EPM Technology is a software vendor in the Product Data Technology domain, providing solution for exchange, sharing and quality of product data in a heterogeneous environment. The company is a commercial result of a series of Esprit projects, such as Imppact, Fame and Prodex - all projects with objectives to develop and demonstrate data exchange/ data sharing based on the Express language developed by ISO TC184/SC4 as part of ISO 10303.

After the founding in 1994, EPM Technology has released the EXPRESS Data Manager product line which is a generic software integration platform for Express. Express is by many viewed as the enabling technology for the "Open Data Paradigm" - the concept of giving the users full control of their product data to capture and maintain the definition and methods of processing information pertitent to a product throughout its development and operational life.

Provided functionality today include:

- conceptual data modeling using Express and Express-G;

- data management for Express metadata and instance data in a multi-user,

heterogeneous network;

- application development through the provided EDMInterface specification;

- data quality management through the checking of instance data versus the

Express specification;

As part of the EP 20408 Vega project EPM Technology will further develop is products to become a software integration platform for Virtual Enterprises, also supporting distribution, interoperability, workflow management and technical publications.

Though being a new company, EPM Technology has made several sales in Europe, USA and Far East based on the emerging need for new technology paradigms to implement PDT and Electronic Commerce.

EPM Technology is involved in the VINST project for the following purposes:

- to have industrial verification of the EXPRESS Data Manager product line. Being a software vendor with a niche product in implementing Express based database solutions, it is of great value to have the chance to test new technology in a R&D project with major end-users such as Aerospatiale, Scania, Volvo, Siemens. Though we today have a robust and flexible set of tools to implement STEP, we are aware of the need for industrial acceptance, that only can come from successful implementation references by large end-users.

- to further develop the product line. The input from end-user requirements will be implemented as functionality in EXPRESS Data Manager, and will provide commercial software results from the VINST project. The improved functionality coming from VINST is considered to give a significant contribution to the business of EPM Technology, as it will open markets to sales and distribution of the company products.

- to collaborate with the R&D centres of excellence in Europe has proved beneficial to EPM Technology in previous Esprit projects, and the collaboration with organisations such as RPK, DSV, CSTB is advantageous to a commercial software vendor as EPM Technology, and the integration between the EXPRESS Data Manager product line and the leading edge software development executed by these organisations.

- To deploy STEP technology in the industry. EPM Technology is the Norwegian representative in WG11 of ISO TC184/SC4 and have been involved in the development and implementation since 1992. However the availability of software tools is by EPM Technology considered to be a success factor to deploy ISO 10303 as an Industry Standard. In this context EPM Technology is a STEP compatible software vendor that will give STEP related projects a commercial foundation.

Aerospatiale is one of the most important aerospace company in Europe with 36 000 employees. For the past years it has been involved often as the main partner in the design and manufacture of the following well known

products:

- the family AIRBUS civil aircraft (in the framework of the GIE AIRBUS),

- the AIR (regional transport aircrafts) together with ALENIA and

British Aerospace,

- the Ecureuil, Dauphin, Puma (in the Eurocopter branch),

- the Pluton and Hades strategic missiles,

- the Roland and Hot missiles,

- and the space exploitation with Ariane and satellites.

Aerospatiale has built up a skills base on its core sectors that is among strongest and most diversified in Europe. For example, Aerospatiale is the only group capable of fully designing and integrating a wide body commercial airliner. It also offers the same exclusive capability in the space and ballistic missile sectors, and is the only company in Europe to offer such wide range of tactical missiles.In order to strengthen its position for the long-term viability of its industrial and technical potential, Aerospatiale must have a policy of innovation which is implemented through substantial investments and a large number of R&D programs . No other groups in Europe places such clear emphaze on renewing its product range, as shown by AEROSPATIALE spending on research and development.

Within the company the Louis-Bleriot joint research centre (CRC) has a key position. This centre is in charge of most of the advanced research and development for AEROSPATIALE's branches. The main areas of work of CCR are advanced materials development, research in applied mathematics and physics for aerospace industry and research in CIM.

Name : Jean-Yves Delaunay

Date of Birth : 2/2/1960 - 36 years

Nationality : French

University Degree

: 1983: Dipl.-Eng. Mechanical Engineering, Ecole des Hautes Etudes

Industrielles (HEI) of Lille

: 1984: Specialization Engineer Diploma in Computer-Aided-Design,

ENSIMAG (Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Informatique et de

Mathematiques Appliquees de Grenoble)

Prof. Experience :

: 1985: development on CAD interfaces based on SET,

: 1987: CAD-CAM Engineer at the DCN (Military Ship Building

Industry), responsible of SET interfaces and CAD-CAM network

architecture;

: Since 1990: CAD-CAM Engineer at the Research Center of Aerospatiale;

responsible of the CATIA Support Team during 3 years. Then,

technical responsible for the AS STEP activities for two years.

Since mid-1995, technical expert for the STEP activities

in the Aircraft Branch of AS.

: Member in GOSET and AFNOR working groups.

: Coordinator of the ESPRIT RISESTEP initial proposal, and member

of the project (Enterprise Wide Standard Access to STEP Distributed

Databases)

: Member of the STEP working-group of the Airbus Concurent Engineering

(ACE) project.

