http://www.cater-ist.org/ News from cater-ist.org 2009/15/04 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20091504 The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, is pleased to announce the availability of the minutes of the Workshop on Mass Customization of Vehicle, held in Kuala Lumpur on March 25-28, 2009. The minutes can be downloaded from this website. The Workshop aimed to share with automotive professionals and researchers the results and innovations of the project, including the Citarasa Engineering Approach (emotional intent design concepts), the Web Based 3D Do-it-Yourself-Design system and VR Interfaces for the customers & product planners. Well known speakers from the automotive industry discussed state-of-the-art developments in mass customization and affective design of vehicles. Several thematic sessions, involving experts from the CATER community, discussed the benefits of the CATER products for the stakeholders, namely the vehicle designers & planners, the marketing & sales personnel, the OEMs, etc. For more on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 2009/08/04 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20090804 The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, is pleased to announce that its plans for pilot testings have been released and can be downloaded from this website. The deliverable describing the pilot plans (D81) outlines the actual planning and execution of the CATER Pilots and is prepared in the context of WP8: “Verification Pilots” and specifically A8.1: “Pilot plans”. Pilots are experiments with end-users, which aim to contribute to the evaluation of the CATER system and are seen as an integral part of the final implementation of the CATER system. Thus, it is important that Pilots are organised to cover all needs across e.g. all CATER subsystems or units, different groups of users, different environments, etc. However, before that, a technical validation of the modules to be evaluated needs to be performed to assure in the highest possible degree the sufficient performance of the systems. In order to improve as much as possible the evaluation and achieve to have the most valuable possible results, two evaluation phases have been scheduled, the first of which will be conducted in order to lead to optimisation of the modules, which will be later finally evaluated in the second phase. The aim of this Deliverable is thus to organise the Pilots in an optimal way with respect to the overall project objectives. In this document, the overall evaluation plan to be followed across all test sites is defined, on the basis of a common approach. The evaluation objectives and scenarios, the indicators/metrics mapped to them, and finally the methods/techniques and tools to be adopted in its context are described within this document. The evaluation plans Deliverable should be considered as a living document, since some minor changes may occur until the actual realisation of the evaluation. Evaluation is scheduled to cover both technical validation and human factors assessment. Based on the findings and the all types of data collected during the trials, a preliminary impact assessment will be also performed. In addition, during the trials, data will be gathered to feed the socio-economic analysis which is to take place in A9.3: “Cost-benefit analysis and cost- effectiveness analysis”. For more on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 2009/03/03 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20090303 The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, is pleased to announce that its web-based demonstrations are now available on the CATER website. Since the project launch in September 2006, CATER has been focusing on developing new tools for mass customization of vehicles, targeting the vehicle manufacturers, the marketing and sales people, as well as the end users: a Citarasa Engineering system (emotional intent design concepts), a Web Based 3D Do-it-Yourself-Design system and VR Interfaces for both the customers and product planners and the MArK system. Web-based demonstrations for each of those developments are now available on the CATER website, under the Demos heading. Visitors are invited to try the demos and let us know about their opinion, comments or suggestions. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 2008/11/28 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20081128 The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, is pleased to announce that the the project was among the exhibitors at this week ICT 2008 event, which took place in Lyon, France from Nov. 25 to 27. This conference-exhibition, organised by the European Commission's DG Information Society and Media, is the Europe's biggest research event devoted to Information and Communication Technologies. The 2008 edition, entitled Is to the future - Invention, Innovation, Impact, provided over 4000 delegates from all over the world (researchers, innovators, engineers, policy and business decision-makers, etc.) with a key opportunity to access and exchange information, and network. During the event, Fraunhofer IAO, coordinator of the CATER project, presented an immersive vehicle configurator based on the work carried out within the CATER project. In future such a system will help customers to design their own cars in virtual reality. In the showroom of one's car dealer, the customer will be able to experience his dream car's exterior and interior with a stereo protection wall in full scale - before signing the final order. The configurator is only one of the results of the CATER project, which deals with Mass Customization of vehicles, trying to satisfy both the requirements of mass production and those of the customer. A video of the CATER VR configuration system for the product planners was also displayed, while the event was also the opportunity to announce the upcoming CATER workshop on mass customization of vehicles, to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 25-28, 2009. