The Fraunhofer-Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (Fraunhofer-IPK), Berlin, Germany, is a research institute and is a part of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG) for the promotion of applied research. The FhG presently consists of about 50 institutes throughout Germany and is a non-profit organisation. The Fraunhofer IPK (about 110 scientist staff members) is located in Berlin and works in the fields of Automation and Robotics, Corporate Management, Product Manufacturing, Security and Testing Systems, and Virtual Product Development.

The institute is mainly concerned with increasing the productivity of industrial processes. This implies a wide range of activities from improving certain functions of machines up to designing complex production systems and planning whole factories. Moreover the IPK carries out intensive work in the areas of reorganisation of factory structures, business process optimisation, personnel training, and quality management. Also, the IPK has been increasingly successful in transferring know-how from production technology to the fields of traffic, safety and environmental technology. A special concern of the IPK is providing small and medium-sized companies with innovative technologies.

The "Fraunhofer Gesellschaft" (FhG) is the leading applied research organisation in Europe with 56 institutes working in different fields of science and engineering. Contractual research constitutes a share of more than 80%. FhG is a non-profit institution with approximately 12,000 employees.

The "Fraunhofer Institute for Indus-trial Engineering" (FhG-IAO) is working in the field of technology management and industrial engineering, in particular with computer-integrated business systems, manufacturing systems, organisational and software engineering as well as technology transfer. The mission of FhG-IAO is to achieve a rapid and effective transfer of research results into industrial practice and products. FhG-IAO is staffed with more than 260 scientific and technical employees. The scientific background of the staff encompasses among others computer science, industrial management and engineering, mathematics and statistics, psychology and sociology.

The Competence Centre for Human Computer Interaction (formerly Software Technologies) together with its market focus team Web Application Engineering is an interdisciplinary research group of computer scientists, engineers, psychologists, and media designers with a strong background in advanced systems development methods and tools, and human-computer interaction. The main areas of work comprise:

• Collaboration and knowledge management support systems
• Object-oriented technologies and distributed system architectures
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Human factors of software systems

The group is designing and developing systems and applications in a variety of areas such as business applications, corporate memories, creativity support systems, and web services. The team has gained extensive experiences pertaining to research in the area of plant portals for semi-conductor industries.

The competence centre is currently being subcontracted by 7 companies in the OEE-Overall Equipment Effectiveness project funded by the German Ministry of Research and Education. Fraunhofer IAO has been participating in European Research Programmes since 1983. The Institute has been an official European Usability Support Centre in the Commission’s Telematics Programme with the mission of improving the usability and acceptability of advanced information & communication technology.

The Production Systems Engineering Research Centre (CESP) is the main research centre in the Production Engineering and Systems Department of the Engineering School of Minho University. This research centre has actually 24 affiliated members consisting of 14 doctors and 10 PhD students. Apart from those affiliated members the centre also includes other 15 external researches, PhD and MSc students. The CESP human resources that we are directly assigning to I*PROMS are five researchers with PhD degrees as well as four PhD students. However, other members of CESP will participate in I*PROMS activities and contribute with the related research.

The CESP research centre is organised through four research groups, that cover four main scientific research areas: Industrial Management and Systems, Human Engineering, Economics Engineering, and Numeric Computation. The labs that are related to those scientific research areas are: LASAP (Automatic Production Systems Lab), Ergonomics Lab, CAD/CAPP/CAM Systems Lab, and Economics Engineering Lab. There are two new labs in the process of creation: LABVE (Lab for Virtual Enterprises and LABESP (Lab for Production Systems Engineering).

TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, abbreviated name: TNO)is a knowledge organisation for companies, government bodies and public organisations. The daily work of some 5,000 employees is to develop and apply knowledge. We provide contract research and specialist consultancy as well as grant licences for patents and specialist software. We test and certify products and services, and issue an independent evaluation of quality. And we set up new companies to market innovations. The development and application of innovative knowledge is our business.We are active in five core areas: TNO Quality of Life, TNO Defence, Security and Safety, TNO Science and Industry, TNO Built Environment and Geosciences, TNO Information and Communication Technology.

