4. Research Areas
4.4. Internet Basics and Services
4.4.3. Research into Internet-Supported Processes
Initial Situation
Following the somewhat over-hasty Internet euphoria over the last years, a new, stronger systematic develop- ment of Internet-based applications in science, commerce and society is now beginning. This introduces a new phase in economic-social structural change, marked by the widespread use of network-supported processes.
The outline of this structural change can already be seen today. In the car industry, but also in other industries, provision market places such as Covisint, Supplyon and VW Group Supply, which drastically change cooperation between companies and their suppliers, are becoming established. Volkswagen AG reported in November 2001 around 500,000 transactions within the first year and a 95 % reduction in the duration of these processes.
If we in Germany want to master the opportunities and challenges of this structural change, we should greatly expand on our ability to design and control net- work-supported processes.
This is also a scientific challenge, since the conception, development and management of competitive Internet- based business processes require appropriate, scientifi- cally sound methods and academic qualifications.
4. Research Areas
Need for Action and Objectives
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research will fund the setting up of competence centres for “IT Service Management”, involving industry and universities. These competence centres will integrate science, practice and teaching, and contribute towards the more intensive use of the potential of the Internet in Germany and towards being able to actively shape this potential. In addition, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology also supports developing and testing innovative E-business and E-government solutions with the aim of moving away from information towards interaction, transaction, and participation. The focus is on connecting production chains, from procurement and production right up to dis- tribution and logistics, as well as designing virtual busi- ness relationships, particularly between small and medi- um-sized companies.
Research Areas
■ Theoretical foundation and development of methods (such as mathematical simulations, assessment /pric- ing procedures, communication of new IT services, knowledge economics, new scientific approaches of political / economic Internet research),
■ Formal product models and related subjects (service level agreements, service engineering, product cata- logues, model views, metamodels, classification and standardization),
■ Control processes for implementing, evaluating and controlling applications, benchmarking, audit frame- works /legal solutions,
■ Basic research into marketing processes with Internet applications and services (e. g. Customer Relationship Management in mass markets, category manage- ment, communities, signalling, customer relation- ships/repurchase, personalization),
■ Company-wide integration and new operator models (such as ASP, operations management, e-enabling, application/operation hosting).
Public IT Research
Landscape in Germany
5
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG)
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading body of applied research institutes in Germany. It carries out con- tract research for industry, service companies and the government. It develops quick and cost-effective solu- tions to technical and organizational problems for cus- tomers in industry and commerce. The Fraunhofer- Gesellschaft currently operates 56 research institutes in locations throughout the Federal Republic. Approximately 11,000 employees, predominantly with scientific or engi- neering training, handle the yearly research volume worth around 900 million Euros, more than 750 million Euros of which is spent on contract research. Around 60 % of this capacity results from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s care- ful management of industrial revenue and publicly- financed research projects. Approximately 40 % is provid- ed by the Federal Government and its Länder (states) as basic finance for preliminary research.
Fraunhofer Group for Information and Communication Technology (IaC Group)
Fifteen institutes within the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft with nine sites in Germany make up the Fraunhofer Group for
Information and Communication Technology (IaC Group), whose annual budget is more than 200 million Euros. The IaC Group develops joint strategies and research ideas for application-oriented information and communication technology. It coordinates the transfer of technology and research marketing in interdisciplinary projects and pro- grammes. The Frauenhofer IaC Group and its member institutes provide partners in commerce, science, society and politics with concrete individual solutions from the whole range of IT and mathematical research, as well as with forward-thinking developments, technological evalu- ation and consulting services.
Under the theme of “Living and Working in a Networked World”, the IaC Group follows a programme for application-oriented basic and preliminary research.
In the following nine programmes, the institutes work together on important topics in the field of IT and com- munication technology of the future:
■ New generation Internet
■ Software engineering and innovative system archi- tectures
■ Multimodal communication and new media
■ Knowledge and content engineering,
■ IT security
■ Computing and biology
■ Simulation and virtual engineering
■ Engineering and enterprise systems
■ Innovative applications and IT-based services These programmes include new technologies for the core and access networks of the coming Internet generation, to support personal mobility as well as the mobility of services and end devices. New systems and methods for content and knowledge management are being devised as are secure and reliable solutions for trading on the Internet, new forms of human and machine communica- tion and net-based cooperation. The objective is to devel- op an IT solution that focuses on man as the user, and systems that “understand” language, gestures and facial expressions, and can even react to emotions. Computer simulations, visualization and virtual reality are being integrated into digital development environments for the development of industrial products, allowing complete digital products to come within reach of many industries.
Interdisciplinary mathematical modelling and innovative algorithms thereby form the foundations. Furthermore, system solutions that support cooperation and processes are also being researched – from engineering to e-busi- ness, through to logistics.
