mining

The field of information systems has recently seen an enormous upswing. While systems like Information Manifold and Ariadne focus on the exploitation of distributed, semi-structured information sources, the personalization of the information retrieval or filtering process is another aspect of growing interest that is dealt with, e.g. in the Letizia and Syskill & Webert systems. Here information regarding the user's reading interests is exploited to suggest potentially relevant hyperlinks to be followed, or to identify interesting news articles, respectively.

However, many of these information systems set the focus on the use of existing, structured information. Systems, which consider the user, and represent information based on habits and/or needs of the respective user, are nowadays still rarely used. While most of such systems "Users Profiles" begin to use keywords (weighted) for the information search, in order to indicate relevant information, so far only few systems (intelligent) use agents, who collect and indicate user's information.

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Modern Knowledge Representation and Knowledge Engineering advocates the use of explicit ontologies. In the area of knowledge-based systems, ontologies have been developed for structuring and reusing large bodies of knowledge. Ontologies can be used to describe the semantic structure of much more complex objects than common databases, and are therefore well suited for describing heterogeneous, distributed and semi structured information sources. A number of projects rely on such notions. On2broker provides brokering services to improve access to heterogeneous, distributed and semi structured information sources as they are presented in the World Wide Web. It relies on the use of ontologies to make explicit the semantics of web pages, to formulate queries and to derive answers for them. On2broker processes information sources and content descriptions in HTML, XML, and RDF. The system extends the representation and enquiry options in the World Wide Web and enables intelligent services. SHOE is a small extension to HTML, which allows web page authors to annotate their web documents with machine-readable knowledge. SHOE and On2broker use ontologies for information mediation focusing on the integration of HTML sources distributed throughout the World Wide Web.

There are different tools that use such terminologies to provide support in finding, accessing, presenting and maintaining information sources. The Ontology Server Ontolinguais one of the best known environments for building ontologies. Ontologies built in Ontolingua use the Frame Ontology, which is written in the Knowledge Interchange Format. Other tools for building ontologies are: Ontosaurus, ODE, and Tadzebao and WebOnto.

HERMES is a system for semantically integrating different and possibly heterogeneous information sources and reasoning systems. This is accomplished by executing programs, called mediators, written in the HERMES system. Mediators are guidelines of how information from different sources will be combined and integrated.

Infomaster is an information integration system. It provides integrated access to distributed, heterogeneous information sources. An essential feature of Infomaster is its emphasis on semantic information processing. Infomaster integrates only structured information sources. This restriction enables Infomaster to process the information in these sources in a semantic fashion.

A further interesting approach is the idea of ontogroup. Like a news group, it is based on a group of people who are joined by a common interest and some agreement as to how to look at their topic. An ontology can be used by such a group to express this common ground and to annotate their information documents. A further approach for the integration of heterogeneous knowledge sources is the use of shared ontologies. Concepts can be shared between different resources if an appropriate mapping function can be found that translates a concept understood by one resource into a concept that is understood by another resource. This is the minimal requirement for two resources to share knowledge. Many architectures to integrate resources comprise a single shared ontology. In contrast to the approach in which all resources share one body of knowledge is the approach which locates shared knowledge in multiple but smaller shared ontologies. The use of standard object modelling techniques is an alternative for the representation of ontologies.

Currently, there is no advanced KM approach solution like the ASSIST Results for SMEs.

The project developed a major new technology for industrial SMEs in the development of new cognitive methods for the management and best use of knowledge that is available to design engineers (if only they could get at it). The project is also novel, as it seeks to encourage participation in the design process for all people who are involved with the product lifecycle. It also encourages team working between people from different sites (and working off-site), and between organisations, customers and suppliers. All this knowledge, handled properly will radically improve the design performance of industrial SMEs.

Specific innovations are:


A novel approach for collaboration on Design within extended SMEs. ASSIST focused on technologies, engineering methodologies, novel tools, methods and work environments that facilitate collaboration, creativity, resource use efficiency through holistic approaches to product Design in SMEs.

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3.2 Dissemination and Use

This section contains a publishable summary of the final plan for using and disseminating knowledge (D2.2).

3.2.1 Overview of each exploitable resultOverview Table

Exploitable Knowledge

(description)

Exploitable product(s) or measure(s)

Sector(s) of application

Timetable for commercial use

Patents or other IPR protection

Owner & other Partner(s) involved


ASSIST Guide Industry, engineering sector and education

2007 Copyright SMEs & third parties

D5.3 ASSIST System

ASSIST Software and services

Industry, engineering sector

2007 Copyright SMEs & I2S & third parties

3.2.2 ASSIST SystemCurrently, most of the design activities, especially in SMEs, are still based on "pen and paper" work. Our aim for knowledge management is to capture knowledge as part of the design process, so that a system, which captures this knowledge can be updated continuously as new knowledge is entered into the system. To achieve this, ASSIST provides the designers with appropriate tools to capture and structure design knowledge as this would encourage them to accomplish these tasks while designing and minimise the overhead in capturing this knowledge. Our aim is also to make best use the extended knowledge resource of SMEs, by involving customers, shop-floor employees, field engineers, and suppliers (where appropriate), in the design process. This is managed via the ASSIST system.

More specifically, ASSIST provides facilities to

o Support authoring and maintaining through a graphical, easy to use interface of a knowledge base with accumulated product knowledge on different aspects during the product life cycle (e.g. requirements, design, manufacturing, usage, etc.).

o Enable design teams, customers, suppliers, shop-floor and technical support personnel to access this knowledge through intranets / Internet

o Support management of the design process (requirements, conceptual design, detailed design, etc.) by making use of extended enterprise and knowledge management technologies.

o Ensure that design knowledge is available to the right people, and that it is never lost to the company.

The combination of these facilities simplifies content retrieval and management and makes the ASSIST system a practical tool, easy to install and maintain.

3.2.3 ASSIST Methodology ASSIST is an Intelligent Knowledge-based Assistant for Designers, containing knowledge and tools to improve the product Design process at SMEs. A major feature is the facility to extend the SMEs manufacturers knowledge base to out the customers, field engineers, and suppliers (where appropriate), so that knowledge can be developed or added to throughout the extended enterprise, supporting the creation of a virtual design process.

For it, and in a practical way, ASSIST makes use of the Extended Enterprise, by considering and analyzing customers’ contacts and feedback, suppliers’ information and comments and staff members’ knowledge where appropriate in the product conceptualization and design process. ASSIST allows as well designers to

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capture and structure the required design knowledge, supporting identification of requirements and generation of ideas as starting point, in order to take it right through to a marketable or improved product with increased efficiency and monitoring.

As a conceptual complement to the ASSIST System, the ASSIST Methodology covers aspects required to bring competitiveness and best results to product design processes at SMEs. It’s related to the "ASSIST" developed modules, guiding the SME product designers through the activities required for innovation by using extended enterprise facilities. ASSIST Methodology identifies the best practices and policies SMEs must adopt in order to gain in productivity and efficiency through new products development and design processes improvements. The specific methodological issues include different aspects, as working with IT technologies and the human issues, Innovation management and management of knowledge, Extended Enterprise concepts, efficient analysis and use of customer feedback, effective training, setting-up a Knowledge-based Design process...

ASSIST Methodology bases on the next premises:

The importance of systematic application of management and knowledge acquisition tools for improving the design process at SMEs.

The small enterprises need simple applications that escape from theoretical positions giving priority to the practical needs.

The convincement that innovation and added value provided to customers are the critical factors that determine the future of the company.