Name : Pierre HUGUET

Nationality : French

University Degree : Ingenieur Diploma in Industrial Computer Sciences from "Clermont-Ferrand Institut des Sciences de l'Ingenieur" Doctorate in Industrial Computer Sciences of the Toulouse University

Prof. Experience :

1990 : responsible of the production engineering assembly team of VALEO Climate Control British Division.Since 1992 : At Aerospatiale, expert in CAD and in object modelling. Project Leader of the RISESTEP ESPRIT Project (EP 20459)

Name : Frederic FERU

Nationality : French

University Degree : 1988 - 1989 : Bachelor in Engineering Master of Art and in Industrial Computer Science from University of Valenciennes

1990 : Specialised year in Industrial Computer Sciences from University of Valenciennes

Prof. Experience :

1991-1995 : Assistant Researcher at the Industrial Computer Sciences, Lab of the University of Valenciennes

Technical Responsible for University of Valenciennes in the FEMOD BRITE EURAM Project (BREU 0333C)

Since 1996 : At Aerospatiale, expert in CAD system

Project leader assistant in the RISESTEP ESPRIT Project

Aerospatiale is involved, for most of its products, in European partnerships which require the sharing of standardized CIME information with partners and suppliers in order to stay competitive.

A new project between the Airbus partners (Aerospatiale, Daimler Airbus, British Aerospace Airbus, Casa, GIE Airbus) aims at defining new working processes, taken into account the growing part of the information technology to build the Airbus virtual extended enterprise. The specification and uses of STEP Application Protocols are parts of this strategy. But, currently Aerospatiale faces the challenge to integrate together a lot of APs (AP 202, 203, 209, 212, 214, 221, 231, ...), without tools allowing to ease this task, and with great difficulties to ensure the required interoperability. Moreover, there are not tools allowing to help the specification and the validation of these STEP standards by experts (of different countries).

On another side, Aircraft logistic support will also be based more and more on information sharing specified by international standards. Airlines companies and aircraft manufactures are working in the Air Transport Association (ATA) to specify this information in the ATA 2100 Data Model. Some works have began to study the implementation of this specification according to STEP methodology.

Aerospatiale will still need high level tools and methods which ensure large STEP modeling activities strongly interrelated to each other, and then with integration constraints.

The VINST project will provide tools and methods which will ease this crucial task, and will enforce the european industry to promote its standards at the STEP international community. Its results will provide a major input to the specification and design of Aerospatiale's and Airbus CIME's architectures of next decade, based on international standards.

The AS involvment will be in the specification the requirements for the VINST tools and the methodology and in test and evaluation of the VINST tools (tests cases, reports,..)

A strong relationship with CSTB, based on already existing common project, can optimize the AS involvment in VINST.

AS has a strong involvment in STEP applications integration, and has already clearly identify the lacks and difficulties to achieve this goal. AS studies solutions to improve quality on STEP APs specifications and integration, because it is no more STEP file exchange but STEP data sharing which is the crucial stake of the next years.

Scania is an international corporation and one of the worlds leading manufacturers of heavy trucks and buses. Scania was founded in 1891. Since then it has built and delivered some 800,000 trucks and buses for heavy transport work. Industrial and Marine Engines is another important business area. Today, Scania is operating in more than 100 countries. Ninety-seven percent of its production is sold outside Sweden. The number of employees is 22,000. One of the reasons for Scania's success is a corporate culture that is based on always being one step ahead of competitors. Another important success factor is a modularised specification system that provides major advantages in all stages of Scania operations. Since the late 1940s, Scania has represented Volkswagen in Sweden. Together with Volkswagen AG, Scania owns the importing company V.A.G Sverige, which also markets Audi, Porsche, Seat and Skoda. Scania is a member of PRoSTEP Association. During the last years, by active participation in PDMI project, as well, via Odette/Sweden and SASIG, Scania together with other end-users (manufacturers) contributes to the specification and development of STEP/AP-214.

S-151 87 Södertälje

Stockholm, Sweden

Phone: +46 8 553 83443

Fax: +46 8 553 86358

Email: sven.hjelmÉscania.com

Scania, TII (Industrial Engineering, Information Systems)

S-151 87 Södertälje

Stockholm, Sweden

Phone: +46 8 553 85069

Fax: +46 8 553 85760

Email: mohsen.azariÉscania.com

Senior Engineer

Scania, TPI (Product Development Technology, Information Systems)

S-151 87 Södertälje

Stockholm, Sweden

Phone: +46 8 553 81408

Fax: +46 8 553 85650

Email: erik.hoppoÉscania.com

Senior Engineer

Scania, SDSD (Scania Data, Product Development)

S-151 87 Södertälje

Stockholm, Sweden

Phone: +46 8 553 82674

Fax: +46 8 553 83839

Email: christian.ekvallÉscania.com

Due to the size and complexity of Scanias business process, the emerging STEP standard, and many other factors, Scania feels an urgent need for re-engineering (i.e. analyzing, modeling, and modifying) of its information systems. Currently there are a number of product descriptions (structures) used by different processes. Over the years many different views of Scanias product have been emerged and as a consequence many different descriptions have been created. Each of them optimised for its main usage. Now it is time to think over. The ever growing need for information exchange and sharing requires that the various product descriptions could be derived from a common source or product model. On the other hand, the need for effective communication with customer/supplier requires that such a common product description is conformed with STEP and AP 214. Here we can identify a number of problems for quality assurance, validation, interoperability and integration of designed models. So, the main contribution/role of Scania will be offering current problems, test, verification and validation of concepts, methods, tools, etc. developed within the framework of this project.

