State-of-art review report on Legal and Contractual issues...

IST-2001-33022

Classification: PUBLIC

State-of-art review report on Legal and Contractual issues of ICT in Construction

Author(s): Mark SHELBOURN (Loughborough University) Tarek HASSAN (Loughborough University) Chris CARTER (Loughborough University) Issue Date 15 July 2002 Version v1.1 Deliverable Number D41 Task Number T41 Status Issued


ICCI: IST-2001-33022WP4/D41

Mark Shelbourn et al. 15th July 2002 of 66

Summary

The overall aim of the ICCI project is to enhance the coordination of research and developments in IST projects targeting the construction sector, the promotion of the selected project results, and a concerted support for future implementation and development of new technologies in an industrial context. The specifically addressed projects objectives are: (1) to synthesise industrial requirements, (2) to publish ICT state-of-the-art in the fields of technical advances and commercial offerings, (3) to synthesise information for the integration of human, organisational and technical elements, and to provide best practice guides, (4) to assess the latest developments in the area of legal and contractual support for the use of ICT in construction, (5) to deliver dissemination, and (6) to provide future requirements, strategy and implementation plans for ICT in construction.

In this context, workpackage 4 of the project focuses in particular on the legal and contractual aspects of using ICT in the construction project. It provides this state-of-the-art review, which is then used to highlight some of the legal and contractual problems associated with the developed technologies of the participating projects.

This deliverable D41 reports the first phase of the work carried out in WP4 – a state-of-the-art review the legal and contractual issues associated with ICT use in construction. The report is structured as follows:

Section 0 – Executive Summary – this presents the overall roadmap of the workpackage, including the planned follow-up deliverables, outlines the adopted approach, and provides a concise review of the work undertaken in the period.

Section 1 – Introduction – presents the goals of the report and the specific nature of the research effort, and identifies the scope of the performed study.

Section 2 – The ICCI Project – provides the ambition and objectives of the ICCI project, a small summary of the member projects, and an introduction to the methodology of the project is also discussed.

Section 3 – The state-of-the-art review – forms the main part of the deliverable. It consists of 28 pages of concise information covering over 11 different issues associated with the legal and contractual aspects of using ICT in construction.

Section 4 – Related RTD Activities – this provides a summary of different research projects currently being undertaken within the KAII area of the IST programme of the framework V programme. It gives the reader a useful reference of projects that may be considered for support and collaboration in future research.

Section 5 – Conclusion – this sums up the report with a few paragraphs of the main results.


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Acknowledgement and References sections are included as the final parts of the report.

Document Revision Sheet

Revision Status Page Nos.

Amendment Date By

[01] [Draft] [All] [General layout of document] 18th/APR/2002 Lough

[02] [Draft] [All] [General layout of document] 20th/MAY/2002 Lough

[03] [Draft] [All] [General layout of document] 23rd/MAY/2002 Lough

[04] [Pre-final]

[All] [Structure and partner input included and changes made to the document. Add in Summary, Executive Summary and Conclusion]

20th/JUNE/2002 Lough

[05] Pre-final2]

[All] [Finalise the Summary, Executive Summary and Conclusions]

1st/JULY/2002 Lough

[06] [Final] [All] [Tidying up the formatting and spelling of the document]

15th/JULY/2002 Lough

[07] [Final2] [All] [Highlight the difference between the eLEGAL project and the ICCI review and summarise the RTD activities section]

17th/JULY/2002 Lough

[08] [Final3] [All] [Made changes after comments from the QA Manager. Changes included the introduction repetition and explanation of parts in sections 3 and 4.

23rd JULY 2002 Lough


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Contents

SUMMARY............................................................................................................................. 2

ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................ 6

1. INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................. 7

2. THE ICCI PROJECT........................................................................................................ 8

3. THE STATE-OF-THE-ART REVIEW ........................................................................... 9 3.1 LEGAL AND CONTRACTUAL ISSUES.................................................................................. 9 3.2 GATHERING EXISTING CLAUSES AND CASES .................................................................. 10 3.3 EUROPEAN ICT-RELATED LEGISLATION........................................................................ 12 3.4 AUTOMATIC EVALUATION OF COMPANY INFORMATION................................................. 16 3.5 GENERAL BUSINESS MODELS........................................................................................ 17 3.6 CURRENT AND EMERGING ICT SUPPORT....................................................................... 23 3.7 COMMUNICATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION........................................................................... 25 3.8 DATA STORAGE SUPPORT............................................................................................... 29 3.9 SECURITY SUPPORT ....................................................................................................... 29 3.10 VALIDATION OF ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS.............................................................. 30 3.11 WAP AND WEB COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY ..................................................... 30

4. RELATED RTD ACTIVITIES....................................................................................... 32 4.1 DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES UNDER THE COSMOS PROJECT.......................................... 32 4.2 DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES UNDER ELEGAL ................................................................ 35 4.3 OTHER RELEVANT PROJECTS COVERING THE LEGAL AND CONTRACTUAL ISSUES........... 37 4.4 GENERAL RESEARCH UNDER KAII OF THE IST PROGRAMME ........................................ 43

5. CONCLUSION................................................................................................................. 44

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................. 45

REFERENCES..................................................................................................................... 46

APPENDIX 1 ........................................................................................................................ 47


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Figures

FIGURE 1: ORGANISATIONS TYPICALLY INVOLVED IN A PROJECT .......................................................................... 21 FIGURE 2: CONTRACTS FOR ON-LINE PROJECT COLLABORATION............................................................................ 21 FIGURE 3 VIDEO CONFERENCING INSTALLATION SITES......................................................................................... 26 FIGURE 4 MOBILE VIDEO TRANSMISSION SYSTEM.................................................................................................. 28 FIGURE 5: MAIN COMPONENTS OF AN ELECTRONIC CONTRACT ............................................................................ 34 FIGURE 6: THE COSMOS CONTRACT EDITOR USER INTERFACE........................................................................... 35


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Abbreviations AEC Architectural Engineering Construction

Divercity Distributed Virtual Workspace for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry

EC European Commission

eCONSTRUCT Electronic Business in the Building and Construction Industry: Preparing for the new Internet

eLEGAL Specifying Legal Terms of Contract in ICT Environment

FP Framework Programme

GLOBEMEN Global Engineering and Manufacturing in Enterprise Networks

ICCI Innovation co-ordination, transfer and deployment through networked Co-operation in the Construction Industry

ICT Information Communication Technologies

IST Information Society Technologies

ISTforCE Intelligent Services and Tools for Concurrent Engineering

IT Information Technology

OSMOS Open System for Inter-enterprise Information Management in Dynamic Virtual Environments

RTD Research and Technology Development

SMEs Small / Medium Enterprises

WWW World-Wide-Web

XML Extended Mark-up Language


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1. Introduction

ICT based information exchange in project based business such as construction and large-scale engineering has become common but is not properly covered by contractual practice. Poorly defined responsibilities, overlapping communication techniques and mistrust hamper the full use of inter-enterprise ICT. This deliverable (D41) for the ICCI (IST-2001-33022) project builds upon work completed in other EU funded research projects to try and rectify this situation.

This document requires a broad range of issues to be covered in a state-of-the-art review, to enable a full cognisance of the relevant influences for the ICCI project. The review of the state-of-the-art provides a document that will be used within other workpackages of the ICCI project.

It is not the intention of this ICCI review to go over ground that has already been covered in other EU projects deliverables, but where it is appropriate a link to that information will be provided in the context of this review. The main focus of this report is to cover the areas that have not been covered in previous work that are relevant to the ICCI project.

The eLEGAL project (IST-1999-20570) has previously undertaken a review addressing similar legal and contractual issues for use of ICT to those to be covered in ICCI, for their project. The project specifically targeted the legal and contractual issues of using ICT in member project countries such as the UK, Italy, Finland, and Germany. The ICCI review will update information in these countries were appropriate, but will concentrate on getting information in the countries of France, Slovenia and the Netherlands to make the picture clearer across more member countries of the EU.

The next section describes the objectives of the ICCI project and how the state-of-the-art review fits into the project makeup.


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2. The ICCI Project

The ambition of the ICCI initiative is to build a cluster upon a set of IST projects related to IT in construction, with the following objective: to improve harmonisation and coherency of research and development, and thereby to benefit efficiency in IST projects, assist knowledge transfer to industry, and reduce time to market of exploitation. Indeed, similarly to the e-Commerce range of activities1, deploying and using IT in construction is nowadays less a matter of cutting edge technology, than a combination of technology, organisation, marketing, legal frameworks and social impacts. It is the intention of ICCI to start paving the way to such combination for the construction sector. The current ICCI related IST projects are:

- OSMOS: IST-1999-10491 - Open System for Inter-enterprise Information Management in Dynamic Virtual Environments

- eConstruct: IST-1999-10303 - Electronic Business in the Building and Construction Industry: Preparing for the new Internet

- Divercity: IST-1999-13365 - DIstributed Virtual Workspace for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry

- ISTforCE: IST-1999-11508 - Intelligent Services and Tools for Concurrent Engineering

- eLEGAL: IST-1999-20570 - Specifying Legal Terms of Contract in ICT Environment

- GLOBEMEN: IST-1999-60002 - Global Engineering and Manufacturing in Enterprise Networks

These projects have common objectives, in particular the use of the Internet and the improvement of construction competitiveness. ICCI will concentrate on cross-fertilisation and harmonisation among construction-oriented IST projects, and will kick-start Industrial dissemination and technology/services transfer, thus preparing for future industrial take-up activities. Co-ordination and support for IST projects dissemination will be provided, as indeed, project liaisons do go on, and ICCI will build on and strengthen that within a set of partners who already are used to working together. The ICCI objectives will be primarily to create opportunities for the participating projects involved, to exchange experience and disseminate results, and will aim to explore and exploit synergies between projects. Though an initial set of IST projects has been selected, it must be clearly stated that it is the intention of ICCI to reach out to and involve other IST projects that wish to collaborate in the ICCI work and that are not in the ICCI core projects group yet, whether they be existing projects or new projects which might be established in the future, e.g. through future IST calls. In the rest of the document, the expressions “selected projects” or “member projects” refer to the 6 projects mentioned before as well as future other projects joining ICCI.

1 see the EC report: Beginner’s Guide to European Law Affecting E-Commerce.


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3. The State-of-the-Art review

The ICCI review aims to define the status of legislation and the law related to ICTs in the six countries involved in the ICCI Project (UK, France, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, and Slovenia), plus any other relevant information that will contribute to the completeness of the document. A review from the UK, Finland and Germany has already been undertaken within the eLEGAL project (IST-1999-20570). This information will be summarised within the ICCI review, with the other member countries from the ICCI consortium being the main focus of the ICCI review.

3.1 Legal and contractual issues

The state-of-the-art review begins with an examination of the legal and contractual issues related to the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to project based business. In this particular context, the project-based businesses are, specifically, construction projects.

The suggestion that although the Internet is rapidly transforming the way we communicate, educate, and buy and sell goods and services, current contractual practice seems to preserve the traditional methods for achieving legal admissibility in business. The survey of current contractual practice begins with a brief review of the Formation of Contracts based on UK law. This provides a background to the mechanisms for making contracts between parties, and is complemented by a comparison with the processes required in the other participating countries.

3.1.1 Introduction to…

In the UK, almost all types of contract can be made on-line, although a few must still be in “writing” e.g. contracts for the sale of land.

Contracting on-line is essentially the same as contracting off-line. The same requirements have to be fulfilled in order to ensure that the contract is legally binding. These requirements are fairly basic: there must be an agreed set of terms and both parties must intend to enter into a legally binding agreement. Under English law, but not under Scots law, there must also be some form of consideration.

UK and US lawyers break down the process of contract formation into three stages: an invitation to treat, an offer and an acceptance. The distinction between the three stages is not immediately obvious. When you see an item for sale in a shop window, you may think that the shopkeeper is offering to sell it to you. However, in legal terms the display of an object is treated as a separate stage, which is preliminary to an offer, and is known as “an invitation to treat”. The second stage – the “offer” – only takes place when you go into the shop and say that you’d like to buy the item in the window. Your statement is an offer to purchase the item and, in the normal course, the shopkeeper “accepts” that offer by taking your money and handing you the item in question.


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The three-stage analysis is critical to the question of how contracts are formed on the web. It is likely that websites will be treated as being analogous to a shop window and that the advertisement of an item for sale on a site will amount to an invitation to treat. If so, an offer will only be made when a customer gives notice of his intention to buy an item from the site (i.e. submits an order) – at which point the seller will still be free to accept or reject that offer.

The next section concentrates on providing information on the countries of France, Netherlands and Slovenian models. Differences between the UK process and those of the other three countries involved in are then highlighted.

3.1.2 France

At this time there is no information to hand on the French use of contracts for ICT use in construction projects.

3.1.3 Slovenia

At this time there is no information to hand on the Slovenian use of contracts for ICT use in construction projects.

3.1.4 Netherlands

Regarding the formation of contracts, the situation in the Netherlands is basically the same. Contracts are commonly prepared on-line. Contracts usually contain an agreed set of terms and a consideration; an intention of parties to enter into a legally binding agreement is not always recognized. The three-stage-process in the formation of contracts: invitation-offer-acceptance, is also used in the Netherlands, although not explicitly.

3.2 Gathering existing clauses and cases

Current contractual practises need to be assessed by gathering the existing clauses and searching for legal cases concerning the application of ICTs in project based business. This exercise was undertaken in the UK, Germany, Italy and Finland within the eLEGAL review. The countries of France, Netherlands and Slovenia will be concentrated on within this review. This section aims to take into consideration national legal and contractual arrangements and differences. If no such information exists it will be stated within the next sections.

3.2.1 Introduction to…

The nature and content of current contracts themselves were next considered. The study gathered examples of existing clauses and legal cases concerning the special field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Finland, Germany, Italy and the UK.


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The analysis of some 3000 pages of German construction contracts for large, technically advanced projects found few references to ICTs. Where mentioned, these references were typically the specification of a particular type of CAD software, for example AutoCAD 14 or later to be used on a specific project, or that “data has to be valid, secure, well organised and properly managed”. Even so, the underlying message was that the only method for achieving legal admissibility up to now is the use of a hand-written signature on a paper hardcopy.

The position appears to be similar in Finland, if not a little further behind. A survey of leading organisations that make model contracts for construction projects found no clauses relating to ICTs, and no legal cases involving ICTs were found in the Finnish Supreme Court.

In Italy, the situation is similar to that in Germany. Where ICTs are mentioned in a contract the reference will be limited to specifying a drawing exchange format or a textual file format (such as a pdf file).

This is further reinforced by findings from the UK study which analysed a typical UK construction contract, the JCT'98 contract. This suite of contracts, one of the most widely used in UK construction, makes no explicit reference to information technology or even, for example, email [a similar position to all of the standard UK forms of contract]. However, the structure of the contract does not prohibit its adaptation to cover the application of ICTs, rather a number of amendments would be required to identify and define communications in electronic format instead of 'in writing'. Further sections go onto review the requirements for 'giving notice', particularly in writing, and considers on-line retail contracts that could assist in this area, and the application of EDI agreements.

However, the structure and content of a contract do not tell the whole story - 'contractual practices' have also to be considered. These practices are the combination of the contractual elements with the execution of the contract itself, producing the consequences, governed by conditions in contracts.

In summary, this study revealed that official documents (such as correspondence, drawings, specifications and raw data) are formally submitted solely on paper. The use of ICT seems to be only intended to speed up the transmission process, but effectively has no legal validity. However, the legislation to support technology may exist, but may not have been adopted by the construction industry within its contractual practices, and hence, the use of ICTs is not legally valid in current conditions. Therefore, a review of European ICT-related Legislation was undertaken by the project team to explore the current legislative and legal climate for ICTs.

The next three sections outline the picture within the member countries of ICCI. With the summary above covering the UK, Germany and Finland, the sections concentrate on France, Slovenia and the Netherlands.


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3.2.2 France

At this time there are no updates to report concerning the French use of existing clauses and case law in contracts for the use of ICT.

3.2.3 Slovenia

At this time there are no updates to report concerning the Slovenian use of existing clauses and case law in contracts for the use of ICT.

3.2.4 Netherlands

Also with respect to references to ICT’s in contracts, the situation in the Netherlands is basically the same as in the countries discussed above. ICT matters are hardly addressed in contracts. When they are, it is often the specification of the type of software to be used, e.g. for word processing or CAD. Dutch standard contracts do not address ICT matters at all. With respect to official documents, paper-based exchange is the rule also in Holland.