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 2008/04/18 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20080418 The CATER Consortium, a key initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to announce the availability of the CATER Market Research, aiming at assessing the status and trends of the mass customization in the automotive field worldwide. In order to Logically, achieving mass customization (both customized and low-cost vehicles) in the automotive field requires several innovative tools and new organisational processes, which developments have been undertaken within the CATER project. Thus, in the purpose of assessing the overall market for the mass customization, the study focuses on the market potential for each of the market clusters that are considered as enablers to achieve mass customization in the automotive field; namely: 1. Emotional design tools for vehicles 2. OEMs components databases 3. Do-it-yourself design systems for vehicle configuration 4. Semantic search engines As a result, the assessment of the market potential for each cluster provides a clear picture of the mass customization perspectives in the automotive field, for both cars and trucks, while providing the CATER consortium with highly relevant inputs to the partners exploitation and business plans, through the evaluation of the market perspective for each of their developments. The Market Research has a logical worldwide scope and addresses the various issues that a market background document has to address for each cluster: - Market stakeholders - Technologies (technologies developed so far, technologies likely to become dominant, etc.) - Standardisation and regulatory environment (present and emerging standards in the field, etc.) - Market segments (which applications and segments appear to be the most promising, etc.) - Product and service offer (present market offer, most important market trials or pilot projects, etc.) - Market potential, assessed by a SWOT analysis The Executive Summary of the Market Research is publicly available on the CATER website, while interested organisations are given the opportunity to purchase the full Market Research: please contact us if you are interested. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 10/01/2008 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20080110 The CATER Project, a key European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customisation in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to announce that a special session entitled The CATER System for Vehicle Mass Customisation has been held during the IEEM 2007 conference, held in Singapore on December 2-5, 2007. The CATER session was organized and cochaired by Dr. Halimahtun Khalid and Prof. Martin Helander and enabled several reprensatives of the CATER project to present their research within the project. The papers were: - The CATER Approach to Vehicle Mass Customization Halimahtun M. Khalid, Manfred Dangelmaier, Tek Yong Lim - Analytical Modeling and Evaluation of Customer Citarasa in Vehicle Design Roger Jiao, Qianli Xu, Martin Helander - Citarasa Engineering Model for Affective Design of Vehicles Martin Helander, Hong Peng, Halimahtun M. Khalid - Customer Requirement Analysis Based on an Analytical Kano Model Qianli Xu, Roger Jiao, Xi Yang, Martin Helander, Halimahtun M. Khalid, Anders Opperud - Semantic Analysis of Verbal Communication in Cross functional Design Team: A Study of Driver Seat Design in an Automotive Company Xi Yang, Martin Helander - Citarasa Based Vehicle Planning System Tek Yong Lim, Halimahtun M. Khalid, Cheng Ni - Citarasa Driven Vehicle Configurator Petri Helo, Sami Kyllonen, Roger Jiao (presented by Xu Qianli) - Middleware Platform for Customizable Vehicle Reconfiguration Pheichin Lim, YinChai Wang, Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer As an important dissemination milestone, the event will enable in-depth discussions of significant aspects of the CATER concept. The following questions were raised by the delegates who attended the CATER session: - Flexible design process - how to resolve the issue of large variants in customer options, to reduced variants in design? -Personalization - how to meet individual customization? - Cognitive engineering - how different is this from citarasa engineering? -PDM - how is the citarasa vehicle planner related to company pdm system? - Analytical Kano model - how is emotional intent expressed in the model? To stay tuned with CATER developments, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 2007/11/10 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20071110 The CATER Project, a key European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to announce that it has joined the Ambient Intelligence Technologies for the Product Lifecycle (AITPL) Cluster. In this context Roger Jiao, Professor at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore – a partner in the CATER project – participated in the last cluster meeting, held on Nov. 5, 2007 in Stuttgart, Germany. The meeting aimed at discussing the objectives and concepts of the various projects involved in the cluster, to establish and maintain smooth communication through the projects and assess potential areas of cooperation. It appeared from the discussion that the CATER project was very well positioned within the cluster and that its developments are in-line with the other initiatives. The Cluster aspires to enable organisations in a networked world to deliver better products in a more efficient way faster to the market by enhancing the product and the product lifecycle processes using ambient intelligence technologies. In this