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).

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.

The University of Warwick is one of the nation’s top research universities, distinguished by its commitment to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology. The Warwick Manufacturing Group, within the School of Engineering is one of the largest academically based groups in Europe. The Faculty of WMG is exceptionally "research-active" and encompassed a wide-ranging theme of activities from plastics to ebusiness. A key feature of research at WMG is its close connection to the needs of business. Many of the projects involve partners from industry. At the same time, the Faculty is prolific in its contribution to the scholarly and pedagogical literature of our various fields including the publication of books and monographs many of which have been routinely adopted by faculty in other academic programs throughout the country and around the world. A substantial amount of research in the School is conducted within the confines of various "research centres".

INRIA (National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) is a French public-sector scientific and technological institute operating under the dual authority of the Ministry of Research and the Ministry of Industry. INRIA missions are "to undertake basic and applied research, to design experimental systems, to ensure technology and knowledge transfer, to organise international scientific exchanges, to carry out scientific assessments, and to contribute to standardisation".

The research carried out at INRIA brings together experts from the fields of computer science and applied mathematics covering the following areas: Networks and Systems; Software Engineering and Symbolic Computing; Man-Machine Interaction; Image Processing, Data Management, Knowledge Systems; Simulation and Optimisation of Complex Systems.

INRIA gathers in its premises around 2 100 persons including 1 600 scientists, many of which belong to partner organisations (CNRS, industrial labs, universities) and are assigned to work in common "projects". On INRIA budget, around 500 full-time equivalent R&D positions can be accounted for. A large number of INRIA senior researchers are involved in teaching and their PhD students (about 550) prepare their thesis within the different INRIA research projects (currently 74).