3.3 European ICT-related Legislation

This section focuses on the status of legislation regarding ICTs, and in particular electronic signature legislation, starting with the EU Directive on Electronic Signatures, and detailing the relevant position in the countries participating in the ICCI project. This EU Directive has to be implemented in each of the member countries, so the status of such legislation in Germany, Finland, and the UK is first discussed and is taken from a summary of the findings from the eLEGAL project. It appears that the status of legislation concerning electronic signatures is well advanced in many countries. In fact, the formulation that an electronic signature be equal to a handwritten one is already present in German, Italian and UK legislation.

Having recognised an electronic signature as a legally valid tool for improving project performance, it is then up to organisations to find business partners that are in a similar position to themselves: able to implement and effectively use ICTs on a project in order to reap the benefits of legally valid electronic communications. One method particularly well suited for this is online contracting.

3.3.1 EU Directive on a Community Framework for Electronic Signatures

This Directive (99/93/EC) was adopted in December 1999 and defines the requirements for electronic signature certificates and certification services so as to ensure minimum levels of security and allow their free movement throughout the Internal Market. Its main elements are:

• Legal effect: an electronic signature cannot be legally discriminated against on the sole ground that it is electronic. If a certificate and the service provider as well as the signature


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product used meet a set of specific requirements, any resulting electronic signature will be as legally valid as a hand-written one. All electronic signatures are admissible as evidence in legal proceedings.

• Free circulation: all products and services related to electronic signatures can circulate freely and are only subject to legislation and control by the country of origin. Member States cannot make the provision of certification services subject to prior authorisation e.g. to mandatory licensing.

• Liability: the provider of a certification service is liable for any damage to persons who reasonably rely on a certificate unless he can prove that he has not acted negligently.

• Scope: the Directive covers the supply of certificates to the public aimed at indemnifying the sender of an electronic message and includes mechanisms for co-operation with third countries on the basis of mutual recognition of certificates and on bilateral and multilateral agreements.

The Directive (99/93/EC) had to be implemented by EU Member States by 19th July 2001. The Directive provides for two different types of electronic signature, each having different characteristics and legal status:

• “Electronic signatures” are defined as “data in electronic form attached to, or logically associated with, other electronic data and which serves as a method of authentication”

• “Advanced electronic signatures” meet the following additional requirements:

• Uniquely linked to the signatory;

• Capable of identifying the signatory;

• Created using means that the signatory can maintain under his sole control; and

• Linked to the data to which they relate in such a manner that any subsequent alteration of the data is detectable.

“Advanced electronic signatures”, based on a “qualified certificate” and created by a “secure signature creation device” (both of which are defined in the Directive), will be legally admissible as evidence in legal proceedings and will satisfy the legal requirements for signing.

Other electronic signatures will not be automatically admissible. However, the Directive does contain a substantial qualification in that it does not cover circumstances where there are requirements as regards form prescribed by national or Community law, nor does it affect rules and limits, contained in national or Community law, governing the use of documents.

The status of the legislation in the ICCI member projects countries is discussed in the following sections.


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3.3.2 France

For around 15 years large French companies are using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). EDI was at the beginning mainly dedicated to increasing the efficiency of communication between distant partners (reduction of delay, flow and stock management,). All these communications were using a "value added network" (based on X400 solutions) and most of the time in the Interchange Contract (the contract signed by all partners and the VAN provider) the network provider was recognised as a notary for all exchanges. This common agreement allows companies to replace official paper mail by electronic messages to make invoices, payment orders, with no need for digital signature. The French Administration has also developed this possibility of exchange with private companies. The data transmitted during these exchanges were coded using the UN/EDIFACT standard language.

For several reasons (light, widespread, cheaper solutions,) Internet turned out to be the most appropriate network to exchange electronic data. But the major lack of Internet (compared to VAN solutions) was about the mechanism of notarisation. From a technical point of view this issue has been solved with the development of encryption algorithm and software, allowing authentication, non-repudiation, time stamping. In France, before 2000, these kinds of software were considered as military weapons and it was forbidden to use them. From a legal point of view, the notion of signature was strongly related to the notion of handwriting signature on a paper. Since the 13th of March 2000, a law provides a legal framework for the digital signature. The decree of this law has been published. Now, under given conditions, the digital signature can be considered as a legal proof, like the handwriting signature. The decree describes the technical conditions that have to be taken into account in specifying the notions of "secured signature", "secured appliance for the creation of digital signature", "qualified digital evidence".

The digital signature is based on the technology public key - private key also called PKI (Public Key Infrastructure). To sign electronically, a person needs to have two keys, one public and one private. The private one allows the person to sign the electronic document and the public one (publicly available) allows the receiver to check the authenticity of the document, the origin of the document, the identity of the sender in a trustable way. All certificates are compliant with the international standard ISO X509. These certificates are delivered by a third party agreed by the French government. Every one is able to check (using the web) the current validity of the received certificates.

3.3.2.1 TéléTVA

A good example in France is the recent project called "TéléTV@". Since the first of May 2001, companies can declare and pay directly their VAT to the Administration in one single message. This operation can be done in two different ways: using EDI / EDIFACT solution or using the Web. With the latter solution companies use digital certificates to sign their documents. This way of payment will be soon mandatory for companies having a turn over bigger than 15 244 902 €.


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Before sending their documents, companies have to ask for a digital certificate to a digital certificate provider agreed and referenced by the Ministry of " Finance ". Only after this step, the company is allowed to subscribe to the electronic process directly on the Ministry of Finance web site (http://tva.dgi.minefi.gouv.fr)

3.3.2.2 The Saomap Project (www.saomap.org)

Server of Calls for Tender concerning the public market of construction and housing

The visible/emerging part of this project is for the moment not concerned by digital signature. SAOMAP is mainly a web server containing all administrative and technical pieces of given call for tender.

Different services of the French Ministry in charge of Housing and Construction can upload an electronic version of a call for tender. Companies can freely download, consult and reuse these electronic documents to prepare their answers. Currently the answer of the companies is still paper based. But even if this web site is still "under experimentation", this project meets its objectives and French construction companies widely approve this initiative. The next step of the project will be performed in two different directions. The first one is to provide trustable documents on the Saomap server (digitally signed by the Administration). The second one is to allow companies to answer to calls for tender in an electronic way.

Both these two objectives will be tackled by the French project called SignéBTP. Among others, the expected results of this project will be a clear description and specification of what is needed in terms of software infrastructure and practices to allow companies to answer to call for tender in a electronic way. Of course the legal constraints of this specific domain will be taken into account.

3.3.3 Slovenia

At this time the authors have been unable to find or decipher information to determine the uptake of this legislation within Slovenian law.

3.3.4 Netherlands

The impact of recent developments in European legislation in the Netherlands is, again, not much different from the countries mentioned earlier. Electronic signatures are possible and allowed (although the Dutch Electronic Signatures Act still has Draft status), but so far they are hardly used.

EDI has been used in the Netherlands as well by some major construction companies and their partners. But EDI is fading away, being replaced by newer Internet-based solutions for e-commerce. An important initiative in this context is “EC Standaard Bouw” (E-Commerce Standard for Building and Construction), see www.ecstandaardbouw.nl (only in Dutch).


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3.4 Automatic evaluation of company information

Although contract parties may be already be well known to each other, e-contracting can often be considered as an immediate outcome of a matchmaking process. In this case, the mutual examination of company information is key for establishing trust and confidence.

With the increasing importance of electronic commerce, official and reliable company information is therefore critical in order to effectively conduct safe business transactions. The European countries each have their own business registers, supplying this kind of information to their own markets. Obtaining the same kind of information on foreign businesses, however, has not been so easy.

With the realisation of the Single Market and a general increase in cross-border business, easy access to reliable information on foreign companies is gaining in importance. This extended market, however, lacks much of the transparency that both businesses and authorities have come to depend upon at the national level.

That is why the administrations of countries throughout Europe have joined forces to establish the European Business Register (EBR). The EBR is a European network for the exchange of business information based on the concept of an interconnecting Service Broker System. The EBR makes official information on European businesses available online throughout Europe, removing barriers caused by differences in language, technology, legislation, etc. The quality of the information is assured through the participation of national registration authorities.

The EBR is a network connecting national registration authorities in the participating countries. Information is exchanged between these registers, and as a rule is made available via the same channels used for national business information. How the information presented by each nation depends on the solutions provided by the national register authorities or their sub-contractors.

The EBR Partners are: Datakom Austria GmbH, Austria, Euro DB, Belgium, Danish Commerce and Companies Agency, Denmark, Patentti- ja rekisterihallitus, Finland, ORT, France, Infocamere, Italy, Brøønnøøysundregistrene, Norway, Grupo Asnef-Equifax, Spain, Patent- och registreringsverket, Sweden.

Through the European Business Register, it is possible to execute name searches in the member registers to identify companies. Having identified a company, a standard information package called a Company Profile can be obtained. The Company Profile contains the most important information relating to a business.

For the future development of information services, it will be important also to include information on ICT usage requirements as a part of the company profile. If this is included, ICT requirements can be automatically derived from the contract parties” profiles. Contracts on ICT usage will then be reduced to selecting from the predefined options, e.g.: Company A prefers AutoCAD version 10.0 while Company B prefers version 12.0.


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Another information service is available from ALLECO via www.alleco.de. ALLECO is a service from Deutsche Telekom AG, in co-operation with ECOFIS Wirtschaftsinformationen GmbH, with content (the company information) being provided by Verband der Vereine Creditreform e.V. –containing the commercial register of Germany and Austria.

With relevant company information available for use, preferably in a standardised format, it should be quite easy to implement an automatic evaluation of such supplied company information. It is simply a case of having to check the company data, for example from a contract, against the company information in the EBR, or another information provider.

3.5 General Business Models

This section focuses on models of typical business scenarios applicable to the ICCI project. Definitions are provided for a typical business model operating with electronic transactions. The role of Application Service Providers, and contracts related to these provisions, are examined, and in order to take the construction industry as a pilot, considers business models for the construction industry. A range of typical on-line services currently offered for the construction industry is also reviewed.

In order to define possible business models, the different roles that may be taken by individual players in a scenario should first be identified:

• Application Service Provider: this third party grants access to horizontal or vertical software applications. Services provided by an ASP include User management, access control: accounting, billing, software installation and provisioning, maintenance, integration with user IT systems, and hosting of third-party software.

• Contracting Service Provider: this party provides the contracting software, possibly via an ASP, possibly by selling licenses directly to users.

• Participant: a party in the marketplace – may be acting either as a supplier or as a customer.

• Contract Party: a participant who is engaged on a contract, i.e. by closing the contract, the participant assumes an additional role as a party.

• Trusted Third Party: these are organisations that provide other services that are required / wanted to secure the contracting process. Examples of these services include certification authorities, providers of company information, time stamping services, etc.

Of course, a party may also be acting in several different roles simultaneously:

1. “Insourcing”: The ASP may also be the Contracting Service Provider and a Participant at the same time. A real-life scenario would be a large construction company that provides a collaboration portal for its subcontractors in order to negotiate and close contracts and to co-ordinate the project.

2. “Outsourcing”: Another example of such an accumulation of roles would be an ASP acting as the Contracting Service Provider and as a Certification Authority at the same


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time. The corresponding scenario would be many SME contracting parties who will benefit from outsourcing the ASP as a third party service.

3.5.1 Business Models for the Construction Industry

The business models discussed above refer to general business transactions. To facilitate the application of ICTs to the construction industry, a clear picture of the contractual requirements for operating a Virtual Enterprise in the construction sector is needed. A business model for the construction industry is therefore presented, which briefly describes the phases of a construction project and a selection of ICTs that may be used to support these operations.

This section has been extensively considered within other EU research projects and their subsequent deliverables. It is not the intention here to reiterate the business models covered within these projects, but to say that these models are adopted as the basis for the ICT use within such business models, to be shown in the ICCI review.

3.5.2 Current Online Services for the Construction Industry

A General Business Model for ICT environments can be used to define the participants in a typical electronic transaction. These transactions will increasingly be between parties at a distance. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare contracts remotely, using Internet technology.

A number of organisations already offer online services to the construction industry, providing several different types of service to fulfil the industry's requirements for distributed and remote collaboration. The main components of these services include: information systems, directories and catalogues, pricing and estimating systems and collaboration and project management support.

Although there are systems currently used within the construction industry, it is important to have a general understanding, and a short assessment of, current on-line services that support, the construction industry. This section summarises the main components of on-line services, including the legal issues, discovered during a review of several of these services.

The main components of on-line services are:

• General publication and information services. Here, sectorial information like tenders, event announcements, scientific and technical publications or business information can be found. Usually, this service only accompanies the transactional services, listed below:

• Directory and Catalogues. Here, resource information on vendors of products and service suppliers are listed. The directory may be structured, following a sectorial classification or an article classification like EAN (European Article Number).

• General price finding mechanisms like Auction and exchange modules for goods and services. While catalogues only support the information on companies and products, price finding supports the sales process based on a selected transaction model. Usually sales of


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surplus production and demand is addressed here. These functions therefore concentrate less on process-intensive project support.

• Collaboration support. This mainly focuses on distributed document management. It is specifically applicable in the planning and tendering phases. In the first case, designs are exchanged between architects, engineers and customers, while request for quotation documents are exchanged in the tendering phase. The ASP service is required to keep documents consistent through concurrency control services and to provide Web-based front-end interfaces for the different user roles.

• Project management support. Here, a central project plan is managed by the ASP. Authorised projects partners may access the services to follow the project advances and to provide information on the status of the individual tasks. Usually, online project management tools support approval workflows that allow the providers and customers of a task to agree on the acceptance, delay, failure etc. of a task and to define countermeasures.

• Vertical application software. Here, we find software components like CAD modules for the planning phase, modules for creating a bill of quantities and materials, accounting and management software and other highly specialised functions.

• Horizontal support modules. Here, security functions support confidential and authenticated communication, Application Servers support the deployment of highly modularised software components, and Content Management Systems support the flexible integration of application logic with a Web-based user interface.

3.5.3 Contracts and the Role of the ASP

An increasingly popular method for providing online services is the use of an Application Service Provider (ASP). These ASPs set up and manage services on behalf of clients, providing facilities and functionality for other project participants. These arrangements should also be governed by contracts, both between the ASP and the client, and between the ASP and the other parties on the project. These contracts need to cover “Service Level Agreements”, Licensing Agreements, Intellectual Property Rights, and should generally promote the use of electronic communications technologies for project data exchange and sharing.

This section considers the legal implications of applying online support to project businesses, including the inherent risks, the roles, responsibilities and contracts required to support such collaboration and the impact on the parties involved.

Seen from the perspective of users, on line applications and, hence, OCSs are characterized by the following risks:

• Loss of data or information

• Breaches of security, i.e. hacking

• Breaches of confidentiality


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• IPR breaches

• Uncertainty: identity of contracting party and scope of supply

• Statutory and regulatory risks

All of these aspects should be properly addressed in order to protect and support a community of users. Additional risks and constraints are also introduced when online applications are used in project-based business.

For example, a system that aims to address the specific flows of information on a project should enable each participant in the project to have different access privileges. Figure 7 shows a number of actors normally involved at different levels in the activities of specific projects, and consequently requiring different levels of access to project information and documents.

The on-line collaboration required for this type of project support is of course characterised by specific – but evolving – relationships among actors. Considering contracts, a possible contract structure regarding on-line project collaboration is illustrated in figure 7 below.