BATZ, S. Coop. is an industrial company with two lines of activities.

- Die manufacturing.

- Automotive components.

It has a solid prestige and most of its customers are european automotive companies as General Motors, Opel, Ford, Audi, VolksWagen, BMW, Volvo, SAAB, Renault, Peugeot, Citroën, Rover y Seat.

There are 300 people working, and it includes a R&D department for own products, as well as a CAD/CAM and engineering department. The company has developed several activities related to R&D projects and owns european patents for mechanisms and manufacturing tools.

Their relation to car manufacturers begins in the early stages of the project and there is an evolution period in which both, Batz and customer adjust diferent features of the final product. In this period, exchange of data is very frequent.

1969-1976 Head of Process Planning and Organization Engineering in ARIN S.A. (automotive parts supplier having 30 employees).

BATZ is a final user of the software tools, in order to test them and help in the development of applications for data integration using STEP concepts. To get the tools fit BATZ needs, the production and design processes will be analyzed previously to improve STEP-VINST integration tools either with customers or inside Technical Office.

Results of the project will be implemented and tools developed will form part of the resources destinated mainly for technical and production departments.

The Institute for Language and Speech Processing was officially founded in Athens, Greece, in 1991, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Industry, Energy and Technology, General Secretariat of Research and Technology. ILSP was launched in May 1992 with the aim to support the development of Language Technology in what concerns the Greek language. To this end, it has created the critical mass of experienced scientists and the necessary technical infrastructure. ILSP implements the political choice of the European Union to preserve, through technology, the European cultural inheritance, part of which are the national languages.

To this end it has developed research and development activities in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Speech Processing. It collaborates with Greek and European research centers and Universities, as well as with the private sector, in the framework of European research and development projects.

The developmental activity of the Institute focuses on the creation of laboratory prototypes which will lead to industrial prototypes. The development of these prototypes demands the effective interaction of different scientific fields, such as Theoretical, Applied and Computational Linguistics, Computer Science, Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition. The research activity of the Institute supports and promotes its development activity: on the one hand, it supplies the theoretical background for the design of the prototypes, and on the other, it pursues new directions for the implementation of new prototypes.

Thus, tools are developed for language processing, language teaching, and speech analysis, synthesis and recognition. The combination of research on Speech and Natural Language by a joint group of linguists and engineers, gives these domains a new impetus which springs out of their complementarity.

Specifically, ILSP

develops products for translating from and into the Greek language, as well as computational tools which assist the translation task.

develops products for machine assisted language teaching.

constructs electronic dictionaries (monolingual and bilingual).

develops prototypes for Speech Recognition, Synthesis and Compression.

creates Electronic Reference Corpora of the Greek Language, which contain written texts in electronic form.

Division of Language Technology Applications : The Division of Language Technology Applications aims at conducting basic and applied research in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Language Technology, developing at the same time system prototypes implementing advanced natural language processing techniques. The long term goal of the Division is the design of computational models for natural language recognition and "understanding" and their application in natural language access to databases, information retrieval and information extraction. To this end, the Division's team investigates solutions adopting both symbolic and numerical computation techniques, in an effort to interleave deductive as well as inductive approaches.

In order to cater for the fact that in the globalised information society, information sources are not only geographically but also linguistically distributed, the Division aims mainly at language neutral solutions while it gets engaged in the development of translation tools that help overcome problems arising from the linguistic distribution of information sources.

The achievement of the long term goals of the Division is closely related to the elaboration of a series of mid-term goals involving the design and development of tools for :

- efficient structural and grammatical text annotation

- multilingual parallel text alignment

- automatic derivation of lexical data pertinent to monolingual and multilingual applications

- syntactic parsing

- text corpora matching

- integrated translation memory applications

The mid-term goals of the Division are achieved in the framework of competitive national and European Union projects, such as LRE I - Translearn, LE I - Hagis, LE I - Aventinus, IE I - Aquarelle, EPET II - Dialogos.

Ph.D. (cand) on Formal Semantics and Philosophy of Language

1988 : University of London

MSc in Foundations of Advanced Information Technology

1988 : Imperial College of Science and Technology

Diploma of Imperial College

1986 : National Technical University of Athens

Diploma in Electrical Engineering

1993-today : Institute for Language and Speech Processing (ILSP)

Project Coordinator of the LRE/TRANSLEARN project.