The benefit and the need for SMEs of the Extended Enterprise, in order to enhance product development and support to customers.

3.2.4 Exploitation plansThe consortium SMEs intend to exploit the results:

o Internally: using the results to enhance their own business performances. All the consortium SMEs are seeking to improve their design processes, develop innovative products and solutions and reduce the design time and costs.

o Externally: The exploitation route will be that the SMEs will form a joint venture to market and sell the results. I2S will commercialise the results (and will be allowed to sell the project results (on a royalty basis)).

3.2.5 Dissemination of knowledgeDissemination started at the beginning of the project. It was carried out by means of:

Project web site

Project Presentation – the ASSIST brochure, which was passed to interested parties at events, and is available on-line at the project web site.

Demonstration seminars with User Interest Groups to be organised in each of the countries involved in the project with participation of RTD and SME partners These User Interest Groups consisted of industrial SMEs from the Trade Associations (listed below).

Sensitisation sessions were developed in the same way. They benefited from specific events in each country as International Conferences, Exhibitions, Technical Encounters, etc.

Papers on Congress and scientific encounters, articles on specialised magazines, etc.

Dissemination of these results and experiences is important, and was carried out by several actions at various levels.

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4. Final Plan for Using and Disseminating the Knowledge

4.1 Exploitable Knowledge and it’s Use

This section contains a summary of each exploitable result, namely the ASSIST System and the ASSIST Supporting Methodology. This information is public as it has been entered into the CORDIS Results database, once the Project has been completed.

4.1.1 Overview of each exploitable resultOverview Table

Exploitable Knowledge

(description)

Exploitable product(s) or measure(s)

Sector(s) of application

Timetable for commercial use

Patents or other IPR protection

Owner & other Partner(s) involved

D5.3 ASSIST System

ASSIST Software and services

Industry, engineering sector

2007 Copyright SMEs & I2S & third parties


ASSIST Guide Industry, engineering sector and education

2007 Copyright SMEs & third parties

ASSIST System

Currently, most of the design activities, especially in SMEs, are still based on "pen and paper" work. Our aim for knowledge management is to capture knowledge as part of the design process, so that a system, which captures this knowledge can be updated continuously as new knowledge is entered into the system. To achieve this, ASSIST provides to the designers appropriate tools to capture and structure design knowledge as this would encourage them to accomplish these tasks while designing and minimise the overhead in capturing this knowledge. Our aim is also to make best use the extended knowledge resource of SMEs, by involving customers, shop-floor employees, field engineers, and suppliers (where appropriate), in the design process. This is managed via the ASSIST system.

More specifically, ASSIST provides facilities to

o Support authoring and maintaining through a graphical, easy to use interface of a knowledge base with accumulated product knowledge on different aspects during the product life cycle (e.g. requirements, design, manufacturing, usage, etc.).

o Enable design teams, customers, suppliers, shop-floor and technical support personnel to access this knowledge through intranets / Internet

o Support management of the design process (requirements, conceptual design, detailed design, etc.) by making use of extended enterprise and knowledge management technologies.

o Ensure that design knowledge is available to the right people, and that it is never lost to the company.

The combination of these facilities simplifies content retrieval and management and makes the ASSIST system a practical tool, easy to install and maintain.

ASSIST Methodology

ASSIST is an Intelligent Knowledge-based Assistant for Designers, containing knowledge and tools to improve the product Design process at SMEs. A major feature is the facility to extend the SMEs manufacturers knowledge base to out the customers, field engineers, and suppliers (where appropriate), so that knowledge can be developed or added to throughout the extended enterprise, supporting the creation of a virtual design process.

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For it, and in a practical way, ASSIST makes use of the Extended Enterprise, by considering and analyzing customers’ contacts and feedback, suppliers’ information and comments and staff members’ knowledge where appropriate in the product conceptualization and design process. ASSIST allows designers capture and structure the required design knowledge, supporting identification of requirements and generation of ideas as starting point, in order to take it right through to a marketable or improved product with increased efficiency and monitoring.

As a conceptual complement to the ASSIST System, the ASSIST Methodology covers aspects required to bring competitiveness and best results to product design processes at SMEs. It’s related to the "ASSIST" developed modules, guiding the SME product designers through the activities required for innovation by using extended enterprise facilities. ASSIST Methodology identifies the best practices and policies SMEs must adopt in order to gain in productivity and efficiency through new products development and design processes improvements. The specific methodological issues include different aspects, as working with IT technologies and the human issues, Innovation management and management of knowledge, Extended Enterprise concepts, efficient analysis and use of customer feedback, effective training, setting-up a Knowledge-based Design process...

ASSIST Methodology bases on the next premises:

The importance of systematic application of management and knowledge acquisition tools for improving the design process at SMEs.

The small enterprises need simple applications that escape from theoretical positions giving priority to the practical needs.

The convincement that innovation and added value provided to customers are the critical factors that determine the future of the company.

The benefit and the need for SMEs of the Extended Enterprise, in order to enhance product development and support to customers.

4.1.2 Exploitation plansThe consortium SMEs intend to exploit the results:

o Internally: using the results to enhance their own business performances. All the consortium SMEs are seeking to improve their design processes, develop innovative products and solutions and reduce the design time and costs.

o Externally: by proving the viability of the results with 7 demonstrations (the SMEs themselves representing 7 references), and with around 40 ‘hot prospects’ of extremely interested companies, in 4 EU countries via the 4 User Interest Groups. The SMEs will use these to sell the software and training services to similar SMEs - initially to the ‘hot prospects’. The exploitation route will be that the SMEs will form a joint venture to market and sell the results. I2S will be contracted to commercialise the results (and is allowed to sell the project results (on a royalty basis)). ATB and LABEIN will provide consultancy services (on favourable licensing terms) to support installations of the software where required. The joint venture will licence other consultancy providers where appropriate.

4.1.3 Internal exploitationThe project will help the project partners to improve their design process, increase the development of innovative ranges of products and systems and reduce the design time and costs. It also helps SMEs improve the quality of work-life of their employees and all people coming into contact with the products by providing an attractive, user friendly design & development working framework. People inside, and outside the physical boundaries of the industrial organisation are an untapped resource for innovative ideas and knowledge. By making the best use of their knowledge and capabilities, it provides the possibility to meet present demands for responsibility, involvement, empowerment and continuous improvement.

The following table provides an estimate of the expected benefits to the consortium SMEs, in terms of percentage improvements for the business. These are targets per SME.

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Benefits

ASS

AN

AK

IS

BIN

KE

CTO

OLS

PRA

ESEN

TIS

RO

DO

S

TEC

ASA

THIE

LE

SMEs Outside Consortium

Reduction in time of design projects (reduced time to market)

20% 15% 15% 10% 25% 15% 15% 15%

Increased sales through improved, more innovative products and solutions

25% 15% 10% 15% 15% 20% 25% 10%

Reduction in cost of design projects 20% 25% 15% 10% 25% 25% 20% 15%

Increased amount of knowledge and design suggestions from employees, customers and suppliers

50% 40% 35% 25% 35% 35% 50% 35%

Increased number of designs which are right first time (i.e. when released to customers)

25% 60% 30% 15% 25% 60% 25% 25%

Reduction in reworking of new designs (and prototype products)

25% 25% 25% 10% 30% 25% 25% 25%

Although that there are a lot of extremely convincing examples showing how much profit can be gained from the improvement in the above areas, it is difficult to provide a precise ROI (Return On Investment) calculation.