purpose, several activities are carried out within the cluster in order to analyse the various approaches of the relevant projects regarding standardisation activities, business models, etc. Further information on the AITPL cluster can be found on the VE-Forum website. To stay tuned with CATER developments, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 2007/10/18 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070907 The CATER Project, a key European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to announce that Proton Berhad, a major Malaysian car manufacturer, has welcomed a team of representatives from the CATER consortium to discuss a number of issues related to vehicle planning processes. The project team included 12 participants representatives from the Asian partners of the CATER consortium (Damai Sciences, University Malaysia Sarawak, and Nanyang Technological University) and the University of Vaasa. The meeting, held on September 18, enabled to achieve important objectives, namely: - Several key innovations derived from the CATER project have been demonstrated: the citarasa ecosystem vehicle planning tool, the MArK system and the car e-catalogue, - The representatives from the CATER project investigates Proton's product planning and teardown processes as well as the dashboard's assembly process, - A product planning study on dashboard design has been conducted. It is expected that highly relevant outputs will be derived from the study that shall impact on CATER system development. To stay tuned with CATER developments, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us at info@cater-ist.org. 2007/10/01 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20071001 The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, is pleased to announce that the first prototype of the conceptual car configurator have been demonstrated at the IAA Motor Show, held in Frankfurt on September 13-23, 2007. During the show, Fraunhofer IAO, coordinator of the CATER project, presented an immersive vehicle configurator based on the work carried out within the CATER project. In future such a system will help us to "design" our own cars in virtual reality. In the showroom of your car dealer, you will be able to experience your dream car's exterior and interior at a stereo protection wall in full scale - before signing the final order. "You don't need to buy a pig in the poke any more. The variety of options we have today in configuring a car results in a tremendous amount of possibilities. This makes it very unlikely to find your perfect already standing soemwhere in the showroom", says Tim Gleue, who has developed the software for the CATER configurator. A highlight is the possibility not only to select some options by mouse clicks, like with today's web configurators: CATER has a simple and innovative interface to input your ideas on lifestyle and design and proposes a vehicle matching your gusto. At the IAA Motor Show, visitors were already able to test a prototype. By doing so, they got the chance to perform a user test - touchable applied Fraunhofer research, and of course, the comments of the participants will be directly used for the further development. "Even at that early stage of development, the reactions of the visitors were really positive", concludes Tim Gleue. The configurator is only one of the results of the CATER project, which deals with Mass Customization of vehicles, trying to satisfy both the requirements of mass production and those of the customer. For more on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/09/04 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070904 The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to announce that a delegation from the CATER project is exploring potential collaboration with the my-CAR project, another IST project funded under the FP7 addressing next generation of flexible assembly technology and processes and CATER-related topics. In this purpose, a meeting has been organised with representatives from the two projects in June 2007 to explore potential collaboration. Following the first discussions, it seems that an interface between the two projects that could lead to a potential collaboration area was identified regarding the aspects of order collection and processing. The my-Car project plans to have a limited focus on how the customer needs are collected and transformed into customized vehicles orders; while those issues are at the core of the CATER project. Whereas CATER focuses on developing methods for delivery of needs and wants on customization to the order collection and processing, my-Car focuses on how these orders can be handled and manufactured in the plant. As a result, the two projects together cover the whole process from the customer needs of customisation to manufacturing. Further meetings are planned before the end of 2007 to further address collaboration issues. For more on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/05/07 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070827 The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, will be exhibiting at the International Automotive Exhibition (IAA) Motor Show in Frankfurt, from September 13 to 23. The IAA participants will be given the opportunity to learn more about the innovative CATER project, namely about: the Citarasa Engineering Approach (emotional design concepts), the Web Based Do-it-Yourself-Design system for self-customisation of vehicles and VR Interfaces for the customers and the automotive manufacturers product planners, which are the main objectives of the project. More particularly, the innovative CATER Virtual Reality interface for vehicle configuration will be presented in a live demo on a Fraunhofer Personal Immersion system. The Personal Immersion system implements CATER major principles of Affective Design