RESULTS



PRODNET RESULTS

PRODNET project is over. According to the official evaluation, it was considered a very successuful project, in both technical and business areas. Another great achievement was the strong cooperation level achieved by PRODNET team, during the project developement. It is good to feel now that all the efforts put by PRODNET team were strongly recognized. Congratulations, PRODNET consortium! We did an EXCELLENT JOB!!
PRODNET GOALS

PRODNET Platform should support:

  • Exchange of commercial data (EDIFACT) and technical product data (STEP)
  • Safe communications
  • Federated / distributed information management
  • Flexible coordination and customization according to the needs of each VE and each VE member
  • Monitoring of orders and production status
  • Exchange of quality-related information
  • Extended PPC to interact with VE environment
  • Incomplete and imprecise orders management
  • “Open window” for research on advanced coordination functionalities

PARTNERS' ROLES

SOFTWARE HOUSES

  • PPC reengineering and extension; Business plan and exploitation strategy - CSIN Company, Portugal
  • Design and development of safe communications infrastructure; Business plan and exploitation strategy - ESTEC Company, Portugal
  • Design and development of the EDIFACT module; Business plan and exploitation strategy - Lichen Informatique, France
  • Integration of STEP / PDM services - ProSTEP Company, Germany

END USERS

  • End-user providing requirements in the metal-mechanics industry and contributing to the business scenario specification - MIRALAGO, Portugal
  • End-user providing requirements in the moulds industry and contributing to the business scenario specification - HERTEN, Brazil

RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

  • Technical coordination of the project (UNL)
  • General architecture design (UNL, UvA and UFSC)
  • Design and development of the Coordination Module and Partners Search tool (UNL)
  • Coordination of the global demonstrator (UNL)
  • Socio-organizational issues (UNL)
  • Design and development of the Distributed Federated Information Management System (UvA)
  • Design and development of the Distributed Business Process Management System (UFSC)
  • Project management (UNINOVA)


DEVELOPED TOOLS

The following tools were developed by PRODNET consortium or integrated to PRODNET Platform:

  • GEV - Reengineered / expanded PPC (CSIN)
  • PCI - Prodnet Communications Infrastructure (ESTEC)
  • PIX -Private Information eXchanger (ESTEC)
  • EDI - Visual Commerce® + VISUAL Subset Editor (LICHEN)
  • LCM - Local Coordination Module (Workflow Manager) (UNL)
  • LCF - Workflow Graphical Editor (UNL)
  • DIMS - Distributed / Federated Information Management System (UvA)
  • DBPMS - Distributed Business Process Management System (UFSC)
  • EPST - Partners Search and Selection Tool (UNL)
  • VEND - VE network editor (UNL)
  • STEP - Integration of STEP/PDT tools: PDM Editor and INTRAVISION (ProSTEP)
  • Integrated Demonstration System (PRODNET Consortium)

PUBLICATIONS

Summary of PRODNET Publications:


PARTNER CSIN UNL ESTEC UvA LICHEN ProSTEP UFSC HERTEN MIRALAGO
Journal - 6 1 5 - 1 2 - -
Conference 1 18 5 9 1 - 13 1 -
Book Chap. 2 13 3 11 3 3 2 1 1
TOTAL 3 37 9 25 4 4 17 2 1


DELIVERABLES

Deliverables produced by PRODNET consortium:

Reference Title Status
D011 Requirements for a general architecture to support VE Public
D012 PRODNET Implantation Strategy Restricted
D021 Reengineering of a PPC system for a VE environment Restricted
D022 Reengineered PPC Public
D023 Social and organizational changes Public
D031 Distributed information management requirements Public
D032 Design of the DIMS subsystem Public
D033 Common query/update language extensions Public
D034 Developed Software Prototype of the DIMS subsystem Confidential
D041 Specification of the EDI subsystem Confidential
D042 EDI subsystem - Modeling data - Summary Restricted
D043 EDI subsystem: Functional and technical description Confidential
D044 Developed software for the EDI subsystem Restricted
D051 Product data technology - preliminary requirements Restricted
D052 Technical approach to PDT module Restricted
D053 Prototype PDT cooperative module Restricted
D061 Orders management and coordination requirements Restricted
D062.A Prototype of a System for Incomplete and Imprecise Orders Management Confidential
D062.B Coordination and configuration issues within PRODNET Confidential
D063 LCM and LCF User's Manual Public
D071 Network infrastructure characterization Restricted
D072 Identification of Security Mechanisms Restricted
D073 Impact of Mobile systems Restricted
D074 Development of Security Procedures and user manual Restricted
D075 PCI software and manual Restricted
D081 Advanced Coordination Functionalities Public
D082.A Logistics Support System Prototype Restricted
D082.B Partners Search and Selection - Approach & 1st prototype Restricted
D083.A Distributed Business Process Management System - System and User manuals Restricted
D083.B Partners Search and Selection - Manual Public
D84&D104 Workshop and Publications Public
D091 Preliminary Specification of the Demonstration Scenario Confidential
D092 Demonstration Scenario - Phases and impacts Public
D093 The PRODNET Demonstrator Public
D094 Demonstrator operation manual Public
D101 Strategy for the exploitation of results Confidential
D101&2&3 Exploitation plan and consortium agreement Confidential