Member of the Coordinating Group of the PAROLE and EAGLES project actions on Parallel Corpora Databases

1990-1991 : National Technical University of Athens

Teaching Assistant, Laboratory of Digital Systems

1989-1990 : Hellenic Air Forces

Teaching Assistant, S.O.S.M.E. School

Languages : English, German

Awards : Greek Government, 1987

Ministry for National Finance, NATO award, 1987

Goethe Institut Athen, 1978

Memberships : European Association for Machine Translation,

Foundation for Logic, Language and Information,

Greek Computer Society,

Technical Chamber of Greece

1996 : National Technical University of Athens

Ph.D. on Corpus-based Computational Linguistics

1992 : National Technical University of Athens

Diploma in Electrical Engineering

1993 - today: Institute for Language and Speech Processing (ILSP)

Researcher at the Language Technology Applications Division

Deputy Project Manager of LRE/TRANSLEARN

1989 : EUROTRA-EL

Researcher on development of terminological data banks

1993 : ELSNET Summer School: Corpus-based Linguistics,

(Utrecht, The Netherlands)

1992 : ORACLE RDBMS Version 7.0 Courses

(Athens)

Languages: English

Memberships: Association for Computational Linguistics

Greek Computer Society

Technical Chamber of Greece

Date & place of birth : Athens, 19/11/1971

Address : Protesilaou 9, Vyronas, 162 31 Athens

Phone : +30 1 72 42 993

1995-1996: MSc (awarded with Distinction) in Speech and Language Processing, Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh.

Thesis: "Automatic summarising based on sentence extraction: A statistical approach"

1989-1994: Department of Informatics, University of Athens. Mark: 8.23/10

1986-1988: High School, Mark: 18.75/20

1987: Cambridge Proficiency in English

1995: Winner of the Greek Scholarship Foundation scholarship in Computational Linguistics.

1989: Passed to second round of the Greek Mathematics Society competition.

1987: Third winner of the Greek Mathematics Society competition.

1994-1995: Institute for Speech and Language Processing (ILSP), TRANSLEARN EU project, participation in the creation of a MS-Windows user interface and the interaction with the translations database.

1992-1994: Development of financial software in COBOL for OPTIMUM and LIMIT Ltd. Programming for Greek Mail, hospitals, pharmaceutic companies, etc.

1990-1992: Translations from English to Greek for the 'Marketing and sales techniques' magazine in Greece.

1990-1995: DTP publications for Mrs Urania Benekou, author of English teachbooks and former president of Greek Association of teachers of English language.

1989-1991: Mass media surveys for FOCUS Ltd.

ILSP will contribute its experience in the design and deployment of natural language based engineering approaches that improve the interoperability of standardized product data models in the form of STEP schemata and address users specific requirements.

Particularly,ILSP is involved in the following tasks:

- design and specification of VINST toolset

- exploration and development of ontology engineering mechanisms supporting

schema integration

- analysis of naturally occuring texts describing/explaining STEP schemata

for validation and explanation

- collaboration with the other R&D centres.

- dissemination and exploitation of project results

Brisdata is a small software company in Stockholm. It was established in 1995 to commercialize results from previous research projects at the Swedish Institute of Applied Mathematics and at the Royal Institute of Technology. The staff is highly qualified; several have doctors degrees in engineering and mathematics. All have long experiences from software development, with simulation and computer algebra as central topics.

The main products are IDA Solver, IDA Modeller and IDA NMF Translator. Together these products form an integrated environment for modeling and simulating large scale modular systems of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs). The business idea is to develop, market and support the IDA software package and to use it for building customer-specific dedicated simulation applications.

Large scale modular DAE systems, suitable for IDA, can be found within many different fields of engineering. So far the IDA technology has been successfully applied to simulations of, e. g., thermal climate in buildings, pressure distribution and pollution transport in buildings, fire simulations in off-shore platforms, control problems in district heating networks and pollution and fire simulation in road tunnels.

The IDA development has focused on building simulation. Particularly interest in using IDA has been taken, not only by design consultants, but also by the construction and facilities management business. The cost of energy is a key factor in life cycle economy for buildings, and potential cost savings from optimizing various systems are important. At present, an industrial consortium of 29 companies in the building related business is supporting the development of a number of dedicated simulation applications based on IDA. The members of the consortium are:

ABB Air-Tech ARE (a Finnish company)

BDAB/CLC VVS-Energiconsult Bo Lönner Confortia

Energo ENESSEN EVR & Wahlings

FLK Helenius Ingenjörsbyrå INCOORD

LGM Consult NCC Postfastigheter

SCC VVS-Teknik Sigma VVS-Teknik Skandia

Skanska Teknik SP Stifab Farex

Stockholm Konsult Strängbetong Svenska Bostäder

Swedisol TA Control TeknoTerm

Vasakronan VBB Theorells ÅF Industriteknik

The consortium companies constitute an active IDA user group, which provides important engineering knowledge to guide Brisdata's development of building applications and helps out in beta testing, etc. Most of them are SMEs.

Wille Nordqvist finished his M.Eng. in Applied Physics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, in 1986. He then occupied himself with writing technical articles, performing software market analyses and teaching at KTH, something he took up long before graduating. After two years as an independent consultant, he joined a Ph. D. program at the Dept. of Hydraulic Engineering, KTH. His study concerned fluid flow and transport of particles in fractured rocks. With his simulation model, using a Monte Carlo technique, he managed to reproduce the rather unpredictable dispersion behavior reported from field experiments. Wille Norqvist spent almost two of his years as a graduate student at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California. Upon successfully defending his doctoral theses in 1995, he joined the IDA project on a part time basis, working mainly with mathematical modeling, documentation and customer training. He is also employed by the Dept. of Construction Management, KTH, involved in the conceptual modeling of buildings using EXPRESS/STEP, and, especially, in schema transformation, or mapping.