The main contractual links between the different parties involved are listed below:

• Funder → Developer

• Developer → consultants, including Project Manager

• Developer → Contractor(s)

• Contractor → Sub-contractor(s)

• ASP → Developer or Project Manager

• ASP → All other End Users (End User Licences)

Each party will also be playing different roles at the same time, depending on the relationships with the other parties that they are interacting with. For example, the following parties may effectively take on the additional roles (shown as bulleted points) when dealing with other parties in the project:

• Consultant → Purchaser / Funder

• Contractor → Purchaser / Funder

• Sub-contractor(s) → Developer / Funder / Purchaser

Another important consideration for on-line project support is that ASP contracts should contain provisions relating to:

i. Scope of services provided by the ASP for project use;

ii. Permitted use of such services by the project parties;

iii. Method of granting access / End User Licence


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Engineer

Architect Consultants (QS etc)

Project Manager Contractor

Client

Sub - contractor

PROJECT WEBSITE

Marketing Agents (Sales)

Statutory undertakings? Planning Authorities Limited viewing privileges

Engineer

Architect Consultants (QS etc)

Project Manager Contractor

Client

Sub - contractor

PROJECT WEBSITE PROJECT WEBSITE

Marketing Agents (Sales)

Statutory undertakings? Planning Authorities Limited viewing privileges Statutory undertakings? Planning Authorities Limited viewing privileges

Figure 1: Organisations typically involved in a project

Client / Project

ASP

ASP

End Licences

website

ArchitecEnginee

ContractSub - Contract Other

ConsultanAny end

Contract 1

Contract 2 - n

Contract 3 Protocol regarding use of ICT by project ( - in main - nominated - Consultant

Figure 2: Contracts for on-line project collaboration


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iv. Service Levels (availability) of the project support software, often referred to as Service Level Agreements (SLAs);

v. Training for Users

vi. Charges

vii. Intellectual Property Rights / Confidentiality of project information when stored on / passing through the Asp’s facilities

Limits on Liability

The End User Licences should also contain provisions relating to:

i. Permitted use of the Asp’s services by the end users

ii. Method of granting access / End User Licences

iii. Training for Users

iv. Intellectual Property Rights / Confidentiality (see vii above)

v. Limits on Liability

These ASP and End User Licence contracts are currently envisaged as operating independently of the other contracts required for operating a project based business, i.e. the construction contract.

The Client / Consultant and Client / Contractor contracts should contain a provision requiring other participants in the Project to:

i. Use the ASP service (will need PC / browser / possibly CAD facilities); and

ii. Enter into an End User licence with the ASP.

They should also allow for communications (including formal notices which conventional contracts requires to be in writing) to be made electronically, making provision for their retention / storage. Provision should also be made for conventional communications to take place, when the project server is unavailable, and then be confirmed on the project website when the project server becomes available again.

The degree to which these contractual agreements should refer to the ASP agreements will depend on the type of ASP service being offered.

The ASP service may vary from being seen as merely a means of communication between the parties (e.g.: EDI agreements) to the ASP service being placed at the centre of a contract, setting out the reporting / auditing procedures to be followed by each participant in order that they may comply with their obligations under the contract. This range of services could be:

• Minimum → Contract allows parties to communicate/facilitate information flows electronically (by e-mail, no project website)


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• Or → Design co-ordination via Project Website; Design co-ordination and project document management via Project Website; Design co-ordination and project document management plus financial reporting via Project Website

• Ultimately → All communication / information flows must go via website / be confirmed on website.

It is also possible for Clients / Project Managers to own the software – there would then be no ASP Agreements but there would still be End User Licence Agreements to protect the intellectual property rights in the software.

3.6 Current and Emerging ICT Support

This section examines a range of ICTs that are currently used to support VEs, or are emerging technologies that appear likely to be of use in the near future. This desktop study, including contributions from the ICCI consortium partners, focuses on technologies that are relevant for VEs, and the construction industry in particular.

3.6.1 Remote contracting over the Internet

Internet technologies can provide Online Contracting Services, which will enable online negotiation of contractual terms and the monitoring of both communications and the execution of contracts.

To facilitate the electronic provision of contracting services, the structure and contents of a contract need to be viewed from the perspective of an ICT environment. The Cosmos Project (see section 4.1) provided a starting point for this, by preparing a model of an electronic contract. This is a structured representation of the components and relationships that comprise a contract, including the parties involved, certification of these parties, how the contract is executed and what goods or services will be provided by the execution of such a contract.

This detailed view of the components of a contract highlights the need for a management tool to ensure that a comprehensive online contract is drawn up. The Cosmos Contract Editor (see section 4.1.2) fulfils this service, allowing clauses and conditions to be selected from a clause library, the contract to be signed, and the execution of a contract to be monitored.

Online Contracting Services (OCSs) arise from, and are directly related to, the need for companies to have at their disposal a tool for supporting their whole business processes: finding business partners; obtaining their profile information; negotiating and agreeing on contractual terms; maintaining deadlines and generally managing business relationships. These tools enable the automatic evaluation of company information in order to improve partner selection for a project. This type of electronic market also means that no participant can influence the business domain of the others, and that the involvement of an independent trusted third-party service becomes crucial and fundamental.


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The operation of a single organisation’s business processes can be carefully controlled and managed particularly when a common system for communication and co-operation is employed. In these circumstances, collaboration tools can be configured that facilitate ad-hoc co-ordination among departments within the business. However, when it comes to external collaboration, enterprises are often at a loss when faced with issues such as:

• Finding business partners;

• Obtaining their profile information;

• Negotiating and agreeing on contractual terms;

• Maintaining deadlines;

• Managing business relationships.

In this area, an Online Contracting Service supports not only the matchmaking of business partners but also the negotiation of contractual terms, the monitoring of messages exchanged and, finally, the performance of contracts that have been made electronically.

An Online Contracting Service can be used either internally, by large-scale organisations, to manage complex relationships with sub-contractors and the their delivery of results, or externally, as a third-party service that supports small and medium-scale enterprises in their market activities.

In this kind of electronic market, however, several organisational and technical shortcomings need to be addressed:

• No participant can influence the business domain of others, i.e., workflow co-ordination across different organizations is difficult to achieve in an ever-changing market economy;

• Service arbitration is not possible unless an independent trusted third-party service (e.g. a notary) is involved;

• Current Web technology fails to provide suitable support for business application requirements, such as online contracting;

• Existing solutions for EDI-based communication require set-up and maintenance costs that are prohibitive for many SMEs.

However, the benefits offered by using an Online Contracting Service will outweigh these shortcomings. Examples of the functionality provided by these services include:

• Trigger mechanisms – familiar from stock markets – which allow market participants to take immediate and effective action;

• Contract negotiation supported by effective collaboration and data consistency;

• Co-ordination support from Online Contracting, which reduces transaction costs for the vast number of participants that may be involved in any given transaction.


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3.7 Communications in construction

Effective communications are vital in construction due to the large number of project participants, the separation of design and construction disciplines and the geographically dispersed nature of the projects [Barrie and Paulson 1992]. Numerous studies over the years have highlighted the problems inherent in construction communications [Higgin and Jessop 1965; Latham 1994]. These include both inappropriate modes of communications (in terms of document formats, insufficient infrastructure, etc.), organisational frameworks that restrict intra-organisational communications and adversarial contractual relationships that inhibit inter-organisational communications.

On large construction sites a myriad of interaction between participants takes place. These participants include clients, architects, engineers, and a range of specialist contractors, participating in or managing construction work, and often contributing to the design as well. The need to provide effective and continuous communications between these participants throughout the construction life cycle is paramount. Unfortunately this need is not always realised.

Conferencing technology should become increasingly important with the growth of distributed VEs, and offers many tools and facilities to assist with communications. However, implementation is currently limited, with few demonstrated successes. Careful application of these technologies should yield significant benefits for the industry.

3.7.1 Conferencing technology

This sub section briefly describes the different types of conferencing technology. The definitions below represent many of the different conferencing systems available on a typical construction project. The different types are:

• Video conferencing: The application of technologies to transfer audio and video data to a remote party. This category also now includes a capability to transfer or share data for collaborative working;

• Multimedia conferencing: This definition is now almost obsolete, as technical advances allow data conferencing to be combined easily with most video conferencing systems. It originally defined a system providing ‘video conferencing with a data transfer/sharing component, allowing collaborative working’, as opposed to a pure video conferencing system;

• Data conferencing: Data conferencing provides users with data transfer/sharing facilities for collaborative working, but no video images. Data conferencing is generally used in conjunction with audio conferencing on a normal telephone; and

• Conferencing systems: a generic term ‘conferencing systems’ is used to denote all of the above groups.


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3.7.2 The Application of Conferencing to Construction

The technologies described above could have many applications in the construction industry. Previous research work undertaken by Loughborough University in the UK identified a number of applications of conferencing technology and its associated groupware functions. The research was part of a pilot trial of video and data conferencing technologies, with systems being implemented at six locations. These locations are shown in the figure below.

ClientCentral London(Head Office)

ISDNNetwork

ClientBirmingham(Site Office)

ContractorBirmingham(Site Office)

ContractorNorth London

(Design Office)

ArchitectsBirmingham

(Design Office)

SpecialistContractor

Wales(Design &

Production)

Figure 3 Video Conferencing Installation Sites

Following trial use of the systems, and discussions with the users and management, a matrix of suggested conferencing interactions was produced. This suggests where video and – more importantly – data conferencing could be applied. The types of data regularly exchanged or shared during these communications was defined, along with the supporting groupware technology to enable the exchange/sharing.

3.7.3 A survey of Video Conferencing in Construction

Little current information is available on the level of utilisation of conferencing systems within the construction industry. Some historical data is available, in the form of a survey undertaken by Loughborough University in 1998.

Initial discussion with industry representatives from different organisations gave inconsistent feedback with respect to the use of conferencing systems. Loughborough University therefore contacted seven construction organisations that were known to be utilising video conferencing technologies to survey their views on such systems. All were major construction organisations with international interests. Their work covers all sectors of contracting including house building, process engineering and specialist subcontracting. The survey covered issues such as the type of equipment used; the location of the equipment; the primary use of the system; reasons for adopting video conferencing; problems encountered; the training and implementation issues; and managers and users attitudes towards the systems.


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The main findings of the survey were:

• Although conferencing systems have been implemented, their use was not widespread;

• Organisations who have introduced systems seldom kept records of their actual usage;

• Technologies supporting conferencing were sufficiently advanced that installation was possible at most locations and the units could be used by staff with relatively little training;

• Most organisations surveyed were using desktop video conferencing systems. Three companies had room-based systems. Data conferencing systems were found in two companies. None of the organisations surveyed were only using video conferencing;

• Only one organisation, heavily involved with worldwide construction, had invested in more than six units.

• Deployment of conferencing systems for a specific construction project was usually on a trial basis

• Most units were installed at regional or head offices for management meetings, with few implementations on construction sites. (one organisation was planning to install systems on four sites as part of a research and development programme.) Only two organisations had installed units in their design offices;

• The main system users included both operational staff and middle management to senior managers. Operational staff (engineers, planners etc.) Were primarily involved with collaborative working sessions. Middle to senior managers generally restricted their activities to face-to-face meetings, for tender discussions, etc;

• Data conferencing and file transfer was considered more important than ‘face-to-face’ meetings (i.e. Simple video conferencing);

• Perceived benefits of the systems included: travel cost savings; better preparation for meetings; improved relationships; competitive advantage; and more frequent and flexible meetings;

• Most organisations had no formal methodology to evaluate the business benefits of the systems.

The findings of the survey, although not quantitatively significant, were indicative of the status of conferencing systems within construction organisations in 1998.

3.7.4 Mobile Video Communications for Construction

Operations on a construction site frequently produce queries that need to be resolved quickly and efficiently if significant over run and costs are to be avoided. To achieve this, and before a solution can be formulated, the problem must be described to others.

Describing the problem to people offsite can be difficult, and may involve the use of visual material in the form of diagrams and pictures. These communications can require the site staff


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to repeatedly return to the site office for access to a facsimile for sending sketches of the query. Site visits by the design team often result, and these can sometimes be unnecessary, particularly when a problem is relatively straightforward to solve, but very difficult to describe clearly. Modern telecommunications can provide a solution to this, and significantly improve the quality of communications from on site to the design team.

Mobile or wearable computers can potentially provide this link, involving the use of live video images from the construction site, shared data and access to drawings. The video components of these systems are described below.

3.7.4.1 Remote Video Transmission

A mobile video transmission system, developed by BT [Miah et al. 1998], was implemented as part of a Loughborough University research project to address the communications from the point of production at the construction site. The equipment used a small radio transmitter to relay images from a standard camcorder to the site offices. From there, it was transmitted to the remote party using a video conferencing system. The figure below shows a member of the site team using the equipment to examine a stanchion base.

There are many applications for the mobile video system, both in construction and other industries. The motor insurance industry is already using similar technology to evaluate damage to cars before approving repairs. Within construction, examples of applications include: discussion of queries from the site team; requests for information from the design team; producing a record of events; and progress reviews. The equipment can be used on a regular basis to convey overall site progress to the design team, as not all members of the design team have regular access to the site. Previous research highlighted this as a valuable application [Thorpe et al., 1995].

Figure 4 Mobile video transmission system


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3.7.5 Digital Camera

The mobile video system described above may improve the visual communications from a construction site to a remote location, but is not always practicable. This is likely when small organisations on a project are not in a position to implement video conferencing in their organisation, but still needed images of the site from time to time.

For these organisations, a more relevant and simpler technology is a digital camera. A relatively inexpensive camera can be used to digitally record images of the construction works. The output, as TIFF or bitmap files, can be sent to the interested parties as an email attachment. This provided relatively instant access; images are delivered within a matter of minutes, with minimal transfer costs. Computers also provide better storage and retrieval of images than files of prints [Evans, 1997], and if a picture is of poor quality another can be taken before the subject changes, not sometime later when the film is returned from processing. Mobile phones are another option for sending images to a remote location.

The images produced by a digital camera are of excellent quality when displayed on a computer screen. It is also possible to produce near-photographic quality printed colour images from digital cameras.

3.8 Data storage support

Other significant benefits should arise from the ongoing work to provide standards for construction data, such as STEP (ISO 10303) and the Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs). These standards aim to organise and structure data in an object-based way, allowing the exchange of building objects (with associated information) for producing object models.

Another perspective on the organisation of data is provided by Content Management Systems. These seek to organise and provide access to all types of data, such as text, images, graphics, etc., to assist in development work. This might be the collation of all material required for a website.

The legal and contractual issues of the construction data collected, transferred, stored, and accessed for a project is highlighted and discussed in the next sections of the review.

3.9 Security support

In whatever way the data is organised, access to it has to be carefully controlled. Security is currently a major concern, and will affect ICT applications in construction organisations.

Smartcards are one aspect of security, and can perform many different functions. A simple card may just carry a few bits of data, which can easily be read and amended. Other cards include processing power as well as storage space. Cryptographic processor cards can be used to perform private key operations for digital signatures. This has the added benefit that the private key resides on the smartcard and is not available for fraudulent use.


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Smartcards can also be used for secure access to a network. A range of smartcard specifications and standards exist, along with Biometric systems. Biometric systems use unique aspects of a person's body or behaviour to determine their identity. These have advantages over traditional password operated security systems, as an individual’s retina pattern cannot be stolen or recreated.

Biometric systems use hardware to capture specific human characteristics and software processing to authenticate the identity. Human characteristics used include fingerprints, iris and retina patterns, voice patterns and hand-written signatures. All of these systems, as with smartcard technology, can be used to improve security within a construction project, and hence trust and relationships.

3.10 Validation of electronic transactions

Another method for improving trust, particularly relating to authenticity, involves specific software services. Certification Authorities (CAs) are used to verify that the owner/operator of a website are indeed who they say they are. This is crucial for construction organizations using collaboration services or VEs logging in to a project server and passing on commercially sensitive information.

At the other end of electronic communications, it is equally as important that a recipient knows what data has arrived and who has sent it. Digital signatures provide this functionality, proving who the author is through auditable security keys, and checking that a message or any attachments have not been altered since they were initially sent.

Digital signatures use a pair of keys: to sign a document before sending a private key only available to the author is used to encrypt the message and attachments. The recipient uses the author’s public key to decrypt the document and check the validity of the signature and the document’s contents.

These technologies authenticate the ‘who’ and ‘what’ components of a communication. Sometimes it is also necessary to verify ‘when’ a document was created or modified. Digital Notaries provide a time stamping service, proving the existence of a document at a particular time.

3.11 WAP and Web Communications Technology

Web communications technologies include HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and SMTP. WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is used to access services and information through wireless devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, etc. This technology may well have an important role in the construction industry, where sites can stretch over several kilometres, or be far away from fixed line services.


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The legality of using such systems will be no different to the issues raised in sections 3.9 (Security support) and 3.10 (Validation of electronic transactions). In the Deliverable D11 of the eLEGAL project (available at: http://cic.vtt.fi/projects/elegal/public.html under the results section) more detailed information on the protocols used for Web Communications and WAP technology can be found.

The next section of the report outlines some of the RTD activities across Europe that have had a major input into this report. Also included is an overview of current research dealing with issues that are indirectly concerned with the ICCI, but nonetheless should be brought to the reader’s attention for their consideration and information.