However, during the proposal preparation, we have made an initial calculation of the contribution to profit that can be gained in each SME proposer from the business benefits from the ASSIST project. The results, for the three years period after the project, are shown in the next table. The figures are in kEURO.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 TOTAL

ASSANAKIS 75 62 48 185

BINKE 155 210 220 585

CTOOLS 100 150 150 400

PRAESENTIS 80 110 110 300

RODOS 58 50 38 146

TECASA 25 125 140 290

THIELE 120 220 250 590

TOTAL 728 1057 1106 2891

The total return of investment is in the order of 2,891 kEURO for the first three years i.e. 150 % of the total project cost. Calculated as a percentage of the SME proposers input, the ROI is in the order of 300 %. This is the return on investment only from the reduction of the cost of the design projects. It does not include other significant benefits such as increased sales (due to innovative products), customer satisfaction and loyalty (due to their participation in product improvements/innovations), etc.

Furthermore, the SME Proposers will benefit from the results financially by the joint venture, selling the results to other SMEs (see below).

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4.1.4 External exploitation The commercialisation of the ASSIST methodology and software will be a way of further exploiting the results after the end of the project.

The main exploitation route will be to sell the results (methodology and software) via the joint venture. The joint venture will be established by the SMEs, involving all 7 SME partners. The joint venture will be led by the ASSIST Exploitation Manager, Dr Robinson from CTOOLS. Dr Robinson was previously a Director of a software house before taking up his post at CTOOLS earlier in 2003. The other main leaders of the venture will be BINKE (already selling Design software and services to SMEs); and PRAESENTIS (also involved in software). The other 4 SMEs are extremely interested in the huge potential of the ASSIST results and will be very active in the joint venture.

The exploitation routes will be:

1) Selling the results via the joint venture

2) Sales of consultancy, training, methodology and software by third parties. The SME joint venture will licence the results to these third parties (on favourable terms to the RTD partners).

4.1.5 The Strategic ImpactThe strategic impact is at 3 levels:

1) Internal to the SME partners, who directly benefit by improved products and competitiveness (refer to the section on benefits above), and by revenue from sales and licensing of the results.

2) External to the SMEs in the User Interest Groups and the Trade Associations, who have extensive exposure to the project and the project results. These are expected to represent the majority of the first customers for the commercialised ASSIST results.

3) European level – other SMEs in many industrial sectors, who are customers.

The benefits to non-project SMEs are expected to be the same as for the project SMEs. These benefits are described in the section on benefits above.

4.1.6 The Business RisksAs with many ventures, where there is a significant innovation, which offers a completely new service, there are significant business risks. However, the ‘upside’ is potentially huge. By forming a consortium, the financial and business risks are considerably reduced for each partner, and the consortium represents a critical mass, which will make future investments in the joint venture for commercialisation and marketing of the results less risky.

4.1.7 ROI- Exploitation of ASSIST as a productThere are two versions of the ASSIST software. One that supports up to 10 users (in total, i.e. company personnel, suppliers, customers, etc.) and one with unlimited number of users. The 10 users version allows up to 5 concurrent users and the full version up to 15 concurrent users (these restrictions have to do with the DBMS server – otherwise, the cost of the DBMS itself would be too high). The current estimate of their likely price is 7500 and 11500 EURO respectively (including also the DBMS server). This is the price that the SME partners would pay for a system like ASSIST. Based on our experience in the market, we anticipate a small number of users (in the order of 15) for the first year after the project, increasing by 200 % for the next two years. This is a conservative sales scenario for an innovative product like ASSIST that provides real business benefits. Of these users, we assume that 35 % will purchase the unlimited users version of the software whereas 65 % the version with the 10 users. For the users buying the unlimited version we anticipate an average of 10 man-days for integration/customisation services and 2 days for training.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 TOTALPROFIT MARGIN PROFIT

No of sales - up to 10 users 10 20 40 80 160 310

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No of sales - unlimited users 5 10 20 40 80 155

Software 132500 265000 530000 1060000 2120000 4107500 40% 1643000

Customization & Integration Services 25000 50000 100000 100000 100000 375000 30% 112500

Training 4000 8000 16000 16000 16000 60000 30% 18000

Maintenance 23850 71550 166950 357750 620100 40% 248040

TOTAL 161500 346850 717550 1342950 2593750 5163065 2021540

Therefore, the total return of investment only from the commercialisation of the ASSIST system will be in the order of 270 % of the total project investment for the first five years after the end of the project. This has been calculated according to very conservative sales scenario.

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4.2 Dissemination of Knowledge

4.2.1 Overview of disseminationOverview table

Planned / actual Dates

Type Type of audience

Countries addressed

Size of audience

Partner responsible - involved

April 2005 Project web site General All LABEIN

08/05/2005 Project Brochure General All LABEIN

20/06/2005 Project Exhibition ICE2005 All 200 Participants

LABEIN

18/07/2005 Project Exhibition FAIM2005

All 150 Participants

LABEIN

09/12/2005 Project presentation - Bremen

Industry Public

Germany 22 participants ATB

15/12/2005 Project presentation – Lisbon (Portugal)

Industry Public

Portugal, Spain, Germany

30 participants ATB

From January to June 2006

Individual, customised presentation of ASSIST to each member of the Greek UG.

Industrial SMEs

Greece 8 I2S

17/02/2006 Project Presentation Industrial SMEs

Spain 10 LABEIN

17/03/2006 Project presentation within Workshop on Collaborative work in manufacturing industry

Industry

RTD

All 130 ATB

18-22/03/2006 Poster Presentation within TMCE2006: International Symposium series onTools and Methodsof CompetitiveEngineering

Industry

RTD

All 150 participants LABEIN

16/06/2006 Project presentation - Bremen

Industry Public


27/06/2006 Project Presentation within a World Coffee on Innovation practices organised in Labein

Industry

Public

Spain 24 participants LABEIN

29-30/06/2006 Project Presentation within Workshop on Innovative Design

Industry

Public

Spain 20 participants LABEIN

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for Sustainability

15/09/2006 Project presentation – Bremen within a workshop on new technologies

Industry, Public, RTD


4.2.2 Description of Dissemination ActionsThere have been articles in trade journals, and other publications as part of the dissemination activities. All public deliverables are available on the internet site. LABEIN and ATB and I2S have published papers on the project, and have presented the project at European and national conferences and exhibitions.

4.2.2.1 The journals, trade magazines targeted for publication of papers and articles: Automotive Engineering International Computer Aided Design Report Design News Experimental Mechanics RIMNI. Revista internacional de Métodos numéricos para Cálculos y Diseño en Ingeniería.

(International magazine of numerical methods for calculation and Design in engineering. Qualität und Zuverlässigkeit – Journal

4.2.2.2 Specific Conferences / Exhibitions to be targeted: 14th European Conference on Information Systems, Göteborg, June 12-14, 2006. SPAIN: Bilbao Machine Tool Exhibition. EUROPE: Annual e-Business and e-Work Conference and Exhibition EUROPE: European Conference, Information Systems and the Future of the Digital Economy SPAIN: Barcelona MAQUITEX. Barcelona Industrial Fair. SPAIN: Galicia INTERINDUSTRIA. Industrial machinery and equipment exhibition. SPAIN: ValenciaGANIAPOLIS. International Fair on innovation, inventions and brilliant ideas. SPAIN: International logistics exhibition. Germany: CeBIT, Hannover, 2006 UK: Business Intelligence Solutions, Olympia, London (annual exhibition), UK UK: e-Business expo, London, (annual industrial exhibition), UK

UK: INSPEX, NEC, Birmingham (annual industrial exhibition), UK

4.2.3 Project Web SiteA project web site was established early in the project to provide wide dissemination of the results and papers, and information about the project. All public deliverables are available on the internet site. The ASSIST www site was set up and maintained by LABEIN for communication and dissemination of the project information. The address is www.labein.es/assist. The web site is the main source for the project publications, which is aimed at the wider SME community, and is in English.