HUMAN RESOURCES

  • A TOTAL of 50 people from 5 (+3) countries have been involved in the project!
  • 20 % of these people moved to other enterprises !
  • 26 % Female 74 % Male
  • Several other people were partially involved for specific tasks during short periods of time

SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS

Open infrastructure addressing a wide range of requirements set by the VE paradigm and focused on SMEs

  • Support for safe communications
  • Guarantee of information privacy and configurable level of information visibility supported by a federated information management system
  • Interoperability between EDIFACT and STEP
  • Extensions to legacy ERP/PPC
  • Quality-related information exchange
  • VE task coordination management
  • Workflow-based hierarchical coordination
  • High-level of configurability
  • Distributed business process management
  • Partners search and selection

ACHIEVEMENTS IN COORDINATION

  • Hierarchical coordination approach
  • Workflow-based approach, compliant with the WfMC reference model
  • Extended mechanisms: temporized & cyclic activities, sub-workflows, etc.
  • Graphical specification language and editor
  • Tight integration between coordination and federated information management
  • Flexible mechanism for invocation of external services
  • Flexible configuration

ACHIEVEMENTS IN IFORMATION MANAGEMENT

  • Approach based on the federated information management paradigm
  • Support for cooperative information sharing and exchange, node autonomy, information visibility levels, and access privileges
  • Novel PCL schema, shared by all nodes, while the data is imported / exported from its source at the query time (according to defined access privileges)
  • Configurable access rights for other enterprises, based on the cooperation agreements / contracts
  • Seamless access to distributed data in the VE network supported by federated query processing

ACHIEVEMENTS IN ADVANCED COORDINATION

  • Orders follow up along the supply chain, based on supervision clauses
  • Interactive support for conflict analysis and resolution based on simulation of alternatives
  • Support basic VE scheduling actions

ACHIEVEMENTS IN VE CREATION/CONFIGURATION

  • Identification and characterization of the main steps in VE initialization and configuration
  • Set of tools to configure the main aspects of the infrastructure, according to the desired operating conditions for each VE
  • Tool for partners search and selection

ACHIEVEMENTS IN COMMUNICATIONS

  • Transparent access to a diversified set of communication resources
  • Message privacy, message integrity and enterprise / user authentication (X509 certificates)
  • Advanced communication management function: heuristics to select the best communication resources for the needs of each message
  • Messages: from a simple data buffer to a list of files of any type
  • Support for audit and monitoring functions
  • Support secure connection via WEB browsers

ACHIEVEMENTS IN DATA INTERCHANGE

EDI-RELATED TOPICS

  • Graphical EDIFACT subset editor: Full configurability of messages, Automatic documentation and Database mapping
  • EDIFACT engine
  • Full integration of EDI software with PCL components
  • Modeling quality information

STEP-RELATED TOPICS

  • Application of STEP/PDM schema for modeling product data in VE
  • Integration of STEP for SMEs exchange of product data via EDIFACT CONDRA message
  • Integration with PCL components
  • Integration of PDM Editor and a viewer for geometric product data (support for product negotiation)

ACHIEVEMENTS IN PPC

  • Reengineering of legacy PPC to facilitate integration in a VE environment (e.g. compliance with EDIFACT)
  • Treatment of imprecise and incomplete orders
  • Quality-related information management considering DBP

SOCIAL-ORGANIZATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Analysis of impacts and requirements for the implantation of the VE paradigm in SMEs
  • Guidelines for managers, software developers and employees
  • Pilot implantation methodology
  • Increased awareness, on the technology side, of the importance of the socio-organizational issues




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