The phenomenon of Islands of Automation (see chapter 2) is typical for the building industry. Architects, Engineers and Constructors perform their work within highly computerized, but isolated environments. Consequently, the need for standardized product data models within the building industry to break this isolation is obvious and of high priority to Brisdata. The company is therefore strongly motivated to take active part in the development of the EXPRESS/STEP technology and related tools.

In the VINST project, Brisdata will contribute to the following parts:

In addition, the current needs of Brisdata call for immediate use of already existing tools that will be part of the VINST tool, e. g., tools for schema transformation and natural language generation.

Association GOSET was founded in 1989 by Aerospatiale, DGA, EDF, PSA Peugeot Citro'n and Renault, and is now gathering 35 industrial member companies to work in the field of technical data exchange. Member companies are coming from aerospace, automotive defence, energy sectors and from the computer and software providers.

GOSET activities are classified under three major objectives:

- to spread the practice of data exchange to industrial sectors, in particular by providing technical consultancy and training on data exchange standards,

- to industrialise data exchanges in particular by establishing certification means for the conformance of the interfaces to the standards,

- to enable the migration to STEP by developing the necessary methods and tools for the integration of the technologies.

GOSET is deeply involved in the develoment of STEP in ISO/TC184/SC4, for example by chairing the WG11 group on EXPRESS and implementation methods.

GOSET has developped EXPRESS and STEP toolkit oriented to the validation of EXPRESS models and STEP physical files.

Alain Bezos graduated from Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris 1978.

He has performed research and development in the field of Scientific calculation for dynamic analysis of nuclear systems (piping, supports, tanks and buildings). He has been leading the development of a CAD system for process industry piping engineering.

He joined GOSET in 1989 to develop the solid geometry standard SET, and was nominated General Manager of GOSET in 1992.

Alain Bezos is chairing the French National Committee on STEP (AFNOR/CGP/CN4), the European Standardization Group on STEP (CEN/TC310/WG2), he is member of the Policy and Planning Committee, and head of the French delegation in ISO/TC184/SC4.

Alain Bezos is a member of the Product Data Technology Advisory Group in Europe, and is leading WP5 (communication) of ESPRIT project 9049 (PDTAG-AM).

Alain Bezos is responsible for the publication of the European "PDTAG newsletter", and the French "GOSET Actualit

s".

In close conjunction with Aerospatiale, who is acting as a testbed for EXTOOL development, and due to the early involvement of GOSET in the development of STEP technological components and to its experience in the field of developing EXPRESS integrated schema, the role of GOSET in VINST will be to participate in the Schema Integration requirements specification and to offer expertize in the area of STEP, with the aim of incorporating the VINST technologies into the EXTOOL.

CSTB is a French public commercial and industrial research organisation with 560 employees. CSTB undertakes a research programme funded under the auspices of the housing, transportation and space ministry, collaborates with the building professionals and products' manufacturers to improve the overall construction industry quality and competitiveness and which performs contractual research for leading edge projects in the engineering & construction (e.g., Tres Grande Bibliotheque) public works (e.g. Pont de Normandie) and IT fields. CSTB plays an active role in the computerization of the building sector and has lead or contributed to major national or European IT projects such as CD-REEF (i.e. 22.000 pages of technical documentation accessible on a CD-ROM), BATIBASE (30.000 construction products stored in a database and made accessible to the public by means of MINITEL), DOCCIME (Electronic Product Data Management), COMBINE (Joule), ATLAS (EP 7280), etc. CSTB is actively involved in standardisation activities and participates in the IT field to the STEP international project (AP228 Project leader), developing STEP models and compliant STEP software architectures for many years. CSTB is also engaged in a continuous strategy of technology transfer for its STEP based software systems and alliances with aggressive IT software companies such as ILOG.

From its passed experiences, CSTB gained skills in Product Data Modelling in Express, elaborating Express Graphical Editor, implementating STEP SDAI specifications to provide STEP implementation platforms, implementing rule-based language that unify on Express Model instances and provided either production rule or data mapping. WEB technologies (HTML, JAVA) are also becoming a strong domain of interest.

Current Product Data Modelling efforts at CSTB is currently leading the development of ISO STEP AP228 (HVAC) in the Building and Construction sector. CSTB is also member of the french chapter of the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) and supports the development of the Industrial Foundation Classes (IFC) in relation with other IAI members.

Relevant ESPRIT Project at CSTB for the VINST project are the RISETEP and the ATLAS project. the RISETEP (EP 20459) (starting date : 01/01/96, ending date : 28/02/98) aims at reconciling various CAD (eg CATIA from Dassault-Systemes or EUCLID from MatraDataVision) and Product Data Management (eg Metaphase from Metaphase Inc/Bull) systems thanks to STEP distributed data. With that respect, on the one hand mapping between propriatery data to STEP AP214 data, and on the other hand the distribution of STEP data supported by CORBA technologies, play the leading roles.