4.2.4 Internal DisseminationEach of the consortiums SMEs organised internal seminars during the project to inform their staff about the project and the business benefits to their organisation. This was useful experience (and should generate useful feedback) for the development work. The main aim of the internal dissemination was to foster the wider re-use of the results within the SMEs. All staff was encouraged to monitor developments in the project by regularly accessing the project web site: www.labein.es/assist.

4.2.5 European Commission Dissemination ActionsThe project made use of the dissemination activities undertaken by the European Commission and by Commission funded projects. It was intended to present the project to the Knowledge Management (KM) Forum (Thematic Network), and to take part in KM Forum activities (ATB and I2S were members of the

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KM Forum). Other actions such as the EXPIDE Cluster project (a cluster project identifying synergies between research projects dealing with Electronic Business) were approached to identify dissemination and synergy opportunities. Publicity and completed forms for other actions such as PROSOMA will be carried out after the end of the project.

4.2.6 Trade AssociationsThe project involved 7 interested Trade Associations to provide better requirements and feedback (from providing contacts to relevant SME members for the requirements work and the industrial interest groups), and more importantly to facilitate much wider impact of the results in terms of dissemination and exploitation. The Trade Associations each came from one SME partner from their sector of industry.

4.2.7 User Interest GroupsUser Interest Groups (UIG) were established in 4 EU countries made up from members of the Trade Associations. These were in Spain, Germany, Greece, and UK. There were between 7 and 10 companies in each of the 4 User Interest groups, representing 20 – 30 interested SME companies. Seminars were held in Spain, Germany, Greece, and UK to publicise the project to these SMEs, and they were kept informed of progress. The seminars were very useful in providing feedback from other SMEs on the project results. There were two workshops in each country during the project. The first one presented the interim results (especially the early prototype), just after the mid point of the project. The second set of workshops was near the end of the project and showed the demonstrators.

4.3 Publishable Results

4.3.1 ASSIST SystemProduct: ASSIST Software - KNOWLEDGE-BASED INTELLIGENT DESIGN ASSISTANT

Functional Description: ASSIST tool is a valuable central knowledge base, which can store all the required information related to a particular business process (design project, plan, etc.). This feature fulfils the requirements regarding knowledge storage (know-how capture) and its access at the required time (knowledge retrieval) through the usage of ASSIST tool advanced search facilities. SMEs can easily re-use the knowledge in new projects. Normally, new projects are based on previous ones, so the different design and production planning tasks are very similar to previous projects. SMEs can retrieve this information and adapt it to fit the requirements related to new projects. This avoids “reinventing the wheel” because the skeleton of the processes are automatically created by ASSIST tool. The new projects, when based on older ones, have all the production, design incidences and customer feedback attached, so these important aspects are promptly taken into account when the new project is planned and carried out. Customer voice is more connected to design staff using ASSIST tool because the communication regarding a product is attached by ASSIST tool and it is never lost. Not only the customer can attach documents trough the Commercial Staff, but also the production staff can attach it in order to provide feedback to the design staff. This crossed bi-directional clean communication dramatically improves the efficiency and productivity. ASSIST tool is a collaborative online management environment that works over Internet. The application can be installed in different networked computers no matter the physical localisation of the machines. Only one of the machines must contain the knowledge base; normally a computer located in the general headquarters of the organisation.

Advantages: ASSIST is a unique knowledge management approach meeting these needs. Knowledge is key to this, as the right knowledge and ideas in a well-structured manner will help designers to improve their design performance. With the wide diversity of knowledge to be acquired, managed and processed, this requires research into the latest thinking in terms of semantic and context sensitive knowledge. The ASSIST approach is to be able to understand the semantics of the knowledge that it acquires to be able to effectively manage it for the designers. This enables ASSIST to effectively process context-specific knowledge, which exists in the industrial design domain, and to be able to process it into useful forms and present it to designers in a structured manner.

Innovations:

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Market Applications:

The project results will apply to a huge number of manufacturing SMEs in many sectors. The most applicable industrial sectors are those which need to provide continual innovations in their products, such as automotive, engineering, and manufacturing engineering sectors.

The SMEs benefit from the results by increased competitiveness. Using the project results, manufacturing companies are able to bring innovations to the marketplace faster. By using the extended enterprise to get more people involved in the design of innovative products, it is expected that the products will be better than before.


Stage of Development:

Prototype software product (modular)

7 completed demonstrators

Contact Details:

For more information please contact the Co-ordinator: Dr Mikel Sorli

Fundación LABEIN C/ Geldo - Parque Tecnológico de BizkaiaEdificio 70048160-Derio Spain

Tel: +34 94 607 33 00 (switchboard)Fax: +34 94 489 24 20

email: [email protected]

or visit the Project Web-page:www.labein.es/assist

4.3.2 ASSIST Methodology Product: ASSIST Software - KNOWLEDGE-BASED INTELLIGENT DESIGN ASSISTANT

Functional Description: Practical workbook to support knowledge-based design in SMEs

Advantages: ASSIST is a unique knowledge management approach meeting these needs. Knowledge is key to this, as the right knowledge and ideas in a well-structured manner will help designers to improve their design performance. With the wide diversity of knowledge to be acquired, managed and processed, this requires research into the latest thinking in terms of semantic and context sensitive knowledge. The ASSIST approach is to be able to understand the semantics of the knowledge that it acquires to be able to document.doc 28


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effectively manage it for the designers. This enables ASSIST to effectively process context-specific knowledge, which exists in the industrial design domain, and to be able to process it into useful forms and present it to designers in a structured manner.

Innovations:






Market Applications:

The project results apply to a huge number of manufacturing SMEs in many sectors. The most applicable industrial sectors will be those, which need to provide continual innovations in their products, such as automotive, engineering, and manufacturing engineering sectors.

The SMEs benefit from the results by increased competitiveness. Using the project results, manufacturing companies are able to bring innovations to the marketplace faster. By using the extended enterprise to get more people involved in the design of innovative products, it is expected that the products will be better than before.


Stage of Development:

Prototype methodology

Contact Details:

For more information please contact the Co-ordinator: Dr Mikel Sorli

Fundación LABEIN C/ Geldo - Parque Tecnológico de BizkaiaEdificio 70048160-Derio Spain

Tel: +34 94 607 33 00 (switchboard)Fax: +34 94 489 24 20

email: [email protected]

or visit the Project Web-page:www.labein.es/assist

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5. Final Management Report

5.1 Consortium Management Tasks

Management Expertise of the Co-ordinator

The project co-ordinator is LABEIN, responsible to the Commission and co-ordinator of all the administrative aspects of the project. LABEIN's personnel have extensive experience in managing multi-national projects due to usual joint activities with other European countries and have the resources to carry out the co-ordination of this project. The Project Manager for the project is Dr. Mikel Sorli who has the required experience for this responsibility. He currently is the Head of the Design Department of LABEIN where he deals with research and development projects on a daily basis. He has managed many research projects previously.

Management and Decision Making Structure

A practical management framework has been developed, based on the management experience of the co-ordinator, and some of the other project participants.

Management structure and techniques

In order to effectively manage the project a number of groups and respective responsibilities have been identified. The structure of the management is shown in the following diagram and further explanation is provided below.

