The Robotics Group, of the Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics Department, University of Patras, exhibits a wide range of expertise in the development of innovative open-architecture robots, intelligent robot-systems control based on Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic and Genetic Algorithms, as well as automatic generation of assembly strategies and intelligent control for manufacturing processes. Furthermore, knowledge-based methods for handling of non-rigid materials have been developed; and now the Robotics Group through a national project aims to the development of an intelligent system for robot handling of fabrics in separation, seam operation and quality control. This expertise can contribute to the next generation of flexible assembly automation and agile, clean and re-configurable manufacturing systems.

The Robotics Group has a considerable research experience in the theoretical foundation of mechanical and systematic mechatronic design and has developed design indices for the monitoring of the mechatronic approach during the design process. A CAD system for shoe design has been developed and efforts to incorporate qualitative knowledge into CAD systems as well as intelligence into Robot simulators are attempted. These research efforts are aimed to the next generation of intelligent CAD systems for designing devices - machines and intelligent robot simulators for performing knowledge-based design and optimisation for the virtual factory of the future.

The Dept. of Materials & Production Engineering (DIMP) of the Science and Technology Pole (STP) of the University of Naples Federico II specialises in innovative materials, advanced manufacturing and related information technologies. It supports a broad spectrum of basic, strategic and applied research, developing links with both large and small companies. DIMP has a very large number of industrial partners and collaborative projects with more than 15 countries in Europe. As a result, DIMP is now one of the largest and most successful Departments in any Italian university. DIMP has a research budget of about 6 MEuro. Within it, the Laboratory for Advanced Production Technology (LAPT), coordinated by Prof. R. Teti, is actively involved in multimedia, knowledge-based systems, HTML publishing, virtual reality research, product modelling information re-use, intelligent sensors development and application, image processing, non-destructive evaluation, reverse engineering, intelligent computation for manufacturing engineering, etc. DIMP has a strong team, comprising over 100 people, including post-doctoral/doctoral researchers and experienced design and manufacturing engineers complemented by marketing and administrative staff. At DIMP, faculty staff have been working for a long time in a number of areas vital to manufacturing and materials 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).

Fatronik is a private technology centre, providing research and development services to the industry. Since 1989, Fatronik is improving existing products and devising new solutions for its customers, most of them SMEs. During the last 14 years, Fatronik has been improving existing products and devising new solutions for its shareholders (all SMEs) as well as creating new designs with innovative final results that complies with market demand. The scope of Fatronik main activities is the development of advanced mechatronic solutions addressing different industrial sectors including Capital Goods and Assitive Technology.

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.