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4. Related RTD activities

This section provides an outline of the current RTD activities that are relevant to the ICCI project. It begins with information on the two most relevant projects that the ICCI project should be taking their views and information from, the COSMOS and eLEGAL projects. More information can be found in Appendix 1 of the current research being undertaken within KAII, that has a bearing on the issues being discussed within the ICCI project.

4.1 Development activities under the COSMOS project

The COSMOS project (Esprit Contract No. 26.850) aimed to implement an Online Contracting Service based on state-of-the-art Internet technologies. Instead of focusing solely on one specific technology, the COSMOS partners integrated relevant technologies to provide the best value for the application area concerned.

The COSMOS project strongly focused on the support of electronic markets. The COSMOS architecture was compliant with contemporary standards for software technology, and provided a framework for the integration of CORBA, Java, and the latest Web technology for functions such as on-line catalogues, service brokerage, contract negotiation and execution.

Components of the COSMOS architecture aimed to integrate the mechanisms that support business transactions in a flexible way, as summarised below:

• Provision of flexible catalogue services for market participants to store offers and inquiries;

• Online Brokering. This component is a software product that can be used for internal purposes, or can be utilized as an online service to seek business partners and to form consortia;

• Online Contracting Service. This component facilitates contract negotiation between business partners, and can be used either as a third-party service or in-house;

• Support of the signing process. Here, signatures of contractual parties are obtained, verified and stored by an electronic notary;

• Support Services. Support services integrate payment, encryption, authentication, and notarisation mechanisms in a unified manner; and

• The ad-hoc configuration of support services such as payment, authentication, or notary services. Each time a business transaction is to be established, configuration takes place using a unified description technique and a matching mechanism to specify the transaction partners” needs. In order to achieve this, a generic constraint unification facility was being developed.


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4.1.1 The COSMOS Contract Model

In the case of a printed contract, the document contains all the information about its execution in a format that is usually not machine-readable. The duties and rights of the parties, the schedule for the contract’s performance and the identities of the involved parties: all this currently needs to be extracted and interpreted by humans. In many cases, even experts are needed to evaluate a contract.

The basis for automatic contract execution is machine readability of all this information.

Using an electronic contract format offers the chance to create a contract model that may be interpreted easily by computers, enabling them to supervise its fulfilment.

The COSMOS architecture considered this from the very beginning. As part of the system, a contract model was developed that can be used to represent most types of contracts between “n” parties. This model allows easy extraction of the contract's workflow information. Consequently, the information gathered within the contract during earlier phases directly allows the derivation of a workflow to execute a contract.

For a better understanding of how workflow information is included in a contract, the COSMOS contract model is examined: the workflow information can be found in the three main components of a contract:

C1 The Who-part defines the involved parties, their roles and the persons representing the parties;

C2 The How-part describes the steps involved in the execution of the contract by defining a number of activities that have to be accomplished;

C3 The What-part contains information about the contract's subject. It defines the obligations to be brought forth.

Taking a closer look, these contract components can be seen to have the following relationships:

Each activity defines one step of the contract execution and refers to two roles: one represents the group receiving a number of obligations and the other characterizes the group of parties having to perform these obligations. Each party embodies one or more persons, the people who signed the contract and who are thus responsible for its fulfilment. Furthermore, the person “objects” can contain information on how to contact the person or details of his workflow system, so that the defined activities may be initiated.

These relationships and the main components of a contract are illustrated in Figure 5. This object-oriented contract model also permits the definition of different attributes for specific actions relating to issues such as time, pre- or post conditions of single execution steps, etc. Moreover, actions may relate to each other, e.g. the transfer of a payment may only be initiated after goods have been received.


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ContractIdentification

Type

PersonName

Reference to ProfileFurther Attributes

Party Subject

ObligationIdentification

Contract Elementid

PaymentAmountCurrency

Method of Payment

Legal Entity

RepresentedNatural Person

Date of Birth

1 1

embodies

SupplementaryProvisions

1

1

Compound Contract

Who WhatHow

Transaction Step

Log1Phase

Current Status

1

1

*

Life Cycle

Execution

Rolejur. Type

Identification

1..*

2..*

1

2..*Activity

IdentificationPeriod/ Point in TimePre-/Postcondition

AuthorityCertificate

Legal

FeatureNameValue

Natural PersonDate of Birth

1

gives

1

1 1

*Signature

DateLocation

n

1

Fixation

Good

Right (License)

Service

1*

111

1..* 1

11

1

provides 1..* 1

1..* 1..*

2..* 1..*

1..*

1..* 1..*

1..*

1..*

NotarizationDate

Location

1 1

AgreementDate

Location

n

1..*

FixationStatements

n n

1

1

performs

SignatureDate

Location

authorizes

1

1

1

1..*1

1

1

1

Clause Jur. Type

Identification

Internal ClauseText

Contract Elements

External ClauseReference

1 1..*

references *

*

1

Compound Contract

AddressRoad, Number,

City, State,Country, Phone, etc.

1

1

1..3

1..*

associated

1..*

1..*

Figure 5: Main Components of an Electronic Contract

4.1.2 The COSMOS Contract Editor

The layout of the COSMOS Contract Editor is shown in Figure 6.

The hierarchical structure on the left enables navigation around the entities, details of which are shown on the right. The “plugable editors” panel in Figure 6 is displaying “Party” information – “Person” (name), “Role” and “Address”.

The use of this COSMOS information has provided the eLEGAL project with a basis for its development work. The use and work of the eLEGAL project is described in the next section.


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Hierarchical Structure

Pluggable editors

Signing Process

Contract Execution

Figure 6: The COSMOS Contract Editor User Interface

4.2 Development activities under eLEGAL

From the COSMOS project (Esprit Contract No. 26.850), the following components were to be re-used as part of the eLEGAL (http://cic.vtt.fi/projects/elegal/public.html) development:

• The general COSMOS contract model will be used in an updated form that better supports eLEGAL requirements;

• The COSMOS architecture will serve as a reference for developments under eLEGAL. The many new and specific requirements of eLEGAL will lead to a more adequate implementation of the required software.

New developments to be conducted by the eLEGAL project included:

• The Contract Wizard will be developed from scratch, following the specification provided by eLEGAL partners;

• As an extension to the Contract Wizard, a Contract Validator will be developed, that can be used to apply rules against an individual contract. The outcome of the validator should be a list of errors and hints: Which clauses should be included, where is a conflict among clauses? which clause types are applicable for a specific contract type?

• Finally, there is the Virtual Negotiation Room which will be used to co-ordinate the composition and negotiation of contracts. The Virtual Negotiation Room is a server


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which is reachable across the Internet. It maintains versions and provides access control in the case of concurrent users.

4.2.1 The Contract Wizard

The eLEGAL Contract Wizard is a software component that allows users the creation and editing of XML based contracts. The XML Documents resembling the contracts can be stored on or retrieved from a Virtual Negotiation Room that supports the further necessary steps for contracting.

The project aims to present users of structured, XML based documents resembling contracts, an easy to use tool for the creation of new contracts, and the editing during a distributed negotiation process. This Contract Editing tool should be customisable for different scenarios of document types, and be able to be integrated with other external components.

The Contract Wizard will be able to validate XML documents and to add missing parts according to the XML Schema in use. This allows easy creation of new documents as well: An empty document is created with the reference to an XML Schema. The editor then will fill in the missing elements and present the resulting form to the user to fill in these elements. Where possible, the deletion of elements or the addition of new elements is allowed.

4.2.1.1 Contract Wizard outline

The Contract Wizard is an independent software application. It is written in the Java programming language and uses the Java 2 software platform in version 1.2 or higher. The application is distributed as a single jar file that can be started by the Java Virtual Machine.

The Contract Wizard is split into several components. The main component, the core module, is the XML based editing component that in turn is able to use several types of run-time loadable plug-in modules. The core module is instantiated multiple times to create a multi-window editor. The application frame that controls this instantiation is also responsible for the process of loading the plug-in modules.

The configuration of all components of the Contract Wizard is done through the standard Java means of Property files. The detailed outline of the files can only be defined during the implementation process of the components.

Some of the settings of the core component will be user configurable and can, through the mentioned property files, be saved on local storage.

4.2.2 The Virtual Negotiation Room

The Virtual Negotiation Room will allow organisations to set-up and negotiate bilateral or multilateral contracts as electronic documents. This technology provides a radical reduction of the "time-to-contract" by avoiding any media break during the negotiation, signing, and


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performance phases. The different parties who want to form a contract are linked together via the Internet. The Virtual Negotiation Room will save the contracts as XML-Documents.

Further information on the developments of the eLEGAL project can be found by visiting the project website: http://cic.vtt.fi/projects/elegal

4.3 Other relevant projects covering the legal and contractual issues

From studies of the EU’s research websites the following projects have also made a large contribution to the further understanding of the information needed to complete this review.

4.3.1 ALIVE: Advanced Legal Issues in Virtual Enterprise

ALIVE (IST-2000-25459 http://www.vive-ig.net/projects/alive/) is a workgroup intended to foster co-operation among industry and legal and ICT professionals who are investigating legal issues in the new economy, in order to:

• Identify and classify the legal issues arising form the emergence of the virtual enterprise;

• Exchanging information on ongoing relevant research and exploit co-operation opportunities on common themes;

• Compare emerging legal issues and the existing legal and regulatory frameworks in view to generating suggestions for future policy development and new RTD actions.

The legal issues addressed through the Working Group will take into account the fact that the Virtual Enterprise is not a legal entity, and will e.g. address:

• What kind of contractual framework would be most appropriate given the unique characteristics of the VE?

• How will IPR and confidentiality between VE participants be adequately guaranteed so as to encourage VE participation?

• What is the extent and duration of liability between each VE participant with respect to his other partners within the VE and to the external customers / suppliers?

• Given that the VE is a global concept, what national legal framework and jurisdiction would apply in the case of each VE?

• How should the VE be terminated?

• What steps should be taken, and provision made, to secure in law, the rights of the consumer for products and services offered by the VE?

• What regulatory framework should apply with respect to taxation and accounting conventions?

• What implications does the VE and any related legal and regulatory framework have on employment law?


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• What implications does the VE and any related legal and regulatory framework have on existing legislation regarding health and safety?

• What implications does the VE paradigm have for European competition policy?

• How could software development impact on the legal requirements, i.e. improve drafting and exchange of legal documents, (e.g. contracts, agreements, IPR conventions)?

• Which legal force should be given to evidence from e-documents and how could responsibility and liability be electronically tracked?

• Which new legal proceedings should be developed, and which contract clauses would be best applicable to a digital co-operation environment?

The ALIVE project started on the 1st January 2000 and has a duration of 24 months.

4.3.2 DEEDS: Digital Economy Policies Exchange and Development for SMEs

DEEDS (IST-1999-29035 http://www.deeds-ist.org) ensures an open Forum of European executive policy makers (Policy Group) stimulating, discussing, exchanging, and monitoring public policies related to the major issues of the digital economy, focusing on the uptake of electronic business practices by SMEs.

The Forum is the follow-up of the Policy Group set up within the G7 Pilot Project A Global Marketplace for SMEs (1996-1999), co-ordinated by the European Commission, which has contributed - via the exchange of information, experience and best practice - to significantly progress and converge policy making related to Electronic Commerce and SMEs.

The objective of DEEDS is to address the demand to keep alive the network of European executive policy makers and advisers (from governments, development and technological agencies and SMEs associations), and to extend it to other countries-networks in Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and Latin America.

DEEDS provides scientific and technical assistance to the European Policy Group, to promote international co-operation on digital economy-SME policy issues with emerging areas, to maintain a close link and stable communication with IST-Key Action 2, providing input and feedback to the policy making process of the European Commission.

4.3.2.1 Objectives

To increase participation of SMEs in the digital economy within the EU, the new accession countries and other developing economies, and to contribute to the development of appropriate policies at local, regional, national and transnational levels.


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4.3.2.2 Specific objectives:

• Identification of emerging change factors and new areas of policy related to SME in the digital economy.

• Strengthen the EU network of resources contributing to the policy development, monitor the evolution of electronic business practices, and review existing policies addressing electronic commerce and digital economy

• Maintain links with other organisations relevant to the SME uptake and participation in the changing environment, facilitate EU international co-operation with emerging, developing and industrialised economies, and encourage the development of projects, pilots and test beds, that can be replicated in other areas.

• Support the European Commission policy making in KAII-2.

4.3.2.3 Project Methodology

The project methodology is to address the audience of the executive policy makers and policy advisers who are involved in the day-by-day design and implementation of actions, initiatives, and regulations coping with the impact of the digital economy on business and society.

The assumption is that the new issues are generating similar problems in different contexts, and the lesson drawn by the G7 Pilot Project n.10 "A Global Marketplace for SMEs", tells that it is possible and successful to rely on an international network, which allows to deal with those problems not in isolation, but taking reciprocal advantage from different experiences, ideas and knowledge.

To implement its objectives, the project will provide both scientific and technical assistance to the former G7 PP 10 European Policy Group, extended in time and dimension, throughout:

• Periodic review of policy actions, legislative setting, and technical implementation within the EU Policy Group created with the G7 PP 10.

• Thematic seminars on specific issues, situated on the frontier of the current debate and research activity concerning the impact of digital economy on business and society, providing insight helping to reconfigure the focus of policies in the light of change and to assess ongoing policy implementations.

• Dialogue with extra-EU policy networks, particularly in CEEC, Mediterranean and Latin America, to strengthen international cooperation, in particular about the impact of digital economy on small businesses.

• Dissemination and exchange of good practices, projects, results, and policies coming out from EU and local initiatives, encouraging pilots and replications in new contexts.


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• Support and coordination with the European Commission, as major policy maker both in IST-New Ways of Working and SME areas, needing close interactions with the various sub-transnational policy layers in the EU and outside.

4.3.3 ELSEWISE

ELSEWISE (Esprit Project No. 20876 http://www.lboro.ac.uk/elsewise/) stands for European Large Scale Engineering Wide Integration Support Effort. ELSEWISE was a User Reference project directed at understanding the information flows within and then defining the Information Technology and Product Data Technology needs of the European Large Scale Engineering (LSE) industry. The ELSEWISE project was a pilot study which focused on industry requirements and had a bias towards building and civil engineering construction. Future phases broadened the scope, monitored results of development projects, and established a validation community to support the implementation of new technologies and promote their industrial deployment.

ELSEWISE was specifically concerned with the end user requirements and the business benefits that would arise from the effective deployment of Product Data Technology (PDIT). ELSEWISE was also concerned with that subset of Information Technology which is most relevant to supporting the deployment of PDT. For convenience, the term Product Data and Information Technology (PDIT) was used to refer broadly to PDT and the associated aspects of Information Technology.

ELSEWISE took a business led approach to formalising a generic view and model of how the European LSE industry uses and exchanges information. ELSEWISE used an established structured workshop methodology for examining the information for the complex building, process plant, infrastructure and specialist civil engineering sectors of the LSE industry and determination of the PDIT needs.

4.3.4 The VIVE (Virtual Vertical Enterprises) Initiative

All over Europe seventeen millions of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) give a substantial contribute to the global economic system. The extraordinary development of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) allows for innovative relationship among enterprises, geographically dispersed and organised in extended networks. In this scenario SMEs have the potentiality to increase their contribute to the global market. Nevertheless, the new opportunities offered by the global market and the development of innovative products require financial and technical capabilities that SMEs can hardly provide.

A business case representative of that market condition is the one of a group of SMEs in Emilia Romagna, operating in the field of oleo-dynamic and mechanical components. Some Japanese manufacturers developed an integrated subsystem for earth moving machines, replacing components supplied separately by the SMEs and assembled directly by the final client. This resulted in the SMEs being put out of market for that product. SME


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competitiveness was achieved again by developing a co-ordinated process for supplying the same integrated subsystem as the Japanese competitors: they started a Virtual Enterprise.

This has been the inspiration for the VIVE (http://www.ceconsulting.it/ve/default.htm) initiative, that is the development and consolidation of a methodological and technological framework enabling Small and Medium Enterprises to join their forces to compete on the global market as if they were a single larger Company. The VIVE framework is based on the innovative business concept of the Business Integrator, in charge of coordinating the activities of the Virtual Enterprise throughout its life cycle, and is constituted of the following essential elements:

• Business model

• ICT infrastructure

• Legal framework

• Best Practices

4.3.4.1 The Basic VIVE Concept

Common objectives for improvement of time, cost and quality parameters in the business processes can be translated into the main Business drivers that guide co-operative initiatives:

• Reduction of transaction and development costs;

• Better quality and higher customer satisfaction;

• Shorter time to market;

• Global operation and presence;

• Shared risks and rapid adaptation to market needs and conditions;

• Enable employees, suppliers, and customers interact with common business processes and applications;

• Provide a secure, reliable and fault tolerant environment.

