October 2007
Contact:
Karin Walz
 +49-6151 / 9287 307
FAX +49-6151 / 9287 326 karin.walz@prostep.com
Darmstadt, October 19, 2007 – The ProSTEP iViP Science Days 2007 held on September
25 and 26 in Bremen under the motto ‚Integrated Engineering – From Patchwork to
Network’ sent a clear message: the association of scientists and researchers from universities, institutes and industry within ProSTEP iViP wants to strengthen the ties of the network, in order to give new impulses or initiate new developments, where available methods, technologies and tools come to their limits.
In his welcoming speech Professor Martin Eigner from the Technical University Kaiserslautern already drew the visionary arch, which gained momentum during the 2day event and hit it’s peak with an interesting proposal for a major project: in spite of the enormous progress made on the way from the first CAD employment to today’s product creation process, using a broad range of IT-applications, important goals which the association had set at the time of its foundation have not been achieved. What are the core requirements we will be facing? Where do we have to look for solutions? Which stage of development is our next goal? What are the ways to reach that goal? These were the questions that almost 100 participants from all over
Europe were discussing in 21 speeches and 2 workshops.
Dr. Archim Heimann, head of research at SAP focusing on PLM (Product Lifecycle
Management), reported on an unusual approach: instead of concentrating with PLM on the question, how the knowledge and the data of very different disciplines could be integrated on the basis of pre-defined models – as it has been done so far – emphasis is now put on common semantics. SAP’s vision of the next generation PLM is an „Internet of Things and
Services“. There SAP is counting on the communities, which are building up over the interactive Web 2.0, and is in this context partner of the research program Theseus, that was initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) to develop an
Internet-based knowledge infrastructure.
Claude Houellebecq, Renault, and Vittorio Romagnoli, formerly manager at FIAT, took a look at the current situation from the perspective of 1995. At that time clear conceptions had been formulated in the framework of the European project Advanced Information Technologies (AIT) on how the Digital Mock-up (DMU) was supposed to help with the interdisciplinary development of complex products. It was interesting to see on the one hand the historic slides, showing the substantial progress IT has made since then. On the other hand it was impressive, how precisely some of the requirements that are still on the agenda today were already formulated more than 10 years ago. The DMU – that was the goal – has to contain all the functions, that are important for development, design, production and customer service. It is meant to provide the basis for communication between all participants and to serve the decision-making on all levels.
ProSTEP iViP Association
 Dolivostraße 11 
64293 Darmstadt

Germany

October 2007
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The referees analysed the processes of engineering, organization and communication from totally different points of view, not restricting themselves at all to the area of technique and technology. The human factor, the cultural and psychological aspects of worldwide collaboration in development projects, the early identification of appropriate partners for consortiums, and over and over: the search for PLM-specific semantics, which should assist in deploying the latest Internet-technologies for engineering processes – it became clear that the association is facing the challenge of producing new ideas on their own initiative.
Professor Martin Eigner used his keynote at the end of the second day to submit an interesting proposal. He recalled the lead project Integrated Virtual Product Creation (iViP) from 1998, w hich was successfully implemented and finally lead to part of today’s association name. „The research institutes organized in the ProSTEP iViP Association collected in a brainstorming over the last months first ideas, which are supposed to result in another major research project. All members are now invited to participate in the further preparation of this project proposal.“
When Prof. Eigner presented the brainstorming results, it sounded as if he was reviewing one by one all the important potential solut ions that were discussed during this year’s Science Days event: Five core areas emerged: 1. Expansion of the methodology to develop intelligent IT utilization for a functional and interdisciplinary model. 2. Possibility to rely already in the early conception phase on a dynamic DMU 3. Better support of the planning- and decision phase and the documentation of the decision processes during product development. 4. Development of methods and tools able to analyse human factors in the development process. 5. Definition of clear requirements for the next generation of CAD and PDM systems. Professor Eigner:
„We need a holistic approach which takes into consideration methods, processes, IT solutions and technologies at the same time.”
The results of the concluding podium discussion on this proposal of the research community in the ProSTEP iViP Association were summarized by Prof. Eigner as follows: „We have to learn, to act as a network and not as individuals. This goal can be achieved, for example, with a research project, that helps to channel public funds into new assignments of tasks that are meaningful and really useful for the industry.”
About the ProSTEP iViP Association
The ProSTEP iViP Association is an international branch-specific community comprising leading companies in the automotive and aerospace industries, system vendors and research institutes. The aim of the ProSTEP iViP Association is to find solutions for the challenges facing the manufacturing industry as a result of networked collaboration in a worldwide development network.
A concept based on a coherent, cross-organizational and cross-domain view of data, processes and systems provides a solid foundation for meeting these challenges. The
Association’s five main areas of focus reflect this approach: process management, system integration, product data standardization, engineering collaboration and knowledge transfer.
The ProSTEP iViP Association is headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, and was founded in
October 1993 by 38 industrial companies and a number of system vendors as part of the
German STEP initiative. Members of the ProSTEP iViP Association currently include almost
200 companies and organizations from 17 nations.
Further information at www.prostep.org
.
ProSTEP iViP Association
 Dolivostraße 11 
64293 Darmstadt

Germany