Project co-ordinator responsibilities:

communications with the Commission co-ordination of financial reports (cost

statements) checking that resources and cost

expenditures stated by partners are consistent with the completed work

reporting to the Commission on progress co-ordination of final reports and the

publication of public results

Project Board

The project board consists of a representative from each partner in the consortium. The board is led by the Exploitation Manager for the project, Dr. David Robinson from CTOOLS who will ensure that the results are exploitable by the SMEs. The representative of each consortium partners on the board are the same as the team leader. The main responsibilities of the board are review of the consortium agreement, exploitation plans, milestones and project plan.

There have been 5 formal board meetings, besides the Final Meeting, arranged by the project co-ordinator. For the convenience of all the partners, the venue of the meetings has rotated between the partners' sites.

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Technical Committee

Technical Committee was set up led by the Technical Co-ordinator, also Dr Sorli from LABEIN. LABEIN personnel have significant experience of managing European projects.

Technical co-ordinator was responsible for: technical management of the project co-ordination in the preparation of all the required deliverables overseeing and directing technical progress and coherence of the project. co-ordination of joint activities, in particular:

a) technical meetings and workshopsb) technical reports

organisation of information flows between partners to ensure consistency

Each consortium partner appointed a team leader responsible for:

monitoring the progress of work carried out within her/his organisation. ensuring on-time delivery of the work they are leading (as work package leader) liasing with the technical co-ordinator and other team leaders.

Technical meetings have been held to evaluate the technical work and plan the future work. To maximise the efficiency, technical meetings have been held next to board meetings.

Decision making structure

Decisions were be made by consensus of opinion.

Communication Strategy

Due to the nature of this project, communication is very important. The consortium has used common word processing (MS Word) for documentation and email (plus telephone, fax, and meetings) for communication during the project. For large documents and software prototypes, the consortium has used the web site to store the documents for downloading by each partner.

Monitoring and Reporting

Monitoring of the progress of each task have been carried out by the task leader, by checking the status of deliverables. Each task has a deliverable, which makes this effective. Work-package leaders checked progress by communication with the task leaders, and communicated this to the technical co-ordinator. The technical co-ordinator monitored overall project progress, in co-operation with the project co-ordinator.

Conflict Resolution Procedure

No major conflicts have appeared during the project. Participation and cooperation of Partners have been remarkable and completely satisfactory.

Quality Planning

To ensure the quality of deliverables (in the case of this project, reports, specifications, prototype software, and Web page) and the smooth running of the project, there is a detailed Quality Plan. The first version of this deliverable (D1.2) was available at the end of month 3. This plan contains (amongst others) all the procedures with regard to the communications between the partners, the documentation standard of all the deliverables, the full detailed work-plan, and any other relevant standards to conform to.Management of Knowledge and IPR

A consortium agreement was drawn up and signed before the project start, which sets out the IPR rights and obligations of the partners, and the RTD performers. The IPR of the ASSIST project results resides solely with the SMEs. The SMEs will licence the results on favourable terms to be used by the RTD partners (on a basis of consensus between the SMEs). The SMEs will form a joint venture with each other to further develop the ASSIST software system into a commercial product. This is expected to take a further 6 months after the end of the project, at an estimated cost of 175 kEURO. Further support by the RTD performer responsible for the development of the software (I2S) will be required and will be part of the agreement mentioned above.

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5.2 Contractors

The RTD partners have provided all their work and contributions on time and there have been no delays. The SMEs have been supported by the RTD partners and have provided their contributions on time and with the expected quality.

5.3 Project Timetable and Status

The ASSIST consortium applied for a Contract Amendment in order to extend the Project duration in 4 months (from the initial deadline of May 14, 2006 up to September 14th, 2006) without any further budget allocation.

Main reason for this was related to the Consortium commitment to achieve improved project results by means of allowing more time to the Assessment phase in order to getting the maximum quality companies feedback, by using and testing the ASSIST tool.

The Amendment was approved the 12 May 2006, establishing the duration of the project in 22 months.

As can be seen in the above updated Gantt chart, the project is on schedule and all milestones have been achieved.

5.4 Co-ordination Activities

Communication between partners has been carried out by regular emails messages and transmission of documents between partners for comments and inputs.

The private section of the ASSIST web page has been used as a common repository of final versions of Deliverables and repository of Prototypes.

The project has carried out the following meetings:

November 2004 – Bilbao kick-off meeting, management and technical meeting

February 2005 – Athens technical meeting

June 2005 – Bremen management and technical meeting

October 2005 – Bilbao management and technical meeting.

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WORKPACKAGES / TASKS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

WP1: Project Management Task 1.1. Financial Co-ordination

Task 1.2 Monitoring and Reporting WP2: Dissemination and Exploitation

Task 2.1 Dissemination Task 2.2 Exploitation

WP3: Requirements Task 3.1 Survey

Task 3.2 User Case Scenarios Task 3.3 User Requirements Specifications

WP4: ASSIST Approach Task 4.1 Overall System Structure

Task 4.2 ASSIST Methodology WP5: Software Tools Implementation Task 5.1 Software Requirements and Tools Design

Task 5.2 Early Prototype Task 5.3 ASSIST System

WP6: Assessment and Demonstrators Task 6.1 Demonstrators

Task 6.2 Assessment MILESTONE 1 MILESTONE 2 MILESTONE 3 MILESTONE 4

Project Month

Final Report

March 2006 – Barcelona management and technical meeting.

September – Athens management and technical Final meeting.

5.5 Justification of major cost items and resources

5.5.1 Work performed by each contractor during reporting periodSMEs

Description of work performed

WP1 Inputs for this report and preparing cost statement. Comments on web site. Requirements inputs and checking requirements analysis. Inputs and comments on plan for using and disseminating knowledge.

WP2 Comments on web site. Inputs and comments on plan for using and disseminating knowledge. CTOOLS only – coordination of exploitation work and drawing up draft plan for using and disseminating knowledge.

WP3 Completed in last period

WP4 Checking and Comments on ASSIST methodology.

WP5 Installation and use of ASSIST system.

WP6 Development of demonstrators. Assessment of the ASSIST results.

LABEIN


WP1 LABEIN monitored and co-ordinated the Project. LABEIN has conducted the Project Extension with the Commission and the Project Officer.

LABEIN has conducted the Financial management of the Project, coordinating with the Project Officer and Financial Officer the Financial management, and collecting and consolidating the Costs Statements set for the First reporting Period.

LABEIN, as Project Co-ordinator, has led the Technical and Overall Management of the Project, and the communication with the Commission and the Project Officer. Creation of the D1.2_Project Quality Plan and this D1.2_Periodic Progress Report.

WP2 LABEIN has updated the Project web-page, http://www.labein.es/assist, for Partners and interested parties consulting and monitoring of the Project progress.

LABEIN produced the Product Sheet Brochure for the ASSIST System, which was used for dissemination of the Project basis and communication to potential members of the UIGs at each of the partners’ Countries.

LABEIN has also contributed to the Dissemination of the Project, attending at two Congresses and presenting the achievements obtained so far. These Congresses were the ICE2005, in Munich, and the FAIM2005 in Bilbao.

LABEIN has contacted the main dissemination channel in Spain, the AETIC Association, and a number of potential interested SMEs, for creating the Spanish User Interest Group. Within this task, dissemination activities have been performed, as the Project presentation done in A Coruña the 17 February 2006, to a selected audience of Galizian SMEs.