VIVE approach addresses such drivers to enable groups of companies to develop and commercialise products, which individual participating company could not realise due to limited technical and financial capacity.

VIVE pursues the minimisation of time and resources necessary to the constitution of a Virtual Enterprise, through the availability of preconfigured methodological and technological solutions, aimed at the concurrent definition of product, processes, organisation and ICT support environment, tailored on the specific business opportunities.

Elements that characterize the VIVE approach in its merging Virtual Enterprising and Concurrent Engineering concepts are:


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• Business – shared risks and revenues by contractual agreement

• Organisation – no legal entity, temporary and dynamic, geographically dispersed, managed by the Business Integrator, enabled by a common/ interoperable ICT infrastructure

• Process – harmonised, distributed

• Management – event driven, delegation based

The constitution of a VIVE exploits two major enabling factors:

• A new entity, the "BUSINESS INTEGRATOR", capable of facilitating the creation of Virtual Enterprises;

• Robust methods for selecting and adapting Information and Communication Technology solutions to enable the operation of Virtual Enterprises.

4.3.4.2 The Business Integrator

Within the VIVE approach, the Business Integrator has the responsibility of co-ordinating activities performed by the industrial partners during the VIVE life cycle, starting from the constitution phase, when the initial group of partners is selected, and legally binding agreements are entered.

The Business Integrator must have general understanding of industrial issues, sufficiently deep to manage the technical and business interfaces among partners, as he/she is called to perform:

• Negotiation of contractual agreements

• Process analysis and simulation

• Project Management / Administration

• Deployment of ICT solutions

• Engineering co-ordination

In support to his activities, the Business Integrator has available an ICT infrastructure, capable of accommodating:

• Virtual Enterprise process modelling and simulation;

• Partners' search through intelligent agents for web exploration

• Basic co-operative requirements of partners;

• Management of interfaces among partners

• Management of commercial transactions


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The next sections give more general information about current research being undertaken within KAII of the IST programme of Framework Programme V.

4.4 General Research under KAII of the IST programme

This can be found in the appendix section of the report. It covers the following research areas:

• New perspectives for work & business: Economic, legal & social research

• Knowledge management for eCommerce and eWork

• Mobile and ubiquitous eCommerce and eWork

• Promoting eWork and eBusiness

• eWork

• Electronic commerce standards

• Technologies for trust and security

• Infrastructure for trust and security

• Smart organisations

• Virtual organisations

• Building, construction and sustainable growth

• Intelligent manufacturing;


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5. Conclusion

This review has formed one of the deliverables of workpackage 4 of the EU funded ICCI cluster project. Its aim was to show the current state of the art in terms of the legal and contractual issues associated with the use of ICT in the construction industry. The document has provided the following key points:

• A description of the legal and contractual issues in the formation of ICT contracts in the participating countries of the ICCI consortium

• A description of any existing clauses or case law that effects the formation of ICT contracts

• A description of the participating countries use of European ICT related legislation for ICT contract formation

• A discussion of the use of company information when involved within a virtual construction project organisation, in terms of its legal and contractual implications

• Some information on the current project ICT services available to the EU countries construction industries

• Information on the current and emerging ICT support for construction organisations

• How communications, data storage, security, electronic transactions, and WAP and web technology can be used in a “safe” legal and contractual way in the construction industry

• A complete analysis of all current EU funded projects that are dealing with issues that are relevant to the EU construction industry have been discussed. The projects mostly fall under Key Action II of the Fifth Framework Programme.

The information contained within this document has only provided a glimpse of the information available. If all was included then the document could have been over 350 pages. This size of document although impressive would not be practical for this type of project, hence an overview of the current state of the art has been provided.


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Acknowledgements The ICCI Consortium would like to acknowledge the financial support of the European Commission under the IST programme.

The ICCI project (Contract no: IST-2001-33022) is supported by the European Commission under the IST programme Key Action II: New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce. The authors wish to acknowledge the Commission for their support, and our gratitude and appreciation to all the ICCI project partners for their contributions to the project and this paper. Further information on ICCI is available from the ICCI website at http://cic.vtt.fi/projects/icci/public.html


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References Barrie D.S., and Paulson B.C. (1992) Professional construction management: including C.M., design-construct, and general contracting, 3rd ed., Publisher McGraw-Hill, London.

Buckett, J. and Stringer, G. B. (1997) “A Case Study in Language Teaching Using the Mbone”, presentation to HEFCE desktop video conferencing workshop “Tomorrow’s World Today”, Royal Geographical Society, London, 16 July.

Ellis, C.A., Gibbs, S.J. and Rein, G.L. (1991) “Groupware: some issues and experiences”, Communications of the ACM, Volume 34, Number 1, pp. 39-58

Evans, B. (1997) “Telework on the Move”, The Architects’ Journal, 11 September, pp56-58.

Higgin, G. and Jessop, N. (1965) Communications in the Building Industry: The Report of a Pilot Study, Tavistock Publications.

Latham, M. (1994) Constructing the Team: joint review of procurement and contractual arrangements in the United Kingdom construction industry, Final Report, H.M.S.O.

Miah, T., Carter, C., Thorpe, A., Baldwin, A. And Ashby, S. (1998) “Wearable computers - an application of BT’s mobile video system for the construction industry”, BT Technology Journal, Volume 16, No. 1, January.

Morris, M. E., Plant, A. A. and Hughes, P. T. (1992) “CoOp Lab: Practical Experiences with Evaluating a Multi-User System”, In Monk, A., Diaper, D. and Harrison, M.D. (eds.), People and Computers: Proceedings of HCI ‘92, Cambridge University Press

Sasse, M. A. (1997) “An Introduction to the Mbone”, presentation to HEFCE desktop video conferencing workshop “Tomorrow’s World Today”, Royal Geographical Society, London, 16 July.

Thorpe, A., Baldwin, A.N., Carter, C., Leevers, D. and Madigan, D. (1995) “Multimedia Communications in Construction”, Civil Engineering, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, February, pp 12-16.


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Appendix 1 Information on research topics such as “New perspectives for work and business: Economic, legal and social research; knowledge management for eCommerce and eWork; mobile and ubiquitous eCommerce and eWork; promoting eWork and eBusiness; eWork; smart organisations; technologies for trust and security; infrastructure for trust and security; building, construction and sustainable growth; virtual organisations; intelligent manufacturing; and electronic commerce standards” which are covered under KAII of IST programme of Framework Programme V are found in this appendix.

NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR WORK & BUSINESS: ECONOMIC, LEGAL & SOCIAL RESEARCH

The workprogramme for Key Action II stresses that successful development will “require a strong interplay between the technical, economic, social and legal issues. Integrated socio-economic and technological research is therefore necessary to monitor and assess the development and impact of new technologies and in particular of the work done in the Key Action itself.” In fact, a strong base already exists in socio-economic research projects initiated under the Fourth Framework Programme. These offered a significant experience in integrating socio-economic with technological research. Most EU projects have a significant amount of socio-economic research embedded within them. About 40% of RTD projects have at least one work-package exclusively dedicated to economic, legal, social or policy related research necessary to guide and optimise the project’s results and impact. Among these, 50% are performing economic and market analyses; 25% legal studies, 10% social research, and 10% make explicit contributions to EU policy developments. The core of socio-economic research activity in KAII however is implemented through 38 projects contracted until December 2001, including 14 projects selected under the CPA4(1999), CPA7(2000 and 2001), and CPA8(2000) that are managed under KAII. The interdisciplinary character of KAII field of work is particularly challenging in setting and achieving focused objectives in a fast moving and highly dynamic environment. The projects highlighted below cluster around three distinct fields: “measuring the new economy”, “identifying shaping factors of the emerging new ways of work and business”, and “helping KAII to best contribute to major EU policies.”

MEASURING THE NEW ECONOMY

In the field of measuring the new economy, a number of projects are in operation that strongly address the eEurope objectives. ECATT2 has completed a benchmarking of e-commerce and telework developments in ten countries. Analysis was completed in July 2000, and the final

2 Electronic Commerce and Telework Trends'98: benchmarking progress on new ways of working and new forms of business in Europe Funded under the 4th Framework Programme – ACTS and ESPRIT 29299


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report was very well received and provides a valuable “baseline” against which eEurope imitatives can be compared. The full final report is available from the following web address: www.ecatt.com. EMERGENCE3 looks at the relocation of work as eBusiness activities develop, and started producing additional quantitative results on the employment relocation of telemediated work. It conducts substantial surveys of eBusiness developments in most EU countries and the USA. A number of Cross-Programme Actions (CPA) and KAII projects address statistical indicators and socio-economic analyses thus providing further benchmarking data. NEWKIND4 develops indicators of the accumulation of intangible capital; eCommerce infrastructures, and “performance/efficiency gain”; SIBIS5 is devoted to the benchmarking of the eEurope Action Plan via 30 new indicators. ERMIS6 develops indicators for measuring the growth of consumer-oriented electronic commerce, using intelligent agents; EICSTES7 develops indicators of impact of the new economy on innovations; STING8 develops indicators of technology innovation based on patent data. FAMILIES9 analyses impacts of work on families, associated with changes in information society related work organisation; STAR10 develops indicators and analyses emerging patterns of development of the digital economy, the skills gap, the new ways to work, e-payments and smart card use, and e-government; BEEP11 carries out meta-data analysis and case studies focused on eEurope priorities; social inclusion; regional development and SMEs. In addition, the TERRA200012 project focuses on macro-economic impacts and e-LIVING13 on lifestyle impacts. STILE14 develops innovative methodologies for monitoring the labour market in the e-economy. INDIC@TOR15 carries out a psychometrically sound survey of “employability” for software engineers working in SMEs; and NEWTIME16 will investigate the migration of micro-businesses to broadband networking. MUTEIS17 assesses macro-economic and urban trends in the information society and LAW18 addresses labour market changes and welfare perspectives.

3 Estimation and mapping of employment relocation in a global economy in the new communication environment – IST-1999-13420 – 1st call KAII 4 New Indicators For The Knowledge Based Economy – IST- 1999-20782 – 2nd call CPA4 5 Statistical Indicators for Benchmarking the Information Society – IST-2000-26276 – 3rd call CPA8 6 Electronic commeRce Measurements through Intelligent Agents – IST- 1999-21051 – 2nd call CPA4 7 European Indicators, Cyberspace And The Science-Technology-Economy System – IST- 1999-20350 – 2nd call CPA4 8 Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Innovation and Progress in Europe, through Patents – IST- 1999-20847 – 2nd call CPA4 9 Families, Work and IST: A study of the interactions between family trends and new work methods in the Information Society – IST-1999-14115 – 2nd call KAII 10 Socio-Economic Trends Assessment for the Digital Revolution – IST-1990-14122 – 2nd call KAII 11 Best e-Europe Practices – IST - 2000-26224 – 3rd call CPA7 12 Terra2000 – IST-2000-26332 – 3rd call CPA7 13 e-Living: Life in a Digital Europe – IST-2000-25409 – 3rd call CPA7 14 Statistics and indicators on the labour market in the e-economy – IST-2000-31099 – 5th call CPA8 15 A cross-cultural study on the measurement and enhancement of employability in small and medium sized ICT companies – IST- 2000-31070 – 5th call CPA7 16 New E-work Techniques in Micro-enterprises – IST-2000-29568 – 4th call KAII 17 Macro-Economic and Urban Trends in Europe’s Information Society – IST-2000-30117 – 5th call CPA7 18 Labour Market Changes and Welfare Perspectives in Europe – IST-2000-33356 – 6th call CPA7


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IDENTIFYING SHAPING FACTORS OF THE EMERGING NEW WAYS OF WORK AND BUSINESS

This field is an indispensable effort for meeting the objective of KAII. MOBICOM19 focuses on the fundamental factors affecting the evolution of mobile eCommerce, such as market structures, key players, consumer behaviour and new business and work models. BEE20 studies the socio-economic impacts of biometrics technologies. BIT-HOUSE-NET21 creates a platform for the dissemination of ICT-research results to promote the development of SMEs and to increase their connectivity within 12 regions in 8 countries around the Baltic Sea. DEEPSIA22 will help SMEs using intelligent agents through the intelligent collection and organisation of information according to their preferences, thus introducing them to eCommerce through a novel business practice. USHER23 addresses the new role of Regional Development Agencies (RDA) in helping SMEs to make the transition to the new economy. The 240 RDAs offer a powerful instrument to local policy developments and SME network involvement in the EU. VIP24 will help in the development of a Code of Practice for Corporate Social Responsibility among international companies when establishing and carrying out IST-enabled work across national borders. ASSIST25 analyses opportunities for achieving sustainability by using substitutive information society technologies and RISESI26 will explore the relationship between technological innovation and the resulting social and economic transformations. TELESOL27 shapes the way business and research is contacted in CIS countries through the introduction of telework practices. Employment trends and call-centre developments from the employer view are addressed by ANGELO28 and the labour union view by TOSCA29. FAMILIES analyses key interactions between families and the new ICT-based work methods and empirically investigates these interactions, resulting in conclusions for policy and RTD implications. ATTRACT30 develops, quantifies, and verifies two major evolution scenarios related to work and business. ALTERNATIVE31 develops a web-enabled tool to provide a risk assessment framework for evaluating the deployment,

19 Evolution Scenarios for Emerging m-Commerce Services – IST-1999-21000 – 2nd call KAII 20 Business Environment of Biometrics involved in electronic commerce – IST-1999-20078 – 2nd call KAII 21 Baltic BIT-House Network for promotion and dissemination of Information Society Research – IST-1999-29030 – 2nd call KAII 22 Dynamic on-linE Internet Purchasing System – IST-1999-20483 – 2nd call KAII 23 Unified Support and Help for E-Commerce enterprises through assisting RDA's – IST-1999-20727 – 2nd call KAII 24 Voluntary Industrial Code of Practice for IST-enabled work across national borders – IST-2000-25463 – 3rd call CPA7 25 Achieving Sustainability by using Substitutive Information Society Technologies – IST-2000-29044 – 2nd call KAII 26 The Regional Impact of the Information Society on Employment and Integration – IST-2000-33189 – 6th call CPA7 27 Telework solutions for promotion of EU cooperation in business and research with the Commonwealth of Independent States – IST-1999-29038 – 2nd call KAII 28 Knowledge Based Virtual Facilitator in Team Working – IST-1999-11696 –1st call KAII 29 Social Observation Table of Call Centres – IST-1999-12646 – 1st call KAII 30 Advanced Teleworking Techniques and Tele-services for Insurance Agents and Customers – IST-1999-20960 – 2nd call KAII 31 Assessing the Deployment, Hosting and Integration of Business-Critical Information Systems by Application Service Providers – IST-2000-28421 – 4th call KAII


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hosting and integration of a taxonomy of application service provider business models. SUSTEL32 examines the ecological and social benefits of teleworking and will develop a tool to help organisations to better manage the sustainability of teleworking schemes.