The ATLAS project (EP 7280) stands for one of the major Esprit project in which CSTB has been involved. Objectives of the project were to develop architectures,methodologies and tools for computed integrated large scale engineering.In that context, CSTB strengthened its skills regarding Product Data Modelling techniques through the contribution to the development various productmodels (Building Type Model, Architectural View Type Model, HVAC View Type Model).

Patrice POYET graduated with a Msc in 1981. He undertook postgraduate research at the Ecole des Mines de Paris where he got his DEA (mention trËs bien). He joined the French National Research Institute in Computer Science and Automation in 1982 and obtained his PhD (Doctorat díEtat Ës Sciences) in 1986 with ´ FÈlicitations du Jury ª.

As one of the founding members of ILOG in 1987 he has contributed to the development of this software company having now offices in Europe, US and Asia.

He joined CSTB in 1989 and since then has been leading the Computer Integrated Division . He has been involved in many European research projects in the area of integration in manufacturing including projects as ATLAS, RISESTEP and more recently VEGA focusing on distributed architectures for concurrent engineering. He is also the project leader for AP228 and supervises the development of a STEP software product line for the deployment of PDT in the LSE industry.

Other members of the Group

Patrice Poyet, Head of Computer Integrated Construction (CIC) division

Philippe Debras, Research Ingeneer, CIC member

Jean-Luc Monceyron, Research Ingeneer, CIC member

Fadi Sandakly, Research Ingeneer, CIC member

Gerard Sauce, Research Ingeneer, CIC member

Alain Zarli, Research Ingeneer, CIC member

The CSTB considers to contribute to this project at several levels.

First by offering its experience in data and process modelling, description methods and specification techniques, especially due to its contribution to previous EU projects like COMBINE or ATLAS and its great involvement in STEP standardisation. In particuliar,

CSTB is actually leading the development of the HVAC Application Protocol (AP228) within STEP. With that respect, CSTB could participate to the specifications of new representations of EXPRESS models such as with Natural Language Generation.

In a second way, CSTB, building upon the expertise it gained on the developement of the XP-EXPRESS-G, XP-SDAI and XP-RULE software tools, offers to participate to the implementations of the before mentionned specifications leading to new representation of EXPRESS models.

Finally, by illustrating the use of such generic approach and tools to address the specific requirements in the area of building construction, and so collaborating to the elaboration of dedicated building construction data models that would become interoperable software components.

ROBOTIKER Technology Transfer Centre is a private non-profit making association founded in July 1985 by a number of local companies with the support of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia. The industrial owners of ROBOTIKER belong to sectors such as automotive industry, machine tool manufacturers, aeronautics and electronics. The engineering ones work in the filed of manufacturing processes automation.

ROBOTIKER was established to introduce integral automation in local industry, promote research and development in automation and robotics and to channel stall training and recycling activities in those areas. ROBOTIKER acts as the R&D department for its associates in a project basis, but also works for other enterprise in automation projects.

Experience is gained from industrial and research projects, covering national programmes as well as BRITE and ESPRIT projects. Results are transferred in a contract basis when important customisation tasks have to be developed for their implementation in industrial enviroments, as the result of the project itself is the domain of a certain technology or methodology.

The enterprise is organised in three Technological Areas.

1. Process Automation.

2. Information Technology

3. Telecommunications Technology

ROBOTIKER develops generic investigation projects, takes part in a number of european projects (ESPRIT, BRITE EURAM, EUREKA, ACTS, ESSI-FUSE, etc.) as well as educational programs and an intense dedication to contract projects with enterprises.

Robotiker has been involved in the following ESPRIT projects which are relevant to VINST:

DCC - Discrete Cell Controller. ESPRIT-8803 The aim of DCC is to develop a methodoly, an open applications framework and software modules for cell manufacturing. It describes an arquitecture for discrete manufacturing cell controllers. During the project, product description through STEP schemata was considered.

MMTCA - Multimedia toolbox for Cooperative Applications.ESPRIT-6310 The objective of this project is to develop a toolkit enabling end-users who lack programming know-how to build multimedia applications. It also include a workflow tool for cooperative processes, including product design related tasks.

CCE-CNMA. ESPRIT-7096 The purpose of this project is to build European Industrial Communications Systems according to ISO standards. The know-how in requirements of the automotive & aerospace industry are necessary as they are the principal final users.

LÓPEZ GONZÁLEZ, Jesús Mº. (Head of the Design Systems Department).

In July, 1986 he joins Centro Tecnológico ROBOTIKER, taking part in the development of a great number of projects related with industrial control, flexible cells, FMS and CAD/CAM/CAE. He took part y the development of the control system of the FMS designed and created by ROBOTIKER in 1987, which was the first one of its class in Spain.

For several years was responsable and system manager of the DIGITAL computers network existing in ROBOTIKER.

He has taken part in many projects of software industrial, production control, planification and CAD/CAM applications, and has directed several master thesis from the "Master in Robotics and Automation" of the Basque Country University.

1989 Master in Robotics and Automation, by ETSII

(Engineering College of Basque Country University), Bilbao.

1988 MSc. in Mechanical Engineering by ETSII

(Engineering College of Basque Country University), Bilbao.