and targets at making decisions of car buyers more effective and efficient. Representatives from Fraunhofer IAO and the University of Stuttgart, partners of the CATER consortium, will be very pleased to meet any interested people in the field (from OEMs to vehicle manufacturers) to better discuss the project concept and its first achievements. CATER will be exhibiting at the Fraunhofer booth in Hall 1.1, booth A19, close to the gate City. To stay tuned with CATER developments, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/05/07 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070507 The CATER Project, a key European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customisation in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to announce that a special session entitled "The CATER System for Vehicle Mass Customisation" will be held during the upcoming IEEM 2007 conference, to be held in Singapore on December 2-5, 2007. This event will provide a not-to-be-missed opportunity for the CATER project as 6 papers will be presented mainly by the Asian representatives of the CATER consortium, addressing topics such as e-Business, human factors, and supply chain management. The foreseen papers are: 1/. The CATER approach to Vehicle Mass Customization (H. Khalid, DAMAI) 2/. Automotive Product Planning Process (X. Yang, NTU) 3/. Modelling and Datamining Customer Citarasa in Vehicle Design (J. Jiao, NTU) 4/. Citarasa Engineering in Vehicle Product Planning (M. Helander, NTU) 5/. Reconfiguring Vehicle with MArk System (Y.C. Wang, UNIMAS) 6/. Citarasa Driven Vehicle Configurator (P. Helo, UWASA). As an important dissemination milestone, the event will enable in-depth discussions of significant aspects of the CATER concept. Therefore, members of the CATER User Forum, in particular experts from the automotive area, representing various sectors and activities, are cordially invited to participate in the session. Your contribution is important to assist in further enhancement of the CATER system which is expected to benefit the automotive industry. Further information (paper abstracts and session information) about CATER involvement in IEEM2007 will be provided later on. To stay tuned with CATER developments, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/05/06 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070606 One of the CATER public output, the deliverable D1.1 "Conceptual models and domain and activity descriptions for automobile design"opments, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/05/10 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070510 The CATER Project, a key initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to invite all stakeholders in the automotive field to attend its 1st Workshop to be held at Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart, Germany, on November 8, 2007, in conjunction with the IAO Vehicle Simulation summit. Aiming at spreading the project results towards the whole automotive field, in Europe, Asia and worldwide, the first CATER achievements will be discussed, as well as the state-of-the-art in mass customisation of vehicles. A panel discussion, including experts from the CATER community, will also intend to agree on a consensus for the roadmap on future research in the field, while providing inputs to the consortium for further enhancement of the project (methodologies, use cases, etc.). In order to make the workshop valuable both for representatives of the CATER consortium and attendees; all players involved in the automotive field (from components manufacturers to distributors) are cordially invited to participate in the workshop. For more information about the workshop (draft agenda, registration process, etc.), please click here. To stay tuned with CATER developments, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/05/04 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070504 The CATER Project, a key initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased to announce the launch of the Citarasa survey. Citarasa or "emotional intent" is one of the core innovations of the CATER project. Citarasa is a Malay word to express the intent/desires (cita) and emotions/tastes (rasa) of customers. To uncover customers citarasa , a survey is currently undertaken in eight countries in Europe (France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom) and four countries in Asia (China, India, Malaysia, Singapore) among 240 truck and 300 car owners-cum-drivers. Two measurement tools were developed for this purpose, specially dedicated to measuring customer needs and their expertise in vehicle evaluation. Design of the tool was driven by the citarasa conceptual model as shown in the figure available at http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070504. The questionnaires, comprising between 60-70 items, were translated from the original English version into eight languages, namely: French, Finnish, German, Greek, Italian, Malay, Mandarin, and Swedish. The data will be analysed to derive citarasa descriptors for developing the citarasa ontology of vehicles. These descriptors will be further validated for development of the citarasa engineering method. Two methods, Design Equation for Citarasa Analysis (DECA) and Kano, will map the citarasa descriptors (functional and affective requirements) to design parameters at the conceptual design phase of vehicle production. For more information on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/04/04 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070404 The CATER Consortium, a key European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry through the development of innovative ICT tools and methods, is very pleased today to announce that the project website has now reached a significant number of monthly visitors. Available at