CONTRIBUTION TO MAJOR EU POLICIES

Nine projects provide support to KAII's contribution to major EU policies. e-LEGAL33 contributes to regulatory developments by addressing the legal and contractual conditions in virtual business environments. SEED34 develops policy frameworks for key drivers of the growth of the digital economy in enlargement countries. STAR examines new technologies and services and their impact on the nature of work and business enterprises in the next decade with a specific focus on the identification of new opportunities for economic and employment growth and their drivers and barriers. TERRA2000 examines the technological and social changes known as the “New Economy” and the challenges posed to sustainable development, economic competitiveness, civil society and quality of life. e-LIVING uses a co-ordinated set of pan-European longitudinal household panel surveys to explain, model and forecast the changing patterns of uptake and usage of IS technologies across Europe. BEEP is concerned with analysing and exploiting socio-economic best practice in four domains of the eEurope initiative: employment and skills; digital SMEs” social exclusion and regional cohesion; and the important cross-themes relating to these issues. E-COMMLEX35 provides entrepreneurs with easy access to comparative information about legislative and regulatory matters affecting eCommerce in the various Member States. DEESD36 is concerned with eCommerce, eWork and sustainable development and defines a policy framework for sustainable electronic markets; KISEIS37 addresses policy solutions to promote sustainable employment and to integrate disadvantaged groups in the information society and PIDSS38 assesses the impact of IST on postal operators” core business and working places. In addition, the project JANUS39 intends to bring together a core of socio-economic research projects in order to help develop a better picture of the past, the dynamics and possible futures by consolidating issues shared throughout the IST, including the projects TERRA2000, EMERGENCE, BEEP, STAR, SIBIS, and PRISMA40. E-MINDER41 is working towards the creation of a centre of competence in a number of regions. The structure will enable, observe and animate the application and development of eCommerce, encouraging the incorporation of SMEs. A number of Support Measures selected under other action lines 32 Sustainable Telework – Assessing and Optimising the Ecological and Social Benefits of Teleworking – IST-2000-33228 – 6th call CPA7 33 Specifying Legal Terms of Contract in ICT Environment – IST-1999-20570 – 2nd call KAII 34 South Eastern European Digital Economy – IST-1999-29060 – 2nd call KAII 35 eCommerce Legislation and Regulatory Policy Portal – IST-2000-28560 – 4th call KAII 36 Digital Europe: e-business and sustainable development – IST-2000-28606 – 4th call KAII 37 Key Interventions for Sustainable Employment in the Information Society for Disadvantaged Groups – IST-2000-28333 – 4th call KAII 38 Postal IT Directions Strategic Study – IST-2000-28721 – 4th call KAII 39 Joint Analytical Network for Using Socio-economic research - IST-2001-33300 – 6th call CPA7 40 Providing Innovative Service Models and Assessment - IST-1999-29088 41 Electronic CoMmerce LeveragIng Network for Developing European Regions – IST-2000-28403 – 4th call KAII


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contribute indirectly, though visibly, to the socio-economic research activity of KAII. Such examples include DEEDS42 that provides an open Forum for policy debate on major issues of the digital economy, and FLEXWORK43 that promotes the adoption of innovative ways of flexible working, using IST technologies, by users in outlying or technologically disadvantaged regions of Europe, with special emphasis on SMEs, while its extension, FLEXWORK44, addresses the accession countries” SMEs needs.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR ECOMMERCE AND EWORK

A number of projects address emerging “knowledge technologies”, not only within the Action Lines on Knowledge Management, but also in the context of smart organisations, teamwork and business collaboration, thus enhancing organisational effectiveness and cooperation within and between organisations. A cluster of projects in this area has emerged from the first calls for proposals, and has been substantially reinforced by projects emerging from further calls, specifically within the cross-key action line on “knowledge technologies”. A summary of some of the relevant projects can be found below. KM FORUM45 provides the core coordination activity for the Knowledge Management cluster, which includes initially the projects addressing WP99II1.2 (Corporate Knowledge Management). These are: PRIMA46 for organising and sharing knowledge with risk assessment, INSPIRE47 develops an intelligent support tool to increase the success-rate of Business Process Reengineering by providing real help in process modelling, design and implementation, PICK48 develops two innovative methods and tools for effective management of corporate knowledge, ASSIST, PRESERVE49 design and implement a service knowledge network supporting a production system, PROMOTE50, develops and tests in the financial sector a prototype on “Process Oriented Knowledge Management System (PO-KMS), ACCESS-MAINTS51 designs, implements and experiments an innovative Integrated Communication and Delivery Platform to collect, manage, share and transfer Corporate Knowledge for engineering activity support in geographically dispersed sites. Other projects include: NIMCUBE52; XPERTS53; 42 Digital Economy: Policy Exchange and Development for SMEs – IST-1999-29035 – 2nd call KAII 43 Demonstrating and promoting the adoption of new ways of FLEXible WORKing among outlying regions and SMEs – IST-2000-26367 – 3rd call KAII 44 Demonstrating and Promoting the Take-up of New Ways of Flexible Working among outlying Regions and SMEs – IST-2001-33526 – 6th call KAII 45 European Knowledge Management Forum – IST-2000-26393 – 3rd call KAII 46 Project Risk Management – IST-1999-10193 – 1st call KAII 47 Intelligent Support for People-Oriented Process Re-Engineering and Change Management – IST-1999-10387 – 1st call KAII 48 Tools for Process Improvement Based on Corporate Knowledge Management – IST-1999-10442 – 1st call KAII 49 Productivity Engineering for innovative Production Technologies by Knowledge-Based Service Networks – IST-1999-11355 – 1st call KAII 50 Process oriented methods and tools for knowledge management – IST-1999-11658 – 1st call KAII 51 Advanced Cross-Communication Environment providing Support Services to dispersed MAINtenance and Technical Support engineers – IST-1999-11763 – 1st call KAII 52 New-use and Innovation Management and Measurement Methodology for RandD – IST-1999-11926 – 1st call KAII 53 Experts Enablers in the Machinery Engineering Domain – IST-1999-11961 – 1st call KAII


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MODEL54; COMMA55; LORE56; CORMA57; and DÉCOR58. As the scope of this activity expanded, a number of projects are now running that are working on issues raised within the projects highlighted above. These are LEVER59, WISE60, ENKE61, OPAL62, E-COGNOS63, ONTO-LOGGING64, RIMSAT65, AUDIOTAIN66, MILK67, MIRROR68, H-TECHSIGHT69, KNOWCOAT70, INKASS71, ICONS72 and PIKON73. The KNOW IT74 project is concerned with practical knowledge management to support front-line decision making in SMEs.

MOBILE AND UBIQUITOUS ECOMMERCE AND EWORK

Mobile communications is increasingly dominating the new generation of eCommerce and eWork systems. Despite all their technology and market issues, the emerging WAP, GPRS and UMTS platforms will be of major importance in the near future. However, research is still required to fine-tune the technology solutions, and to better comprehend the deployment difficulties and opportunities. A number of projects while addressing other topics, already focused on these new opportunities: MOTION75, LEAP76, and ACCESS-MAINTS. To stimulate take-up, IWOP77 will make eight trial implementations of mobile and teleworking

54 Multimedia for Open and Dynamic Executives” Learning – IST-1999-12181 – 1st call KAII 55 Corporate Memory Management through Agents – IST-1999-12217 – 1st call KAII 56 Leveraging Operational Resource Expertise – IST-1999-12645 – 1st call KAII 57 Practical Methods and Tools for Corporate Knowledge Management – Sharing and Capitalising Engineering Know-How in the Concurrent Enterprise – IST-1999-12685 – 1st call KAII 58 Delivery of context-sensitive organisational knowledge – IST-1999-13002 – 1st call KAII 59 Leveraging Knowledge in the Software Industry – IST-1999-20216 – 2nd call KAII 60 Web-enabled Information Services for Engineering – IST-2000-29280 – 4th call KAII 61 Enhancing Knowledge Management in Enterprises – IST-2000-29482 – 4th call KAII 62 OnLine Partnership lens: a social browser for networked enterprise – IST-2000-28295 – 4th call KAII 63 Methodology, tools and architectures for electronic consistent knowledge management across projects and between enterprises in the construction domain – IST-2000-28671 – 4th call KAII 64 Corporate Ontology Modelling and Management System – IST-2000-28293 – 4th call KAII 65 Remote Intelligent Management Support and Training – IST-2000-28655 – 4th call KAII 66 Empowering audio content providers through E-work and interactivity management to exploit audio knowledge bases in market for interactive audio entertainment – IST-2000-29302 – 4th call KAII 67 Multimedia Interaction for Learning and Knowing – IST-2001-33165 – 6th call KAII 68 Mirror World Communities of Practice for Learning and Innovation in Natural Science – IST-2001-3204 – 6th call KAII 69 A Knowledge management platform with Intelligence and Insight capabilities for Technology Intensive Industries – IST-2001-33174 – 6th call KAII 70 Neutral knowledge management solutions for the coating market value chain – IST-2001-33262 – 6th call KAII 71 Intelligent Knowledge Asset Sharing and Trading – IST-2001-33373 – 6th call KAII 72 Intelligent Content Management System – IST-2001-32429 – 6th call KAII 73 Personal Information and Knowledge Organiser Network – IST-2001-33487 – 6th call KAII 74 Practical knowledge management to support front-line decision making in SMEs – IST-1999-56403 – 3rd call KAII 75 Mobile Teamwork Infrastructure for Organisations Networking – IST-1999-11400 – 1st call KAII 76 Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform – IST-1999-10211 – 1st call KAII 77 Best Practice Pilot for the implantation of Integrated Internet Based Remote Working Places for Virtual Teams developing their work at SMEs – IST-1999-21148 – 2nd call KAII


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in SMEs with different profiles, with subsequent replication into at least 2000 SMEs in the EU and Eastern Europe. In 2000, 24 proposals addressed the new Cross-Key action line on Mobile eCommerce and eWork, five of which were selected that will contribute to and provide a good coverage of the three focal areas through the development and validation of (1) context-sensitive solutions for highly personalised scenarios and services for mobile and ubiquitous B-to-C and C2C eCommerce; (2) environments for open, seamless and secure integration of heterogeneous mobile/ubiquitous solutions; and (3) easy-to-use multi-modal interfaces. WHYLESS.COM78 researches the economic and technical requirements and performance of an open mobile radio access network based on ultra-broadband radio transmissions and fixed/radio network resource brokerage. MYGROCER79 exploits new mobile eCommerce opportunities and automatic product ID technologies in the retail sector. YOUNGSTER80 focuses on young people as a user community, creates and pilots an open mobile multimedia service platform in GPRS and UMTS network environments, enabling the self-creation and highly adaptive delivery of personalised and interactive community services on the basis of dynamic user profile and context attributes. UWA81 improves the design process for web applications. E-PARKING82 develops appropriate security architecture system required to use a mobile phone or any other device as a method for electronic booking and payment. VIP ADVISOR83 allows for new methods of enhanced electronic financial services through natural language, speech and 3D avatar technologies combined with intelligent and information retrieval components that will later be applied to mobile platforms. WITNESS84 focuses on security platforms and security services in mobile devices and smart cards, while MEEST85 will develop a method and system that will enable people to perform a broad array of ubiquitous mobile eCommerce and eWork by using their mobile handsets. MEXPRESS86 has the objective of introducing advanced B-to-C and B2E oriented electronic services through intelligent mobile devices, enabling personalisation, location-sensitivity, contextual-awareness and management of interaction. Finally, IMAP87 boosts the creation of next generation user-centred, cost-effective and interoperable, 3G mobile interactive advertising tools.

PROMOTING EWORK AND EBUSINESS

Clustering, testbeds, and trials will help customise and validate promising, yet untested technologies, applications and organisational practices in realistic operational contexts. These activities will help prepare solutions for rapid transfer to the marketplace. Early adoption 78 Vision of an open platform for mobile, ubiquitous and seamless e-work and e-commerce based on a highly novel radio transmission principle – IST-2000-25197 – 3rd call KAII 79 Mobile Shopping of Electronically Referenced Grocery Products – IST-2000-26239 – 3rd call KAII 80 Young People Creating Active Services on Context-sensitive Terminals – IST-2000-25034 – 3rd call KAII 81 Ubiquitious Web Applications – IST-2000-25131 – 3rd call KAII 82 User-friendly e-Commerce to Optimise Parking Space – IST-2000-25392 – 3rd call KAII 83 Virtual, independent advisor for personal insurance and finance risk management – IST-2001-32440 – 6th call KAII 84 Wireless Trust for Mobile Business – IST-2001-32275 – 6th call KAII 85 MEEST – IST-2001-32276 – 6th call KAII 86 mobile in-EXhibition PRovision of Electronic Support Services – IST-2001-33432 – 6th call KAII 87 An Innovative Interactive Mobile Advertising Platform – IST-2001-33357 – 6th call KAII


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activities are also aimed at promoting integration of candidate Enlargement countries into the global digital economy. All projects are deploying best practice, or developing testbeds and performing trials. ACCOUNT-MASTER.COM88 will conduct a trial, for promoting early exploitation and adoption of novel knowledge management technologies, applications and practices between tax accountants/financial advisers and their business clients (mostly SMEs). AGENTCITIES.NET89 creates an open dynamic service environment based on Agent technology. BESTCOM90 creates a technical and administrative platform for companies – independently of trade and size, which enables them to define them to define their e-business strategy and choose best solution. BIDMED91 groups SMEs of the same sector, for helping them to prepare integrated offers and behave as a unique supplier. CEBOS92 provides cost-effective e-business solutions customised according to regional requirements for selected SMEs. CHERI93 helps memory institutions to better digitise and use their relevant heritage in digital formats, and publishing and media companies to effectively access and use these digital collections. E-PHARM UP94 aims at testing on field and fully demonstrate an e-Commerce solution for pharmaceutical sector in Eastern Countries. E-POWER95 establishes a network of pan European Regional Technology Centres (RTC) focuses on motivating SMEs to take up best practice ways of working. ENLARGE96 promotes broad adoption of eCommerce and eWork in regional and sectoral settings of Eastern Europe and Balkan countries. ETEMSOLUTION97 implements an ICT-tool consisting of a workflow, document, user and competence system, databases, search engines and intelligent agents for controlling the flood of information when investigating innovative technologies. HYPERKNOWLEDGE98 integrates an enterprise knowledge method with a hypermedia-based tool. MEDIA-ISF99 establishes a virtual business network with a multimedia based and interactive information service focusing on the EU enlargement process, the regional policies and the SMEs. SMART2TEAM100 is a trial that validates a prototype open platform to facilitate networking of technology transfer SMEs and enable e-commerce based interaction with clients.

88 Account-Master.Com – IST-2000-28771 – 4th call KAII 89 Agentcities NET – IST-2000-28384 – 4th call KAII 90 Implementation of e-business solutions in SMEs to obtain competitive advantage and strengthening regional and European Innovation – IST-2000-28535 – 4th call KAII 91 Co-operative Bidding in the Medical Sector – IST-2000-28618 – 4th call KAII 92 Cost Effective e-Business Operating Services for SMEs – IST-2000-29585 – 4th call KAII 93 Cultural HEritage RIch media secure value chain – IST-2000-28044 – 4th call KAII 94 Best Practice e-Marketplace in Romanian Pharmaceutical Sector – IST-2000-29419 – 4th call KAII 95 e-Power – Powering Europe’s Regional Economy – IST-2000-29343 – 4th call KAII 96 Entrepreneurship Laboratory for Eastern European Regions – IST-2000-29381 – 4th call KAII 97 Electronic Technology Management Solution – IST-2000-28315 – 4th call KAII 98 Hypermedia and Pattern Based Knowledge Management for Smart Organisations – IST-2000-28401 – 4th call KAII 99 Media-Information Sans Frontières – IST-2000-29651 – 4th call KAII 100 Knowledge Management for Smart Technology Transfer Extended Enterprises Advanced Experiment – IST-2000-29325 – 4th call KAII


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EWORK

The move from “teleworking” towards “e-working” represents a new phase for the European workforce. Better working environment, better working conditions, and a better reconciliation of work and personal life are the objectives. Research activities within KAII reflect these requirements. Projects present both highly innovative technology developments for networked co-operative working in virtual shared environments (TOWER101); sector-specific co-operative working system developments in hospitals (TEAM-HOS102 and VIDEOCOM103 will incorporate a novel tactile and icon-based User Interface with the smart card identification and authentication technology, for multimedia transfer in a commercially available videoconference platform in order to construct an innovative and easy to access PC-based video communication workplace for medical staff), Media (MULTIPRO104), Construction (DIVERCITY105), Design Consultancy (DYNOCA106); as well as more general system developments for mobile teamwork (LEAP); maintenance of complex equipment (STARMATE107); distributed manufacturing (MOTION), and SMEs (OSMOS108). E-NTRY109 is addressing an e-commerce system for public procurement, and INTERDEV-NRM110 is developing a co-operative web-based information system on natural resources management involving organisations working on international development cooperation. Several Take-up measures are related to this area: THINK111 is concerned with integration of the disabled into the knowledge economy; ATTRACT concerns new working practices in the insurance sector, and PROTELEUSES112 fosters the introduction of teleworking in SMEs in the services sector, while JEWEL113 stimulates new working practices in networks of small businesses in the jewellery sector. CAPRES114 transfers and deploys best working practices in postal services to “Accession countries”. SABERCO115 trials satellite-based information

101 Theatre of Work Enabling Relationships – IST-1999-10846 – 1st call KAII 102 Methodology and Tools for World-best Teamwork in Hospitals – IST-1999-11567 – 1st call KAII 103 Video Communication Workplace – IST-1999-20971 – 2nd call KAII 104 A Publishing and Management System for Cross-media Teamwork at Remote, Mobile and Heterogeneous Workplaces in Multimedia Broadcast Organisations – IST-1999-12032 – 1st call KAII 105 Distributed Virtual Workspaces for Enhancing Communications within the Construction Industry – IST-1999-13365 – 1st call KAII 106 A System to Realise Dynamic Networked Organisations on Heterogeneous Networks in the Consultancy / Agency Sector – IST-1999-11065 – 1st call KAII 107 SysTem Using Augmented Reality for Maintenance, Assembly, Training and Education – IST-1999-10202 – 1st call KAII 108 Open System for Inter-enterprise Information Management in Dynamic Virtual Environments – IST-1999-10491 – 1st call KAII 109 Electronic Tendering, Bidding and Negotiation Real-time System – IST-1999-10478 – 1st call KAII 110 Interdev Natural Resources Management – Linking European expertise with local wisdom – IST-1999-10918 – 1st call KAII 111 Towards Handicap Integration Negotiating Knowledge – IST-1999-21179 – 2nd call KAII 112 Best Practice Pilot for the Promotion and Implementation of Teleworking Tools at European SMEs of the Services Sector – IST-1999-20852 – 2nd call KAII 113 Trial of an innovative iCRM System for the distributed Sales Organisations in the Jewellery Industry – IST-1999-20506 – 2nd call KAII 114 Computer Aided Post for EasteRn States – IST-1999-20733 – 2nd call KAII 115 Satellite-Based Remote Multi-Project Reporting and Controlling in the Construction Industry – IST-1999-20488 – 2nd call KAII


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systems for the construction industry; IWOP makes eight trial implementations of mobile and teleworking in SMEs with different profiles, with subsequent replication into at least 2000 SMEs in the EU and Eastern Europe. In addition WISTCIS116 supports networked employment development in the Confederation of Independent States and the FLEXWORK project supports developments of eWork in Europe’s regions and in the Accession Countries. TEAMWORK117 provides a complete solution (integrating Technology, Methodology and Skills) for e-working teams operating in a distributed, multi-cultural environment. TELEMARA118 consolidates microcompanies working as satellite workshops for ready-to-wear SMEs as external elements of their production chain, by providing them with an easy-to-use telematic tool to manage and control their reciprocal relationship.