In December, 1990 he joins "Centro Tecnológico ROBOTIKER", working in the CAD/CAM department. He has taken part in number of projects related with technical office, developing specific software and tools for integration of CAD/CAM systems. Since 1992, he works as consultance expert for reengineering and optimizing technical processes.

In 1992 he is in charge of the project "Developing and implementing Features use for design and manufacture automotive parts". He has worked with Graphic standards as IGES, SET, VDA..., participating in the development of a SET and a VDA translation programs.

He has also been participate in a great number of seminars about CAD/CAM technology.

ROBOTIKER contribution to the project is based on the experience and knowledge of the manufacturing industry, specially on advanced software in the fields of design (CAD, CAM, Simulation, etc.), organizational methods, process planning and artificial intelligence techniques.

Related to this working fields, we think it will be of higher interest the development of standard software tools which can be able of integrate data from STEP/EXPRESS files in the proper format use in the technical office, planning and production departments.

We consider very important the generic manipulation of data through software able to prepare information for further operations directly from standard neutral files, in the context of concurrent engineering.

In this context, our aim as a technology transfer centre is to acquire a very deep knowledge in STEP tools to develop specific answer to automotive industry in general, and, in particular, associated to BATZ S.Coop.

RPK (Institute for Computer Application in Planning and Design) is a member of the faculty of mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. It is carrying on, beside the education of students, research and development in the context of mechanical design and of manufacturing process planning. RPK has its focus on product and process information modelling, rapid prototyping, quality management, document management, and knowledge based design.

RPK has been involved in a number of national and european research projects:

- Integrated product and process information modelling: IMPPACT (ESPRIT-II

No.2165); QCIM and SFB 346 (national projects funded by DFG).

- Integration technology for CIME applications: PISA (ESPRIT III No. 6872).

Technical documentation: FODATEC (ESPRIT-II No.5402); DOCSTEP (MLAP No 63557).

- Ontology-based knowledge reuse: KACTUS (ESPRIT III No. 8145).

IMPPACT (Integrated Modelling of Products and Processes using Advanced Computer Technologies) (ESPRIT Number 2165): The project was initiated to develop and demonstrate a new generation of integrated modelling systems for product design, process planning and generation of machine control data. Requirements from design, planning and production were addressed by a general approach for deriving specific software development strategies depending on two application areas.

PISA (Platform for Information Sharing by CIME Applications) (ESPRIT III No. 6872). The project developed:

• a methodology for integrated enterprise and product data modelling

• a platform for information sharing in CIM Engineering

• a demonstration of these techniques in an industrial scenario.

In the PISA project was the ECCO tool developed. ECCO is of importance for Rapid Prototyping purposes.

KACTUS (modelling Knowledge About Complex Technical systems for multiple USe, ESPRIT III No. 8145) was dealing with the reuse and sharing of knowledge within the scope of the development of knowledge-intensive CIME applications. To facilitate the reuse and sharing of knowledge, KACTUS has used ontologies: well-defined terminologies intended to describe the meaning of pieces of formally represented knowledge contained in the software designs and implementations of knowledge bases. Among other things, KACTUS examined and used ontologies for STEP data modelling.

RPK has practical experience in the development, application, and standardisation of STEP. In particular, RPK has experience in the development of application protocols (AP201, AP214), of modelling languages (EXPRESS-C), and of EXPRESS-based modelling tools (ECCO, HyperEXPRESS). Till the end of the last year, RPK was a member of the ISO 10303 integration core team.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Hans Grabowski: Head of RPK

Engineering School from 1951 - 1954, after then design engineer in various industrial companies. 1961 - 1965 studiing mechanical engineering at the Technical University (RWTH) of Aachen. 1965 - 1969 design engineer in industry. 1969 - 1974 scientific researcher and chief engineer at the Machine Tool Laboratory (WZL) Aachen. Since 1975 director of the Department for Computer Application in Planning and Design (Institut fü r Rechneranwendung in Planung und Konstruktion, RPK) at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Karlsruhe and additionelly director of the FZI (Forschungszentrum Informatik) since 1983 (head of the research group CAD/CAM). Since 1989 Dr. h.c. from the University of the Budapest/Hungaria.

Dr.-Ing. Stefan Rude: Head Engineer at RPK

Research Experience

1985 - 1989 ESPRIT Project CAD*I (CAD-Interfaces): Development of Advanced

Modelling Techniques

1985-1994 Main research area: CAD/CAM

1989 -1993 ESPRIT Project DYNAMO (Integration of Vi-brational,

Acoustic and Fatigue Approaches with CAD)

since 1990 Sonderforschungsbereich 346 Computer Integra-ted Design and

Manufacturing of Single Com-po-nents"

since 1992 DFG-research program 'Innovative Qua-lit‰tssicherung',

Project: Tolerances on Freeform surfaces

1993 - 1994 ProSTEP project: Development of STEP AP214, longterm archiving

and conversion of freeform surfaces

since 1994 German Research project: CAD Reference Model

Eike Meis received his M. Sc. (diploma) in mathematics from the University of Karls-ruhe in 1991. Since 1991 he is working as research assistant at the 'Institut für Rechner-anwen-dung in Planung und Kon-struktion (RPK)', University of Karlsruhe. His interests include object-oriented modelling, knowledge engineering, formal concept theory, and integration of knowledge-intensive engineering applications. He is being involved in the German basic research project "Sonderforschungsbereich 346: Rechnerintegrierte Konstruktion und Fertigung von Bauteilen" (Engl.: Computer Integrated Design and Manufacturing of Single Components) since 1991 and he was involved in the ESPRIT project KACTUS (modelling Knowledge About Complex Techical systems for multiple USe), No. 8145 from Jan 1994 till Sep 1996.