WP4 LABEIN led the ASSIST Methodology creation, containing the "ASSIST" methods, which guides the SME user in a structured and step by step manner through the activities required for innovation best practice using extended enterprise facilities. Generation of D4.2, ASSIST Methodology Deliverable.

WP5 LABEIN developed, within Task 5.2, the Early Prototype for the Feedback Module, for collection

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of the internal feedback and customer’s feedback, while supporting information exchange from remote sites or different offices, as well as from other repositories or databases within the companies.

Updated Feedback Module was developed based on the feedback received on the Early Prototype for it, and integration with the other modules was coordinated and prepared.

WP6 LABEIN generated the Demonstrators guidelines for each user to compile a scenario and the template for D6.1 Demonstrators. LABEIN integrated contributions from SMEs on Demonstrators and generated final version of D6.1 Demonstrators.

LABEIN conducted activities with the Spanish User Interest Groups and contributed to the Assessment deliverable, D6.2, with feedback received from the UIG.

ATB


WP1 Technical management of ATB’s work, and contribution to Periodic Progress Report 2. Cost Statement (contribution to Deliverable 1.1). Attendance at all project meetings.

WP2 Contribution to dissemination and use plan (Deliverable 2.2) and execution of work of User Interest Group in Germany, which included 5 SMEs. Contacts with Intermediaries – Contact point in Bremen – AXON.

WP5 Testing of intermediate versions of the ASSIST system and provision of feedback to I2S. Development of search module. Support for ASSIST installations at SME partners.

WP6 Review of the assessment plan. Assistance to SMEs for assessment and demonstrators set-up. Support to THIELE regarding D6.2 Assessment Report.

I2S


WP1 Contribution to Periodic Progress Report 1. Cost Statement (contribution to Deliverable 1.1). Attendance at project meetings.

WP2 Set-up of user interest group in Greece. Individual meetings with the UG companies. Comments on the web site. Inputs on D2.2.

WP3 Preparation, in co-operation with LABEIN, of the initial and detailed questionnaires. Working with the Greek SMEs for the definition of their requirements and the business cases.

WP4 Contributions to the development of the methodology. Co-operation with ATB for the development of the overall system structure. Development of a zero-code prototype showing the main functionalities of ASSIST. Presentation of this prototype to the users (Feb 2005) in order to help them to better describe their requirements and collect useful feedback for the development of the overall system structure and the early prototype.

WP5 Specification of software requirements (system architecture, database, user interface). Development of the 1st and 2nd versions of the early prototype (June 2005 and August 2005 respectively).

WP6 I2s conducted a review of the assessment plan and provided assistance to SMEs for assessment and demonstrators set-up. Support to ASANAKIS and RAIR regarding D6.2 Assessment Report.

5.5.2 Major Cost itemsNone

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5.5.3 Budget Cost Budget Follow-up Table *) total budget figures - not EC funding

Contract N°: COOP-CT-2004-512841 Date: Nov. 2006

Period 1 Period 2 Period 3 Period 4 Total Totale a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 a1+b1+c1+d1/e e-e1

Part. 1 Total Person-month 19 16 14,24 30,24 159% -11,24

ASSANAKIS Personnel costs 55055 31242,87 29434,9 60677,77 110% -5622,77

Major cost item 'overheads' 11811 6248,57 5886,98 12135,55 103% -324,55

Major cost item 'y' 0 0% 0

Other costs ('the rest') 6250 0 1000 1000 8% 10811

Total Costs 73116 37491,44 36321,88 0 0 73813,32 101% -697,32

Part. 2 Total Person-month 24 11,56 12,5 24,06 100% -0,06

BINKE Personnel costs 164025 87653,29 53521,57 141174,86 86% 22850,14

Major cost item 'overheads' 34055 18515,53 10841,11 29356,64 86% 4698,36

Major cost item 'y' -48201,45 -48201,45 48201,45

Other costs ('the rest') 6250 4924,37 1184 6108,37 98% 141,63

Total Costs 204330 111093,19 17345,23 0 0 128438,42 63% 75891,58

Part. 3 Total Person-month 22 11 15 26 118% -4

CTOOLS Personnel costs 127500 61835,38 71142 132977,38 104% -5477,38

Major cost item 'overheads' 26300 12511 14228 26739 102% -439



Total Costs 160050 75066 86112 0 0 161178 101% -1128

Part. 4 Total Person-month 19 7,6 7 14,6 77% 4,4

PRAESENTIS Personnel costs 115000 33585,64 32988,15 66573,79 58% 48426,21

Major cost item 'overheads' 23800 6717,13 6597,63 13314,76 56% 10485,24


Other costs ('the rest') 6250 0 500 500 30% 23300

Total Costs 145050 40302,77 40085,78 0 0 80388,55 55% 64661,45


RODOS Personnel costs 60863,2 32493,3 33811,8 66305,1 109% -5441,9

Major cost item 'overheads' 12972,6 6623,54 6762,36 13385,9 103% -413,3



Total Costs 80085,8 39741,2 41774,16 0 0 81515,36 102% -1429,56


TECASA Personnel costs 105263,2 54023 59421,7 113444,7 108% -8181,5




Total Costs 133365,8 65554,57 71606,04 0 0 137160,61 103% -3794,81

Part. 7 Total Person-month 25 16,83 31,17 48 192% -23

THIELE Personnel costs 200800 70196,96 137559,1 207756,06 103% -6956,06

Major cost item 'overheads' 41410 14242,14 27713,62 41955,76 101% -545,76

Major cost item 'y' -12,59 -12,59 12,59

Other costs ('the rest') 6250 1013,72 1508,99 2522,71 40% 3727,29

Total Costs 248460 85452,82 166769,12 0 0 252221,94 102% -3761,94

Part. 8 Total Person-month 36 28 19 47 131% -11

LABEIN Personnel costs 193155,1 123276,9 83905,24 207182,14 107% -14027,04




Total Costs 361511,3 227449,06 155116,73 0 0 382565,79 106% -21054,49


ATB Personnel costs 141011,22 83050,03 74679,26 157729,29 112% -16718,07

Major cost item 'overheads' 121808,98 57405,46 52294,06 109699,52 90% 12109,46

Major cost item 'y' -103,06 -103,06 103,06


Total Costs 274070,2 144462,58 133704,26 0 0 278166,84 101% -4096,64


I2S Personnel costs 154700 48024 115096,5 163120,5 105% -8420,5

Major cost item 'overheads' 57400 16208 42585,7 58793,7 102% -1393,7



Total Costs 223350 65447,88 159134,7 0 0 224582,58 101% -1232,58

TOTAL Total Person-month 253 144,51 173,41 317,92 126% -64,92

Personnel costs 1317372,72 625381,37 691560,22 1316941,59 100% 431,13

Major cost item 'overheads' 508766,38 248018,65 245636,49 493655,14 97% 15111,24



Total Costs 1903389,1 892061,51 956287 0 0 1848348,51 97% 55040,59

Acronym: ASSIST

Pct. spent Remaining Budget(EUR)

PARTI-CIPANTS TYPE of EXPENDITURE(as defined by participants)

BUDGETACTUAL COSTS

(EUR)

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5.5.4 Budgeted person-months CONTRACT N°: COOP-CT-2004-512841

ACRONYM: ASSIST

PERIOD: 1

Workpackage 1: Actual WP total: 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Project Management Planned WP total: 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Workpackage 2: Actual WP total: 18,7 3 1,5 2 3 0,6 2 2 2 1,5 1,1