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE STANDARDS

The C-ECOM119 cluster project aims at starting standardisation at an early stage within an appropriate and selected group of RTD projects running within the scope of KAII. One of the major cluster objectives is to offer to selected projects a platform to measure and harmonise their technical developments against the work of formal and informal standards in electronic commerce. Within the harmonisation activity lies the goal of the cluster to achieve interoperability of electronic commerce applications. C-ECOM is concretely supporting the implementation of two trailblazers in the eEurope Action Plan, the Smart Card Charter and the GoDigital initiative, and in support of these, the project provides input via CEN/ISSS to the implementation of European Standards (EN) within the scope of strengthening the European Competitiveness in the area of Information Society. To achieve interoperability and component-based electronic commerce, efforts are needed to promote design principles that contain component toolkits for efficient development of electronic commerce systems and support some methodology of structure. Efforts to develop semantic models and data dictionaries have begun, but to provide easier implementation, some agreed-upon vocabulary of electronic commerce is needed in processing inventory information, order and shipping status, customer assets and so no. C-ECOM primary role is to ensure that the research efforts in the area of electronic commerce will have better market and industrial visibility by offering them the CEN/ISSS open environment as a platform for standardisation and harmonisation. For this purpose, the cluster C-ECOM, by implementing its methodology, creates a collaborative framework where RTD projects can meet the requirements of standards and even enforce them at an early stage of development. ADRENALIN, B4U-Jasmine120, CARUSO121, CAWICOMS122, COFURN123, COOPERATE, DISTRICT124,

116 New Methods of Working for Information Society Technologies Programme Promotion to Commonwealth of Independent States – IST-1999-14106 – 1st call KAII 117 Technology Exploitation and Adaptable Methodologies offering new organisational models and practices for e-Working Teams – IST-2000-28162 – 4th call KAII 118 Telematic Management for Ready-to-Wear Satellite Workshops – IST-2000-28404 – 4th call KAII 119 Cluster for Electronic Commerce – IST-1999-14108 – 1st call KAII 120 Java Smart Integrated Networked Enterprises – IST-1999-11256 – 1st call KAII 121 Customer CAre and Relationship Support Office – IST-1999-12192 1st call KAII 122 Customer-Adaptive Web Interface for the Configuration of Products and Services with Multiple Suppliers – IST-1999-10688 – 1st call KAII


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DIVERCITY, eBIP, eCONSTRUCT, ERMIS125, eTAILOR126, ET cluster127, LEAP, MEDIAT-SME128, PKI CHALLENGE, SABRINA, SEDRES 2, SMART EC129, TRADEX130, TRIANGLE, and WHALES make up some of the projects involved within the C-ECOM project. Some preliminary results have produced a number of natural groupings of projects suggested themselves, although the issues these groupings face are not of course identical or faced in the same way, and of course it does not mean that some projects not mentioned do not also face any particular issues:

• Architectures, frameworks and models (eTAILOR, LEAP, ADRENALIN);

• Meta-data and ontology issues (SMART EC, CAWICOMS, LEAP, eCONSTRUCT);

• Product data classification (COFURN, eBIP, eCONSTRUCT, eTAILOR, SEDRES 2);

• Web services and web technologies for SMEs (B4U, DISTRICT);

• Consumer protection and secure administration in support of eEurope (PKI CHALLENGE);

• Smart cards (eTAILOR, PKI CHALLENGE, TRIANGLE, TRADEX);

• Mobile agents and mobile protocols – very important for the communication protocol aspects

• Semantics (ADRENALIN, COOPERATE, LEAP, ERMIS)

• Inter/intra-company organisational aspects (WHALES, ADRENALIN and COOPERATE)

C-ECOM has prepared an analysis on interoperability and harmonisation in regards to the selected projects. This analysis has led to draw up a Standardisation Work Programme within the scope of CEN/ISSS and the created workshops. The work programme will implement tailor made actions aiming at creating in some cases standardisation projects and in other cases new CEN/ISSS projects.

123 CO-operation for consensus, standardisation and interoperability to support e-com services in the FURNiture sector – IST-2000-25183 – 1st call KAII 124 Developing and improving consumer supplier relationship in traditional commerce using information and communication technologies – IST-1999-11247 – 1st call KAII 125 Electronic commeRce Measurements through Intelligent agentS – IST-2000-21051 – 4th call KAII 126 Integration of 3D Body Measurement, Advanced CAD and E-Commerce Technologies in the European Fashion Industry – IST-1999-10549 – 1st call KAII 127 Developing Common Standards for the Integration of 3D Body Measurement, Advanced CAD and Personalised avatars in the European Fashion Industry – IST-2000-26084 – 4th call KAII 128 Methodology and Tools for World-best Introduction of Innovative Market Mediation System and Services in Traditional SMEs – IST-1999-11570 – 1st call KAII 129 Support for Mediation And bRokering for Electronic Commerce – IST-1999-10130 – 1st call KAII 130 Trial Action for Digital Object Exchange – IST-1999-21031 – 3rd call KAII


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TECHNOLOGIES FOR TRUST AND SECURITY

Trust and security technologies are key for the development of the information society. These technologies embrace a wide range of techniques like cryptography, authentication mechanisms and infrastructures (including electronic signatures), privacy enhancing technologies, tamper-proof hardware and components, and support the development of emerging business models. They empower users to effectively manage their personal rights, they help to prevent and fight abuses. The key challenge for such technologies is to make them scalable and interoperable to cope with the growing needs to secure communications and relations on open and public networks. Because of the mounting discussion on electronic signature policy, all authentication and identification technologies have received a lot of attention. Research at technical level on cryptography is well advanced in Europe. For example, the Belgian algorithm called “Rijndael” won the Advanced Encryption Standard competition organised by the US standardisation institute (NIST). Since 1999, Europe’s top cryptographic players work in NESSIE131 to address the medium to longer-term improvement of cryptographic primitives, in particular for novel mobile and multimedia applications. NESSIE has launched an enlarged competition on encryption algorithms fulfilling the requirements of new multimedia applications, mobile commerce and smart cards. ASPIS132 offers an innovative approach to protect the use of DVD ROMs executable and data files, including securing the Internet connection based on access control authentication mechanisms; DRIVE133 provides a safe and secure information infrastructure in an integrated clinical and logistical drug supply chain through the use of strong authentication and identification techniques. PKI CHALLENGE134 aims at creating a climate allowing a fully integrated PKI to be developed in Europe as a key building block for a world wide integrated system. This will remove a major barrier in the development of Electronic Commerce. Finally, @DAN135 implements a PC platform to develop digital signature and secure payment applications over UMTS handset. Four projects concentrate on Biometrics Identification and Authentication to enhance the security principally in network applications, e/m commerce and access control. They mainly focus on the improvement of the robustness, the user acceptance and the deployment of Biometrics. SABRINA136 develops an ultra-sonic sensor offering higher security level at low cost. BANCA137 improves the robustness of multi-modal verification algorithms for authentication and identification based on voice and face features for Internet applications. UFACE138 enhances an existing face verification algorithm in developing a sophisticated model of the facial variations in access control scenarios. It also

131 New European Schemes for Signature, Integrity, and Encryption – IST-1999-12324 – 1st call KAII 132 An Authentication and Protection Innovative Software System for DVDROM and Internet – IST-1999-12554 – 1st call KAII 133 Drug In Virtual Enterprise – IST-1999-12040 – 1st call KAII 134 Pki Challenge – IST-2000-15012 – 3rd call KAII 135 @DvANced and high secure mobile platform to support the digital economy – IST-2001-32634 – 6th call KAII 136 Secure Authentication by a Biometric Rationale and Integration into Network Applications – IST-2000-26273 – 3rd call KAII 137 Biometric Access Control for Networked and eCommerce Applications – IST-1999-11159 – 1st call KAII 138 User friendly access control systems for financial and healthcare applications – IST-1999-11587 – 1st call KAII


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addresses the user acceptance and ease of use problems in access control applications. BEE analyses the obstacles for the deployment of biometrics in eCommerce applications, proposes scenarios to favour its use for enhancing the security level in this context and studies the corresponding socio-economic impacts. A number of Trials of emerging technologies and systems are supported: SMART-USB139 adds to an existing security smart-card chip a Universal Serial Bus interface, and adapt it for eCommerce and health care applications; DIGISEC140 trials “traditional” and “Java” smart-card systems for digital signatures in administrative processes and eCommerce. In response to the 3rd call for proposals in 2000, projects address issues related to privacy, authentication, cryptography, agents and other security related technologies: E-PASTA141 specifies, develops and demonstrates a trust and security platform for extended “smart home” environments; PISA142 specifies, validates and promotes open and secure service provision, especially with respect to privacy, by mobile software agents; and USB-CRYPT143 develops and integrates a portable crypto-module with an USB interface as a secure single chip IC. Finally, CTOSE144 aims to develop and demonstrate a methodology and software to enable verifiable evidence of distributed electronic transactions to be captured, stored and preserved as proof in eventual disputes.

INFRASTRUCTURE FOR TRUST AND SECURITY

Once building blocks are properly developed, integrating them in robust infrastructures, and testing a smooth operation in long undertaking. These issues range from the scalability of the solutions, to the legal impact of the implementations. It also requires to carefully assess the interoperability of the security mechanisms, while continuing to guarantee a fair and adequate quality of service. AEQUITAS145 helps the judicial system in having greater secure and confidential procedures better established. E-VOTE146 designs, implements, and validates an Internet-based voting system supporting voters” registration, validation of their credentials, collection of the ballots and automatic calculation of the final tally, while TRUE-VOTE147 designs, implements, and tests a PKI-based secure service and demonstrates the use of digital signature technology and smart cards for voting operations. PAIDFAIR148 provides demonstration systems in the fields of secure electronic software distribution and pay-per-use, distribution of music content, e-payment and authentication with smart card, IP distribution through broadcast/multicast and satellite communication, biometrical authentication and

139 Smartcard with USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface – IST-1999-20323 – 2nd call KAII 140 Digital Signature Infrastructure for Administrative Simplification and eCommerce Development – IST-1999-20981 – 2nd call KAII 141 e-Protection of Appliances through Secure and Trusted Access – IST-2000-26086 – 3rd call KAII 142 Privacy Incorporated Software Agent: Building a privacy guardian for the electronic age – IST-2000-26038 – 3rd call KAII 143 Crypto module with USB interface – IST-2000-25169 – 3rd call KAII 144 Cyber Tools On-Line Search for Evidence – IST-2001-32624 – 6th call KAII 145 Trust frame for electronic documents exchange between European judicial operators – IST-2000-29569 – 4th call KAII 146 An Internet Based Electronic Voting System – IST-2000-29518 – 4th call KAII 147 A Secure and Trustable Internet Voting System Based on KPI – IST-2000-29424 – 4th call KAII 148 Protecting Accumulated Intellectual Data for Accounting In Real-time – IST-2000-29616 – 4th call KAII


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downloads for MHP set-top-box. NASTEC149 promotes European PKI technology in NAS countries and helps in the understanding of the issues related to data protection and m-privacy in e-communications. As an exploratory project, AREHCC150 researches and product development on applied public key cryptography, with a main focus on developing new algorithms to efficiently implement “Elliptic Curve Cryptography” and “Hyper-elliptic Curve Cryptography”. Finally, LA MER151 establishes a PKI based on smart card in a number of Enlargement countries.

SMART ORGANISATIONS

Smart organizations, i.e. knowledge driven, adaptive and learning as well as agile in their ability to create and exploit the opportunities of an Internet worked economy are key signposts of the shift from the industrial to the digital era. These organizations are virtual in concept, highly flexible, dynamic, and capable of leveraging the power of network technologies to meet customer demands for high added-value products and services in a global market. However, technology is only an enabler. The challenge is in using technology to its full potential. Projects that were selected in 1999 addressing “Dynamic networked organizations” concern the improvement of functional integration within and between organisations, both in volatile virtual arrangements and in more permanent cooperation agreements. The selected proposals comprised of highly innovative projects and others aiming at providing early benefits to SMEs, i.e. a sensible balance between innovation and usability. The next sections outline the different projects that have been undertaken in the area of smart organisations. EXTERNAL152 provides solutions to make collaboration effective and repeatable when there is dynamic and time-limited collaboration between business partners, ADRENALIN153 deals with the multi-party Supply Chain Management in networked enterprises, APM154 develops an automated performance management system for individual enterprises and business networks, CHAINFEED155 develops process modelling tools, BIDSAVER156 will help to search SMEs through web based information agents, dynamically organized according to best fit criteria, BUSINESS ARCHITECT157 helps in value creation through spontaneous reconfiguration of self-organised networks of independent business units co-operating on a temporary basis to exploit opportunities, ECAMP158 develops innovative and dynamically networked virtual environments called “corporation modelling platforms”, JASMINE159 designs and sets up a working prototype of a service centre – providing the 149 Building trust in networking in Newly Associated States through the use of secure information society technologies – IST-2000-29556 – 4th call KAII 150 Advanced Research on Elliptic and Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography – IST-2001-32613 – 6th call KAII 151 Public Key Infrastructure Based On Smart Cards In South Eastern Europe - IST-2001-33162 – 6th call CPA11 152 Extended Enterprise Resources, Network Architecture and Learning: IST-1999-10091 - 1st call KAII 153 Advanced Fractal Companies use Information Supply chains: IST-1999-10181 - 1st call KAII 154 Automated Performance Measurement: IST-1999-10279 - 1st call KAII 155 A dynamic networked virtual supply CHAIN for co-operative resource planning in FEED related production: IST-1999-10625 - 1st call KAII 156 Business Integrator Dynamic Support Agents for Virtual Enterprise: IST-1999-10768 - 1st call KAII 157 Business Architect: IST-1999-10878 - 1st call KAII 158 European eCommerce Associate Merchant Program: IST-1999-11153 - 1st call KAII 159 Java Smart Integrated Network Enterprises: IST-1999-11256 - 1st call KAII