Guenter Staub, Research Engineer.

Guenter Staub received his M.Sc. (diploma) in computer science from the University of Karlsruhe in 1992.

Since 1993 he is working as an research assistant at the Institut für Institut für Rechner-anwen-dung in Planung und Kon-struktion (RPK)', University of Karlsruhe.

His interests include Information Modelling, Language Design, Computer Aided Design, Design Theory and Knowledge Based Approaches to Design.He was involved in various projects that developed technology for systems integration using object oriented information modelling and distribution concepts. He is active in the ISO TC184/SC4 STEP community which promotes standards for the exchange and sharing of product model data.

- RPK will bring its expertise in the development, standardisation, and use of STEP into the project.

- RPK will bring its expertise in ontology engineering, a new approach to make

formal models interoperable, into the project.

- RPK will develop a tool that supports the integration of STEP/EXPRESS-based

PDMs with aid of ontology engineering mechanisms.

- RPK will exploit and disseminate VINST results, e.g. via the ISO

standardisation committee and industrial projects.

DSV-KTH has been and is involved with a number of research project with industrial companoies, e.g. Ericsson, Volvo, ABB, IBM, Telia.

Hercules Dalianis has been working both in industry SISU, IBM, Ellemtel, Ericsson, and Cap Gemini and at University developing and implementing his ideas. He has been presenting and publishing his work in various international conferences. Hercules Dalianis has also been collaborating with Dr. Eduard Hovy at the Information Sciences Institute/University of Southern California (ISI/USC) and has stayed several times at ISI/USC for research

He was project leader of the NUTEK (Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development) supported project Concise Natural Language Generation from Formal Specifications under the contract P3672-1, at the Department of Computer and Systems Science in collaboration with Ericsson Utvecklings AB (former Ellemtel Utvecklings AB) and was also project leader of the ESPRIT project KACTUS P8145 , modelling Knowledge About Complex Technical systems for multiple USe at Cap Gemini.

Currently he is project leader Swedish National project VOLVEX (Validation Of Specifications by Natural Language Generation for VOLVO expressed in EXPRESS/ STEP) supported by the Volvo Rearch Foundation.

Hercules Dalianis speaks/has studied the following languages Swedish, English, Greek, German, Spanish, French, Russian and Chinese.

Paul Johannesson received his BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science, and his PhD in Computer Sciencs from Stockholm University in 1983 and 1993, respectively. He became "docent" in 1995. He holds a position as lecturer at Stockholm University, where he lectures in information systems and databases. Johannesson has published work on federated information systems, translation between data models, languages for conceptual modelling, and schema integration. He is co-author of a text book on conceptual modelling, to be published by Prentice-Hall in 1996. Johannesson has participated in the ESPRIT project KIWIS, which aimed at constructing an environment for cooperation among autonomous knowledge base systems. He has also participated in the ESPRIT project NATURE, which investigates theoretical foundations for requirements engineering. He is the project leader of the NUTEK supported project SISI, which investigates issues in semantic interoperability.

Robert Ramberg received his PhD in 1996 at the department of Psychology, Stockholm University. He is currently working at the department of Computer and System Sciences (DSV) in the K2-lab (Laboratory for Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Communication) at Stockholm University where he is co-manager for the research group "Humans, Computers and social Interaction (HCI). He is vice research director for K2-lab and manager for the research group "Interface Design and Learning". His research has been focussed upon cognitive aspects of human computer interaction and has involved research on communication of knowledge, explanations, learning and understanding in expert system- and hypermedia environments. Among the projects he has worked in the following can be mentioned; CAFKA (Communication, Application and Forwarding of Knowledge via Artificial Systems), COPS (Communication for Problem Solving) and AUGMENT (AUGMENTation of expertise). Pharmacia - Up-John was industrial partner in the CAFKA and COPS projects. He is a lecturer in cognitive psychology, cognitive science and artificial intelligence, theories of learning and instruction at Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm.

DSV-KTH will have the role of Technical Coordinator in the VINST project. DSV-KTH will also serve as a both as a technology and expertize provider to the VINST project in the area of Schema Integration, Validation and Explanation.

DSV-KTH will assist in the development of a schema integration tool and we will also lead the construction of a natural language generation (Validation) tool from EXPRESS specifications in the VINST project. DSV-KTH has developed several such prototypes for demonstration and educational purposes but also in colloboration with industry i.e. Ericsson, Telia and Volvo.

Knowledge generated in this project will be exploited through education and through joint projects with the Swedish industry.

DSV-KTH will also participate in the dissemination activities of the VINST project by publish scientific papers and having seminars on the VINST project topics.