ProSTEP iViP Challenge 2005

This year, in order to strengthen the community of users, IT-vendors and service providers as well as research institutes, the ProSTEP iViP Association for the first time called the ideas competition “ProSTEP iViP Challenge”. The objective is to support research partners, within the scope of the Association's work program, in placing innovative project ideas in an industrial environment.

Overall seven institutes from Germany, Austria and Great Britain met the challenge and submitted ten project sketches of industrial relevance. The presented challenges and related solution approaches deal with topics like, Requirements Management, Logistics, Security, STEP, OMG PLM Services and Digital Manufacturing.

At maximum three project sketches are promoted within the scope of the ProSTEP iViP Challenge. After careful deliberation, the Association's Technical Steering Committee (TSC) has chosen the following proposals:

	Securing Product Data along the Engineering Supply Chain Submitted by: Center for Computer Graphics e.V. (ZGDV), Rostock It is undisputable that securing product and process data as well as the associated know-how is of huge interest for every company. Anyway, respective solutions are often contradictory to the demands for collaboration. Within the drafted project it is intended to elaborate flexible security concepts, that will allow to secure information along distributed product development processes.
	PLM Services for Mechatronics Considering Federative Sources in the Automotive Industry Submitted by: Department for Computer Integrated Design (DiK), TU Darmstadt The objective is to enhance the systematic development of mechatronic products based on the PLM Services. Thereby, the drafted project focuses on supporting requirements management as well as cross-domain product description and analysis.
	Open Digital Manufacturing - Closing the Gap between Digital Manufacturing and PDM Systems Submitted by: Chair of Production Systems and Industrial Engineering, University of Dortmund Demands for an integrated production process planning are steadily increasing. Within the drafted project concepts shall be developed that will allow to close the information-technological gaps between engineering and manufacturing. By doing so, uniform mechanisms, that will enable the users to access all relevant product and process data, could be provided to the process planning.

Each of the three winning institutes will receive 5.000 Euro of sponsorship as well as administrative support for the realization of their idea. This comprises in detail

	the organization of a workshop in order to substantiate the project idea and to set up a consortium,
	the development of a complete project plan, and
	the submission of a respective project proposal to the Association's Technical Steering Committee (TSC).

We congratulate the winners of the first ProSTEP iViP Challenge and do cordially thank all research institutes who participated in the ideas competition. We are eager to see how the project ideas will blend in the technical work program of the Association and good speed those realizing the ideas. We are looking forward to a fruitful collaboration. We will inform you on all activities regarding the new projects on our web site and within the ProSTEP iViP newsletter.