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virtual community with a qualified set of services in a secure and customized way, SOL-EU-NET160 is working towards enhanced usage of data mining and decision support in industry, businesses and public services, ECOLNET161 proposed to validate a different business strategy that is suited to independent European SMEs which have traditionally focused on their national markets, DAMASCOS162, provides a lean supply network management system considering consumer demands and market mechanisms, E-COLLEG163 will use enabling technologies (e.g. Jini, CORBA, RMI) for collaborative engineering based on advanced infrastructures, DYCONET164 implements an inter-organizational dynamic network for maritime supply chains, CO-OPERATE165 concentrates on coordination of manufacturing planning and control activities, WHALES166 will provide a planning and management infrastructure for complex distributed organizations working as networks on large scale engineering projects, STARFISH167 examines alternative ways to combat the isolation to remote areas in the financial sector, and GLOBEMEN168 specifies and demonstrates generic ICT architecture to support distributed product lifecycle management, project and manufacturing management in global multicultural environment. PABADIS169 enables an innovative plug-and-participate-environment with scalable and context driven adaptability and flexibility from the ERP-System to the single machine control in single piece production plants. SEDRES-2170 will extend, validate and standardize the systems engineering data model and nurture its practical implementation and multi-sector exploitation. CE-NET171 supports infrastructure for sharing and exchanging the latest developments in Concurrent Engineering and Virtual Enterprising. In 2000, the emphasis was on promoting early exploitation, through trials and test beds, and broad adoption, through regional and sectoral pilots supporting business. For example, LEVER validates knowledge management, solutions, CREATIV172 is developing a prototype internet search engine that allows access and retrieval of product components in the textile and clothing sector and NETSTOCK173 demonstrates through trials the benefits of a virtual stock control and service level optimisation for several connected manufacturing and distributing SMEs. GENESIS174 trials the Value-System Designer approach to innovation; OCTANE175 trials an Open Contracting 160 Data Mining and decision support for business competitiveness: Solomon European Virtual Enterprise: IST-1999-11495 - 1st call KAII 161 European Collaboration Network: IST-1999-11061 - 1st call KAII 162 Dynamic Forecast for Master Production Planning with stock and capacity constraints: IST-1999-11850 - 1st call KAII 163 Advanced Infrastructure for Pan-European Collaborative Engineering: IST-1999-11746 - 1st call KAII 164 DYnamic Inter-Organizational CO-operative NETwork for the Maritime Industry: IST-1999-11780 - 1st call KAII 165 Co-operation in Dynamic Networked Organisations: IST-1999-12259 - 1st call KAII 166 Web-Linking Heterogeneous Application for Large Scale Engineering and Services: IST-1999-12538 - 1st call KAII 167 STate of the ARt FInancial Services for the inHabitants of isolated areas: IST-1999-13059 - 1st call KAII 168 Global Engineering and Manufacturing in Enterprise Networks: IST-1999-60002 - 1st call IMS 169 Plant automation based on distributed systems: IST-1999-60016 - 1st call IMS 170 Systems Engineering Data Representation and Exchange Standardization-2: IST-1999-11953 - 2nd call KAII 171 Concurrent Enterprising Network of Excellence: IST-1999-29107 - 2nd call KAII 172 Commercial Retrieval for Fabrics and Design Patterns in Virtual Structures: IST-1999-20534 - 2nd call KAII 173 NETworked systems approach for STOCK and service level optimisation: IST-1999-20773 - 2nd call KAII 174 Global Enterprise Network Support for the Innovation Process: IST-1999-20521 - 2nd call KAII 175 Open Contracting TransActions in the New Economy: IST-1999-20553 - 2nd call KAII


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Service to help SMEs establish electronic contracts; and the SMART SME176 establishes new smart forms of strategic cooperation among SMEs, INFRANET177 improves cross-organizational business practices for six SMEs in dynamic networked organizations, EDIBOLD-SCS178 demonstrates best practice for SMEs to build or join “dedicated business networks”, PROVE-SME179 helps SMEs clusters and co-operate, thus constituting Virtual Enterprises, and NET-PRINT EUROPE180 demonstrates best practice in analysing, planning, matching requirements for-and implementing the necessary tools to be a member of the resulting “Virtual Corporation”. E-UTILITIES181 develops utilities to provide European consumers with better services, in a flexible manner. AESOP182 aims at developing a more coherent architectural approach to change management and to the configuration of services and systems to support and facilitate the transformation of public agencies into Smart Organisations. B-MAN183 investigates the application of mobile computation models of business processes to the configuration, management and execution of distributed workflow systems for inter-enterprise B-to-B e-business. THINKCREATIVE184 aims at establishing a working group to act as a European advisory group in the area of smart and emerging organizations in the framework of the knowledge and skills economy. DISRUPT-IT185, VOSTER186 will collect, analyse and synthesize results from a number of leading European research projects on Virtual Organisations and suggest ways to implement them. OBELIX187 develops smarter forms of collaborative e-business by realizing a higher level of machine-understandable semantics in e-business data and processing systems on the Web. PLEXUS188 assesses the intellectual assets, which are inherently given in networking organizations. MARKET MAKER189 will develop and demonstrate a highly sophisticated e-Sourcing platform. A number of best practice projects: ACTIVE190 aims at increasing SMEs awareness of the new potential associated to the use of ICT tools and methods, and to promote the users readiness to enter Virtual Organisations to 1000 organisations. CINTRANET191 aims at providing a practical software system with embedded methodology to support company-wide application, coordination, monitoring and measurement improvement activities in SMEs.

176 Smart Forms of Collaboration among Inter-Networked Manufacturing SMEs: IST-1999-20744 - 2nd call KAII 177 Dynamic Networked Infranet-Partners: IST-1999-20836 - 2nd call KAII 178 Electronic Data Interchange for Batch Operation Logistics and Design – Supply Chain System: IST-1999-20801 - 2nd call KAII 179 Promoting Virtual Enterprises out of SMEs: IST-1999-20276 - 2nd call KAII 180 NET-PRINT EUROPE: IST-1999-20851 - 2nd call KAII 181 Transforming Utilities into Customer-Centric Multi-Utilities: IST-2000-25416 - 3rd call KAII 182 Architectural Environments for Smart Organisation Portals – AESOP: IST-2001-33314 - 6th call KAII 183 Business Mobile Agents Network: IST-2001-32285 - 6th call KAII 184 Thinking networks of experts on emerging smart organizations: IST-2000-29478 - 4th call KAII 185 Management Of Disruptive Innovation in Smart Organisations: IST-2001-33372 - 6th call KAII 186 Virtual Organisations cluSTER: IST-2001-32031 - 6th call KAII 187 Ontology Based Electronic Integration of Complex Products and Value Chains: IST-2001-33144 - 6th call KAII 188 Decision Support Tools and Methods for Management and Measurement of Intellectual Assets across Co-operative Networks: IST-2001-32292 - 6th call KAII 189 Market Maker: IST-2001-33376 - 6th call KAII 190 Accelerating Cross-Fertilization and Transfer of VIVE approach: IST-2000-26002 - 2nd call KAII 191 Design and implementation of a multimedia-and telecommunications-based network for distributed services: IST-1999-55011 - CRAFT-1999-70123 - 1st call CRAFT


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ISTforCE192 will develop a novel, user-centred services platform for concurrent engineering in building construction. In support of these projects, ALIVE193 deals with the resolution of the legal issues associated with Virtual Enterprises. SOSS194 will develop an Internet based ICT platform to support dispersed organizations in the supply of small services; E-ARBITRATION-T195 will develop and validate a system for out-of-court dispute settlement; LENSIS196 is aiming at developing a novel open and interoperable platform for transforming non-profit organizations inside Europe, into “smart organization”. LINK3D197 will develop and test an interactive collaboration environment for professionals involved in Molecular Discovery, using visualization and modification of 3D objects; SMARTISAN198 aims to develop an XML based services to the food wholesale and retail sector. VIVA199, will develop an on-line Internet service to support “new venture” SME operations, community development services and consulting services; PATTERNS200 will provide a dynamically adaptive architecture that will allow organizations to increase their knowledge capacity, capitalize on that knowledge into business processes and manage the distributed knowledge embedded in Management Practices. SCOOP201 is managing co-operation in dynamic SME networks using an innovative and advanced solution based on co-operative planning and control. ENTER202 will allow – through its Internet platform – remote electronic search for potential partners in a virtual enterprise and assistance in the development of a preliminary workplan; SMART203 will develop a system for management and support of strategic alliances to increase SME chances of success and of sustainable growth. DISTRIBUTED SERVICES204 will facilitate the change from pure trading companies to trading and service companies. In support, KITS205 will analyse the current use of e-Commerce by SMEs in value-chain relationships with suppliers and customers, and bring them into a Community-of-interest spanning four geographic regions. The accompanying measure UCANET206 will analyse the existing situation and trends both with reference to technological and organizational aspects. Important indications are expected from the comparison between research outcomes and market offer.

192 Intelligent Services and Tools for Concurrent Engineering: IST-1999-11508 - 1st call KAII 193 Working Group on Advanced Legal Issues in Virtual Enterprise: IST-2000-25459 - 3rd call KAII 194 Smart Organisation for Small Services: IST-2000-25125 - 3rd call KAII 195 Electronic Arbitration Tribunal: an Alternative Dispute Resolution for SMEs: IST-2000-25464 - 3rd call KAII 196 Leveraging non-profit sector towards the Information Society: IST-2000-26039 - 3rd call KAII 197 Linking Organisations Through a Secure Environment for Distributed Drug Discovery: IST-2000-26338 - 3rd call KAII 198 SMART ARTISANS: IST-2000-26267 - 3rd call KAII 199 Virtual Valley for rapid growth SMEs: IST-2002-25112 - 3rd call KAII 200 Patterns to adopt knowledge based solutions to software development problems: IST-2000-25120 - 3rd call KAII 201 Sophisticated Co-operation in Dynamic SME Networks Based on Co-operative Planning and Control: IST-2000-25200 - 3rd call KAII 202 Virtual Enterprise Builder: IST-2000-26052 - 3rd call KAII 203 System for the development, management and support of strategic alliances: IST-2000-25181 - 3rd call KAII 204 Design and implementation of a multimedia- and telecommunication-based network for distributed services: IST-1999-55001 - CRAFT-1999-70123 - 1st call CRAFT 205 Knowledge and Information Transfer System: IST-1999-11385 - 1st call KAII 206 Understand the Consequences of the Adoption of tools and systems to support dynamic networked and virtual organizations: IST-1999-14095 - 1st call KAII


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VIRTUAL ORGANISATIONS

Work on virtual organisations has started a long time ago. The ACTS programme had many cooperating and teleworking pilots, and the ESPRIT programme focused on concurrent engineering and networked multi-site applications. The current cluster aims at having a high impact on the European industry by bringing experts together for them to identify commonalities within European research, and thus having projects to share their knowledge in past and current achievements. So far the cluster has organised two such meetings (20th October 2000 and 1st December 2000). The project GLOBEMEN initiated a cluster proposal VOSTER and involved all interested partners in it. Among projects participating in the cluster include: eLEGAL; OSMOS; KM FORUM; BUSINESS ARCHITECT; PRODCHAIN207; ISTforCE; EXTERNAL; E-COLLEG and VISIT208.

BUILDING, CONSTRUCTION AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

Construction activity is a key economic sector and the efficient use of buildings is crucial to sustainable growth. Since 1980, new building and construction activities have more than doubled. Heating and lighting of buildings now accounts for 50% of the industrialized world’s energy consumption: Twice as much as transport and agricultural Industries. In Europe, nearly half of all CO2 emissions result from energy used in buildings. Construction takes up to 40% of the total flow of raw materials into the global economy every year – some 3 billion tones. This growth in construction is almost entirely associated with the growth in employment in services and with changes in business activities and lifestyles, notably the growth of commuting and one-person households. The result is that business and work organisation in the “immaterial” service sector now imposes a greater burden of material use on the environment than the manufacturing industry. Most is associated with material use in the workplace: inefficient use of workplaces, and inefficient organisation of work and business. In the Netherlands in the 1990s, offices were only actively used by their occupants for less than half of the working week, less than 10% of the total time. New “e-work” models, flexible in time and place, with greater use of shared workspaces, can reverse these trends, but only when wide adoption is accompanied by structural change in work organisation by most companies. A group of EU projects focuses on this sector. Both to improve efficiencies in construction activities themselves, and to ensure more efficient use of the built environment. The ISTforCE, OSMOS, E-NTRY and DIVERCITY projects focus on the teamwork aspects, and the E-CONSTRUCT209 and E.BIP210 projects address the e-commerce aspects of construction activities. SABARECO211 trials satellite-based information systems for the

207 Decision-support Methodology to Improve Logistics Performance in Production Networks: IST-2000-61205 - 1st call IMS 208 Virtual integration and simulation-based PPC in the textile clothing industry – ESPRIT 4 – 29817 209 Electronic Communication in the Building and Construction Industry: Preparing for the New Internet: IST-1999-10303 - 1st call KAII 210 Efficient Bidding and Procurement in the Tile Industry. Practical Trading Tools and Broker Services for the Exchange of Product Characteristics: IST-1999-10710 - 1st call KAII 211 Satellite-Based Remote Multi-Project Reporting and Controlling in the Construction Industry IST-1999-20488 - 2nd call KAII


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construction industry. This group of projects brings together the development of collaborative platforms with Internet technologies, knowledge technologies and virtual product technologies. In addition, the SANE212 project is directly concerned with the sustainable use of office space and the physical infrastructures for work in the knowledge economy. ICCI213 has built a cluster for co-operation between IST projects related to IT in construction, with the general objectives being to improve co-ordination of research and development s, to promote the results of the member projects, and to enhance the transfer to industry. In addition to those projects mentioned above, other projects collaborating in the clustering activities with ICCI include: eLEGAL, which is defining a legal framework for the use of ICT in project work, particularly in the construction industry; and GLOBEMEN, addressing virtual enterprises operations in a world-wide industrial context. PRODAEC214 has created a Thematic Network in the European AEC sector to promote the use and implementation of standards for product data exchange, e-work, and e-business.

INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING;

The IST programme, from within the KAII, and the third theme of the 5th FP on “Competitive and Sustainable Growth” jointly support the International framework for Co-operation in RTD on “Intelligent Manufacturing Systems” (IMS). A Joint call for proposals was published in mid 1999, and attracted 9 proposals in 1999 and a further 16 in 2000 of which 11 overall were selected for funding: 5 from the IST programme and 6 from the GROWTH programme. (New Methods of work and Electronic Commerce, 2001) These IMS projects are also a key part of the emerging cluster of projects that focus on the manufacturing industry. A summary of the projects is described below. Perhaps the most important IMS project is the GLOBEMEN project. This project is addressing the virtual enterprise issues on a global scale and specifies and demonstrates generic ICT infrastructure to support distributed product lifecycle management, project and manufacturing management with international as well as EU partners involved. The PSIM215 project develops a “participative simulation environment for Intelligent Manufacturing” as a software environment for assembly operations. Other IMS projects include GEM-EUROPE216 that, in cooperation with the manufacturing industry, define the needs for education and training of engineers to meet new challenges in ways of operation, e-work, digital business, e-commerce, extended products etc. PRODCHAIN is a decision support technique and methodology to analyse and improve the performance of globally acting production and logistics networks; REMUNE217 develops the tools, methods, and runtime environment enabling the manufacturing of telecommunications products with

212 Sustainable Accommodation for the New Economy: IST-2000-25257 - 3rd call KAII 213 Innovation co-ordination, transfer and deployment through networked Co-operation in the Construction Industry: IST-2001-33022 - 5th call KAII 214 European Network for the Promotion of Standards and eBusiness in the AEC Sector: IST-2000-32035 - 5th call KAII 215 Participative Simulation environment for Integral Manufacturing enterprise renewal: IMT-1999-60004 - 1st call IMS 216 Global Education in Manufacturing – Europe: IST-1999-32059 - 6th call IMS 217 Advanced REal-time MUltimedia and Networking Execution Platform and Development Environment: IST-2001-65002 - 1st call IMS


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added intelligence, modular design, improved overall quality and inherent possibility for value-added services through their entire lifecycle. SYMPHONY218 enables SMEs to efficiently respond to emerging business opportunities, adapt to environments and to strengthen their innovative potential by an integrated set of management support methods and tools. IMS-NoE219 is a Network of Excellence that aims at providing a well coordinated and effective support infrastructures throughout Europe and beyond.

218 A dynamic management methodology with modular and integrated methods and tools for knowledge-based, adaptive SMEs: IST-2000-61206 - 1st call IMS 219 Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Network of Excellence: IST-2001-65001 - 1st call IMS

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