Dissemination and Exploitation Planned WP total: 38 4 3 4 6 3 4 4 4 3 3

Workpackage 3: Actual WP total: 46,8 4 9 5 4 4 5,3 4 6,5 2 3

Requirements Planned WP total: 36 2 4 5 4 4 4 4 5 2 2

Workpackage 4: Actual WP total: 43,95 13 2,6 2,5 2 2 3 2 3,53 7,12 6,2

ASSIST Approach Planned WP total: 42 12 2 3 2 2 2 2 3 8 6

Workpackage 5: Actual WP total: 32,07 5 2,9 2,06 2 1 2 3,31 4,8 4,5 4,5

Software System Tools Planned WP total: 71 7 4 6 4 4 4 4 6 11 21

Workpackage 6: Actual WP total: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0Assessment and Demonstrators Planned WP total: 61 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 3 9

Actual total: 144,52 28,00 16,00 11,56 11,00 7,60 12,30 11,31 16,83 15,12 14,8Total Project Person-month Planned total: 253 36 19 24 22 19 20 20 25 27 41

Par

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Par

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Par

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Par

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TOTA

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Par

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Par

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Par

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Par

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Par

tic. 6

Partner - Person-month per Workpackage

CONTRACT N°: COOP-CT-2004-512841

ACRONYM: ASSIST

PERIOD: 2

Workpackage 1: Actual WP total: 3,5 2 1,5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Project Management Planned WP total: 5 5 1,5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Workpackage 2: Actual WP total: 17,9 1 0 2 2 0 2,8 2 2,5 2,5 3,1






Workpackage 5: Actual WP total: 55,8 2 1,85 4,04 4 0 2,2 1,4 10,67 7,84 21,8


Workpackage 6: Actual WP total: 96,21 14 10,9 6,46 9 7 7,8 9 18 4 10,06Assessment and Demonstrators Planned WP total: 61 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 3 9

Actual total: 173,41 19,00 14,24 12,50 15,00 7,00 12,80 12,40 31,17 14,34 34,96Total Project Person-month Planned total: 253 36 20,5 24 22 19 20 20 25 27 41

TOTA

LS

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Par

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Par

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Par

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Par

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Par

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CONTRACT N°: COOP-CT-2004-512841

ACRONYM: ASSIST

PERIOD: 1 + 2

Workpackage 1: Actual WP total: 6,5 5 1,5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Project Management Planned WP total: 5 5 1,5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Workpackage 2: Actual WP total: 36,6 4 1,5 4 5 0,6 4,8 4 4,5 4 4,2


Workpackage 3: Actual WP total: 46,8 4 9 5 4 4 5,3 4 6,5 2 3


Workpackage 4: Actual WP total: 43,95 13 2,6 2,5 2 2 3 2 3,53 7,12 6,2


Workpackage 5: Actual WP total: 87,87 7 4,75 6,1 6 1 4,2 4,71 15,47 12,3 26,3


Workpackage 6: Actual WP total: 96,22 14 10,9 6,46 9 7 7,8 9 18 4 10,06Assessment and Demonstrators Planned WP total: 61 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 3 9

Actual total: 317,94 47,00 30,25 24,06 26,00 14,60 25,10 23,71 48,00 29,46 49,76Total Project Person-month Planned total: 253 36 20,5 24 22 19 20 20 25 27 41

Par

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Par

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5.5.5 Major budget deviations The efforts of Thiele for WPs 5 and 6 were significantly higher than expected. Regarding WP 5, Thiele was very active in testing of the prototype and specifying software improvements to be done. They needed to involve more personnel in testing of the system in order to assure its acceptance in the company. Regarding WP6, Thiele as the leader of Task T6.2 (Assessment) was deeply involved with many tasks, including: generation of the assessment plan, assistance to other SMEs evaluating ASSIST system and methodology, organization of workshops, analysis of assessment results and preparation of D6.2 (Assessment report). Again, a higher number of people were involved in assessment of the system than originally planned. However this will not cause an increase in the budget of Thiele and the overall project cost.

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5.6 Summary Financial report

Table I

1 Page 1/3

Contractor AC Third party(ies)

FC/FCF Third party(ies) Contractor AC Third

party(ies)FC/FCF Third

party(ies) Contractor AC Third party(ies)







FC/FCF Third party(ies)

Direct eligible costs 31.242,87 31.242,87 0,00 0,00

of which direct eligible costs of subcontracting 0,00 0,00 0,00

Indirect eligible costs 6.248,57 6.248,57 0,00 0,00

Adjustment on previous period(s) 0,00 0,00 0,00

Total eligible costs 37.491,44 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 37.491,44 0,00 0,00














Adjustment on previous period(s)

0,00 0,00 0,00






0,00 0,00 0,00


303.694,60 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 303.694,60 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

151.847,30 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

Amount of the financial interests generated by the prefinancing 1.757,80

151.847,30

15-nov 15-agoTo (dd/mm/yyyy)

151.847,30

Other Specific Activities(E)

Training(C)

2 BINKE

FCF

4 PRAESENTIS FCF

FCF

Requested EC contribution for the reporting period (in €) taking into account receipts [=Periodic Invoice]

Summary Financial Report

303.694,60 303.694,60 0,00

Type of Instrument Contract N° COOP-CT-2004-512841

Requested EC contribution for the reporting period (in €) without taking into account receipts

CRAFTReporting period number From (dd/mm/yyyy)

FCF

5 RODOS

ASSISTProject Title (or Acronym)

Type of activities

0,00151.847,30

ReceiptsManagement of the consortium(D)

0,00Total eligible costs

Contractor n°

3 CTOOLS

Cost model used

Organisation Short Name

Research and Technological Development / Innovation

(A)

Total eligible costs(F)=(A)+(B)+(C)+(D)+(E)Demonstration

(B)Eligible costs(in €)

1 ASSANAKIS

FCF

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Table II

1 Page 2/3






















Direct eligible costs 117.115,95 11.711,59 128.827,54 0,00 0,00


Indirect eligible costs 89.655,90 8.965,59 98.621,49 0,00 0,00


Total eligible costs 206.771,85 0,00 0,00 20.677,18 0,00 0,00 227.449,03 0,00 0,00











567.689,69 0,00 0,00 20.677,18 0,00 0,00 588.366,87 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

283.844,85 0,00 0,00 20.677,18 0,00 0,00

6 TECASA

FCF


(A)




20.677,18Total eligible costs

Contractor n°

8 LABEIN

Cost model used


20.677,18283.844,85Requested EC contribution for the reporting period (in €) without taking into account receipts


FC

10 I2S


Type of activities



567.689,69 588.366,87 0,00


7 THIELE

FCF

9 ATB FC

FC


304.522,03

15-nov 15-agoTo (dd/mm/yyyy)

304.522,03


Training(C)

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Table III

Summary Financial Report for the Reporting Period 1871.384,29 0,00 0,00 20.677,18 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

435.692,15 0,00 0,00 20.677,18 0,00 0,00


456.359,33

456.369,33


871.384,29 0,00 0,00Requested EC contribution for the reporting period (in €) without taking into account receipts 20.677,18435.692,15


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Table I

2 Page 1/3













of which direct eligible costs of subcontracting 1.000,00 1.000,00 0,00 0,00




Direct eligible costs 54.205,57 500,00 54.705,57 0,00 0,00

of which direct eligible costs of subcontracting 500,00 500,00 0,00 0,00


Adjustment on previous period(s) -48.201,45 -48.201,45 0,00 0,00

















217.697,05 0,00 0,00 3.942,00 0,00 0,00 221.639,05 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

108.848,53 0,00 0,00 3.942,00 0,00 0,00

1 ASSANAKIS

FCF


(A)