Sakarya University is located in at the heart of the one of the biggest industrial estate. The history of the university has begun as School of Engineering and Architecture since 1970 and in 1971 it continued his education as being Academy of Engineering and Architecture. Between 1982 and 1992 the academy was affiliated to Istanbul Technical University. In 1992 it was separated from Istanbul Technical University and performing education as well as training and industrial cooperation since then. There is a close relationship between the industrial estates and the university especially in the area of manufacturing planning, enterprise modelling, automation, supply chain management and technology management.
The university also performs project funded by state planning organization. The projects are carried out in two fold:

Project for developing the vision for the future manufacturing systems. The project currently running about virtual laboratories under the contract of State Planning Organization (SPO) is one of them. The university also provides input to the SPO and TUBITAK (Turkish Science and Technology Research Council) towards defining strategies in future scientific activities.

Improving working conditions and technology involvement in the industries. The manufacturing technology evaluation project carried out by the industrial engineering department can be considered in this category. Supply chain management and enterprise resource planning projects are also this type of studies.

The university has an engineering faculty which has 7 different departments. Mechanical Engineering, Electric Electronic Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Civil Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering departments are actively involved in industrial projects. Except Civil Engineering Department, the departments are related to innovations in the manufacturing and can be considered relevant to I*PROMS. The following activities of the university can directly linked to I*PROMS.

Fully automated manufacturing information systems (currently some Ph.D studies are going on in this field)

Enterprise resource modelling (currently some projects and Ph.D studies are going on in this field)

Integrated manufacturing environments (currently some projects and Ph.D studies are going on in this field)

Manufacturing knowledge management (currently some Ph.D studies are going on in this field)

The university also established a continuous training centre where the people from the industry are trained. Here, current technology and manufacturing knowledge are conveyed to the trainee.

The university currently established some research laboratories together with the big industrial organizations such as SIEMENS and ABB. There are also some computer aided design (CAD) laboratories equipped by the industrial organizations and the department of commerce and trade of Sakarya region.

Some selection of other laboratories:

CAD/CAM Lab

Heat Treat Lab

Plasma Spray Lab

Ceramic Lab

Inspection of the Mechanics of Materials Lab

Casting Lab

Siemens PLS Industrial Otomation Lab

iCIM Flexible Manufacturing Lab

Some Selection of Research Projects

I*PROMS EU FP6 NoE

IWARD EU FP6 STREP

Virtual Manufacturing School (to be proposed for FP7)

VirLab: Virtual Laboratory for metallurgical engineering application (proposed under evaluation in Leonardo Da Vinci Programme)

Industrial Life in Information Society and Industrial Life of 2020 (Industrial Vision 2020)

Web Based National Coordination System for Organ Transplantation

Nano Sized Cristal Structured Colloid Synthesis and Using Them in Producing Optical Sensors

EUROFIGHTER: Warplane simulator supported by NATO

TrainSim: Locomotive and train simulator

TankSim: Tank simulator

DriverSim: Driver Simulator

SAGUAR: Car running with solar energy

SAGUTEK: Boat running with solar energy

SAHİMO: Car running with hydrogen energy (proposed)

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

The Department of Industrial Engineering was founded as a department of Academy of Engineering and Architecture and it was called Management System Engineering. In 1982 it became a department of Istanbul Technical University Sakarya Engineering Faculty. When the Sakarya University was separated from Istanbul Technical University in 1992 the department affiliated to Sakarya University. It is performing education as well as training and industrial cooperation with 35 academic staff, 53 graduate students and 594 undergraduate students. Some of the projects that the department is leading are TrainSim: Locomotive and train simulator, TankSim: Tank simulator, DriverSim: Driver Simulator, VirLab: Virtual Laboratory for metallurgical engineering application (under evaluation in Leonardo Da Vinci Programme), Virtual Manufacturing School (to be proposed for FP7), Industrial Life in Information Society and Industrial Life of 2020 (Industrial Vision 2020), Web Based National Coordination System for Organ Transplantation and Sakarya Techno-park Feasibility Analysis Project. Some other projects that the department contributes are I*PROMS EU FP6 NoE, IWARD EU FP6 STREP, and EUROFIGHTER: Warplane simulator supported by NATO. iCIM Flexible Manufacturing Lab is one of the department’s laboratory that is used for training and research purposes. iCIM is a FMS laboratory which is established with an assembly robot, a material handling system and an AS / RS system. Industrial Engineering Department has also organized IMS-International Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Symposium series in 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2006. Last year the symposium was organized with an I*PROMS special session. Some of the interest areas of the department include Intelligent Systems, Information Technologies, Knowledge Based Management, ERP, Supply Chain Management, TQM and Strategic Planning, OR and Optimization.