www.cater-ist.org and launched at the end of November 2007 the website now attracts around 500 visitors per month, with a peak at more than 600 in march 2007 (see illustration below). The project being in its early stage, this number is expected to increase in the coming month and yet is an encouraging sign of the interest shown in the initiative. For more on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/02/28 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070227 The CATER consortium is pleased today to announce that the initiative has been presented to the ENGAGE Malaysia 2007 Conference on February 27 in Penang, Malaysia. This conference was the fourth of a series of collaborative events organised by the ENGAGE consortium (a project supported by the European Commission under the FP6 program) and aiming at bringing together academia and industry from Southeast Asia and Europe in order to foster cooperation and promote joint research initiatives between Europe and Southeast Asia. Over 200 attendees learned about CATER approach to mass customization of vehicles in a speech given by Halimahtun Khalid, co-technical leader of the CATER Project and Executive Director of Damaï Sciences, a Malaysian partner in the CATER project. The presentation included an overview of the consortium and an insight on the Project objectives and plan developments (citarasa engineering, teardown database, do-it-yourself design system, etc.). For more information, download the paper abstract. For more on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/02/15 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070215 In conjunction with the second consortium meeting, held in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 12-14, 2007, a delegation from the CATER Project visited Proton Berhad, the major Malaysian car manufacturer. The visit took place on Feb. 14, 2007 at Proton's headquarters in Shah Alam. Following a briefing about Proton organization and its status, Dr. Manfred Dangelmaier, the coordinator of the CATER consortium introduced the Project objectives and plan developments. This includes modules that are of interest to Proton, namely: citarasa engineering, teardown database, do-it-yourself design system, and virtual reality interface. The consortium also discussed opportunities for Proton Berhad's involvement in the CATER Project through pilot testing of specific modules. In addition, delegates from the CATER consortium were treated to a visit of Proton's assistance call centre, crash test area, assembly lines and showroom gallery. Further cooperation between Proton and the CATER Project is expected in the coming months. For more on the CATER Project, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter. For any other query, please contact us. 2007/01/12 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20070111 The CATER Consortium, a key research initiative aiming at developing innovative ICT tools and methods for mass customization of vehicles, is very pleased today to announce that the Project will be officially introduced to Proton Berhad, the largest Malaysian car manufacturer, on January 17, 2007. Halimahtun M. Khalid, co-technical leader of the CATER Project and Executive Director of Damaï Sciences, a partner of the CATER Project, will present the project objectives and plan developments (citarasa engineering, teardown database, do-it-yourself design system, etc.), while the opportunities for Proton Berhad to get involved in the CATER pilot testing will be assessed. More information about the CATER pilot plans will be available later on. In the meanwhile, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter or contact us for more information. 2006/11/24 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20061124 The CATER Consortium, a key European initiative aiming at developing innovative ICT tools and methods for mass customization of vehicles, is very pleased today to announce that the 1st CATER Dissemination Workshop will be held in Nice, France, on May 15, 2007. Aiming at spreading the project results towards the whole automotive field, in Europe, Asia and worldwide, the workshop will also intend to agree on a consensus for the roadmap on further research in the field. In order to make the workshop valuable both for representatives of the CATER consortium and attendees; all players involved in the automotive field (from components manufacturers to distributors) are cordially invited to participate in the workshop. More information about the workshop (preliminary agenda, venue, registration process) will be available in the coming weeks. In the meanwhile, we recommend you to subscribe to the CATER newsletter or contact us for more information. 2006/09/15 http://www.cater-ist.org/index.php?p=20060915 Today and yesterday, at Fraunhofer in Stuttgart, Germany, 28 representatives from the 14 CATER Consortium members officially launched the CATER project during the kick off meeting, which usefully allowed to specify, organise and plan into more details the various short-term activities of this key European initiative. Involving major European and Asian organisations in the automotive field and supported by the European Commission (DG InfSo), this 3-year research project aims at developing an integrated system enabling mass customisation of vehicles through the use of dedicated and innovative ICT tools in the whole automotive industry process, from the expression of the customer’s feeling to the interactions between the various stakeholders involved in the manufacture and delivery process. This mass customization objective is expected to be reached through the development of several relevant tools, from online virtual reality interfaces for the customers to efficient networked business solutions for the manufacturers and suppliers. For more information, please contact us.