Beyond the narrow confines of information tech- nology, research projects are being developed which interface with biology and medicine. IT methods support chemical and microbiological research, for instance with structure analysis that is important for medical and phar- maceutical research into proteins and their functions in the organism, or genome research. Principles of evolu- tion inspire algorithms and system design, such as the development of autonomous robots.
Fraunhofer Microelectronics Consortium (VµE)
In addition to the institutes of the IaC Group, the seven institutes in the Fraunhofer Microelectronics Consortium (VµE) are also concerned with current questions in IT research. Since it was formed in 1996, the consortium with a total of 1,450 employees and a budget of 130 mil- lion Euros has successfully coordinated the research strategies of its member institutes.
The Microelectronics Consortium is particularly concerned with developing hardware-based systems as well as their components and technologies. Its direction is increasingly determined through alignment with market requirements for a better quality of life through electron-
ic assistance, and thereby supports the trend of mobile communication to its full extent. The inclusion of the topic of “ubiquitous electronics” in its work for approximately ten years is a logical technical consequence of microelec- tronics from the user's point of view. Revenue of 60 mil- lion Euros confirms the commercial demand for the con- sortium’s work.
Current areas of focus include:
■ Energy supply technologies for portable systems and end devices
■ Display-based systems (display technologies based on Si and OLED)
■ Photonic systems
■ Electronic assistance
■ Foil technologies for system carriers and components
■ High frequency and optical communication systems
■ Micromechatronics
■ Polymer electronics (“polytronics”)
■ Multimedia and transmission technology (“MP3”)
■ Embedded Internet.
In addition to the IaC Group and the Microelectronics Consortium, institutes specializing in production engi- neering, traffic engineering and logistics or photonics contribute to IT research, often collaborating with the IaC institutes.
For more information, see: www.fraunhofer.de
Fraunhofer Information and
Communication Technology Group
AiS Fraunhofer Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems, Sankt Augustin
FIRST Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology, Berlin
FIT Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology, Sankt Augustin
FOKUS Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems, Berlin
IAO Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering, Stuttgart
IESE Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Kaiserslautern
IGD Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research, Darmstadt und Rostock
IIS-A Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Applied Electronics Department, Erlangen
IITB Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing, Karlsruhe
IMK Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication, Sankt Augustin
IPSI Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Publication and Information Systems, Darmstadt
ISST Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Berlin and Dortmund
ITWM Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics, Kaiserslautern
SCAI Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing, Sankt Augustin
SIT Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Telecooperation, Darmstadt
BIOMIP Research Group for Biomolecular Information Processing, Sankt Augustin
Fraunhofer Microelectronics Consortium (VµE)
IAF Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics, Freiburg
IIS-A Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Applied Electronics, Erlangen
IIS-B Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, IC Technology department, Erlangen
IMS Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems, Duisburg, Dresden and Munich ISiT Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology, Itzehoe IZM Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Micro-
integration, Berlin
ESK Fraunhofer Institute for Communication Systems, Munich
Additional IT Research Partners
IML Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logis- tics, Dortmund
IPA Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation, Stuttgart
IPK Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology, Berlin
IVI Fraunhofer Institute for Transport and Infrastructure Systems, Dresden
HHI Heinrich-Hertz-Institut für Nachrichtentechnik, Berlin
Hermann von Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
The Helmholtz Association conducts independent research into the long-term objectives of the state and society, including basic research. The Helmholtz Association intro- duced the conversion phase of its strategic new direction by setting up the registered association “Hermann von Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren e.V.” on 12th September 2001 and holding the constituted session of its new senate and electing the first president on 11th December 2001.
The largest German scientific organization was reformed with the objective of using its enormous scien- tific potential in concerted research even more efficient- ly, in order to provide solutions for large, complex prob- lems and challenges in its fields of research. The Helmholtz Association plans to concentrate its strengths in concerted research, increase competition, expand cooperation and links with science, especially with col- leges and universities and commerce and to increase its role in Europe: The HGF wants to become a dynamic power in setting up European research and to provide support in this area. The research centres in Jülich and Karlsruhe are primary contacts in the field of IT at the Helmholtz Association.
Research Centre Jülich
The emphasis on information at the Jülich research cen- tre (www.fz-juelich.de) is used to prepare new technolo- gies for future IT developments. Furthermore, the research also concentrates on the use of supercomputers in the area of scientific computing in research and devel- opment.
The research project on materials, processes and components for micro- and nanoelectronics covers pro- cessing information in logical components, storing infor- mation in Random Access Memories (RAM) and mass memories, and transmitting information at chip and sys- tem level as well as over large physical distances. Added to this is the specific area of sensorics as an interface with the outside world. The research subjects result from the challenges that derived from further developments in microelectronics and the early stages of nanoelectronics, as well as from the potential for new types of functions such as inorganic biological interfaces for exchanging information between microelectronics and nerve cells.