Contractor n°

3 CTOOLS

Cost model used




FCF

5 RODOS


Type of activities



217.697,05 221.639,05 0,00


2 BINKE

FCF

4 PRAESENTIS FCF

FCF

Amount of the financial interests generated by the prefinancing

112.790,53

16-ago 15-sepTo (dd/mm/yyyy)

112.790,53


Training(C)

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Final Report

Table II

2 Page 2/3




















Adjustment on previous period(s) -12,59 -12,59 0,00 0,00




Indirect eligible costs 52.000,00 14.842,69 66.842,69 0,00 0,00


0,00 0,00 0,00




Indirect eligible costs 51.383,60 910,46 52.294,06 0,00 0,00

Adjustment on previous period(s) -103,06 -103,06 0,00 0,00







646.860,75 0,00 0,00 39.418,86 0,00 0,00 686.279,61 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

323.430,38 0,00 0,00 39.418,86 0,00 0,00

6 TECASA

FCF


(A)





Contractor n°

8 LABEIN

Cost model used




FC

10 I2S


Type of activities



646.860,75 686.279,61 0,00


7 THIELE

FCF

9 ATB FC

FC

Amount of the financial interests generated by the prefinancing 181,20

362.849,24

16-ago 15-sepTo (dd/mm/yyyy)

362.849,24


Training(C)

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Final Report

Table III

Summary Financial Report for the Reporting Period 2864.557,70 0,00 0,00 43.360,86 0,00 0,00 907.918,66 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

432.278,91 0,00 0,00 43.360,86 0,00 0,00

Amount of the financial interests generated by the prefinancing 181,20

453.189,54

475.639,77


864.557,70 907.918,66 0,00Requested EC contribution for the reporting period (in €) without taking into account receipts 43.360,86432.278,91


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6. Final report on the distribution of the Community’s contribution

From To From To From To From To From To From To From To15/11/2004 14/08/2005 16/08/2005 15/09/2006

Date Amount(A) Date Amount

(B) Date Amount(C) Date Amount

(D) Date Amount(E) Date Amount

(F) Date Amount(G) Date Amount

(H)7/10/2004 649.006,00 17/01/2006 137.000,00 786.006,00

Contractor n°


Country Code Date(s) (5)

Amount(s)(A') (5)

Date(s) (5)Amount(s)

(B') (5)Date(s) (5)

Amount(s)(C') (5)


(D') (5)Date(s) (5)

Amount(s)(E') (5)


(F') (5)Date(s) (5)

Amount(s)(G') (5)


(H') (5)

20/01/2005 1.936,13 1.936,1313/05/2005 1.936,13 1.936,1323/11/2005 1.936,13 1.936,13

17/01/2006 1.226,11 1.226,11Total 5.808,39 Total 1.226,11 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 7.034,5024/12/2004 5.507,80 5.507,8013/05/2005 5.507,80 5.507,8023/11/2005 5.507,80 5.507,80



17/01/2006 1.793,10 1.793,10Total 8.494,32 Total 1.793,10 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 10.287,42

27/01/2005 2.257,07 2.257,0713/05/2005 2.257,07 2.257,0723/11/2005 2.257,07 2.257,07



17/01/2006 3.593,94 3.593,94Total 17.025,48 Total 3.593,94 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 20.619,42

7/10/2004 238.267,61 238.267,6117/01/2006 50.296,39 50.296,39

0,000,00

Total 238.267,61 Total 50.296,39 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 288.564,0022/12/2004 180.636,81 180.636,81

17/01/2006 38.130,99 38.130,990,000,00

Total 180.636,81 Total 38.130,99 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 218.767,8020/01/2005 147.207,17 147.207,17

17/01/2006 31.074,26 31.074,260,000,00

Total 147.207,17 Total 31.074,26 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 Total 0,00 178.281,43

10 I2S Gr

Report on the Distribution of the Community's contribution

ASSIST COOP-CT-2004-512841Contract N°Type of Instrument COOP Project Title (or Acronym)

Part I

Part II

1 ASSANAKIS

E

6

Total (X)

Gr

D

TECASA E

5 RAIR Gr

Reporting Period 6 Reporting Period 7

D7 THIELE

3 CTOOLS

4 PRAESENTIS

UK

Community's prefinancing (or payment) sent to the coordinator (1)

Distribution of the Community's prefinancing (or payment) between contractors according to the consortium decision(s) (4)

Total Amount(I) (3)

Final paymentReporting Period 6 (2) Reporting Period 7 (2)Reporting Period 2 (2) Reporting Period 3 (2) Reporting Period 4 (2) Reporting Period 5 (2)Reporting Period 1 (2)

Reporting Period 4Total Amount

(I') (6)

2 NBU

Reporting Period 5 Final paymentReporting Period 1 Reporting Period 2 Reporting Period 3

8 LABEIN E

9 ATB D

Total Amount

-0,02

Reporting Period 7

0,00

Part III Difference between Community's prefinancing (or payment) sent to the coordinator and Total Distribution of the Community's prefinancing (or payment) between contractors according to the consortium decision(s) (4)

Reporting Period 1 Reporting Period 2 Reporting Period 3 Reporting Period 4 Reporting Period 5 Reporting Period 6 Final payment

Community's prefinancing (or payment) not yet distributed between contractors (Z) (7)

0,00 -0,02 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00

document.doc 44

Final Report

7. Final science and society reporting questionnaireThis document is enclosed with the rest of documentation. It is named “appendix_13_en - LABEIN.doc”

8. Final reporting questionnaire on workforce statisticsThese documents are enclosed with the rest of documentation. They are named “appendix_15-16_en- ORGANISATION.doc”

9. Final socio-economic reporting questionnaireThese documents are enclosed with the rest of documentation. They are named “appendix_15-16_en- ORGANISATION.doc”

10. Supplementary final reports Any Supplementary reports which have been specified in any annex of the contract to be prepared at the end of the project are also now submitted.

11. Residual obligationsContractors have a number of obligations which remain in force after the end of the project and the delivery of the final reports.

They are required by Article II.34 of the contract to use or cause to be used the knowledge which has arisen from the project, normally within two years after the end of the project. This may involve a Commission review of their actual implementation of the plans described in the final Plan for using and disseminating the knowledge.

Contractors are required by Article II.10.1 of the contract to provide, at any time up to five years after the end of the project, any data necessary for:

The continuous and systematic review of the Sixth Framework Programme and of the specific priority concerned

The evaluation and impact assessment of funded activities

Such data may also be published by the Commission in the form of anonymous statistics.

The Commission or the Court of Auditors may also, according to Article II.29 of the contract, at any time during the contract and up to five years after the end of the project, arrange for audits to be carried out, either by outside scientific or technological reviewers or financial auditors, or by the Commission departments themselves including OLAF1. Such audits may cover scientific, financial, technological and other aspects (such as financial, accounting and management principles) relating to the proper execution of the project and the contract.

For these reasons, contractors are required by Article II.29.3 of the contract to keep all documentation relating to the contract for up to five years from the end of the project.

Contractors also remain bound to certain undertakings of confidentiality, as described in Article II.9 of the contract, and requirements concerning access rights (licences and user rights), as described in Article II.35 of the contract.

1 Office européen de Lutte Anti-Fraude / European Anti-Fraud Officedocument.doc 45

Documents

Document Template - cordis.europa.eu€¦ · Web viewFinal versions should be 1.0 for first versions, and 1.1, 1.2 for further updates if required. CONTENTS. 1. Introduction 5. 2