Objective Industrial processes are characterised nowadays by the intensive use and production of knowledge and information. The latter are traditionally exchanged as documents of various types, ranging from legally binding contracts to telefax messages. A general survey reveals that, firstly, a project's document management is often a personal issue, at best handled inside an office, but seldom on the project level; and, secondly, that most of the existing electronic document management tools fail to represent the semantics of the information being processed, and therefore remain limited in their support of the end-user. This is in fact the prevailing situation in the construction industry, which is becoming a multi-disciplinary, multi-national and multi-billion Pounds economy, involving large numbers of actors working concurrently at different locations and using heterogeneous technologies. It is one of the industrial sectors - compared to automotive and aerospace industry - where the problem of information integration is the most critical. It is commonly agreed that a better integration would dramatically speed up the design and construction processes, improve the quality of decisions made, ensure more consistent documents and decrease the overall cost to both clients and construction companies. In order to pioneer a solution, a consortium driven by construction end-users will investigate a new model-based - as opposed to file-based - approach to document production and management, based on recent IT developments. It will demonstrate the genericity of the proposed approach, and its applicability across industries. The consortium is aware of the fact that it is not possible to develop a unique document management solution for all the members because of their investment in proprietary systems. The Consortium will promote the use of the various existing systems by the development of extensions which comply with the proposed approach and will enable all systems to communicate through an object database. The Condor project will provide an efficient documentary platform, spanning all types of document-based information, and managing documents crossing the organisational boundaries between the ever-changing participants of a construction project. To that end, general surveys will be undertaken to analyse the engineering processes against construction project document based information, and to provide a smooth migration path from the current document management systems to a model-based approach. Conceptual models, including a generic information management model independent of industrial context, will be developed and implemented. The project will place particular emphasis on process re-engineering strategies with respect to the changes introduced by the proposed approach. The Condor infrastructure, comprising the Condor prototype integrated with the extended end-users document management software, will then be implemented in the context of a concurrent multi-actor environment. Finally, a demonstrator will be developed to provide the test bed for evaluating project objectives and proof of concept. The demonstrator will build on the end-users' case studies which will provide qualitative and quantitative criteria, and will include estimates of potential time savings and changes to working practices in order to maximise benefits.The Condor project results will be exploited on the basis of a common global strategy, which goes beyond the project duration and builds on the wide range of expertise of the project partners, in close relation with the project users interest group. Fields of science natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwarenatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases Programme(s) FP4-ESPRIT 4 - Specific research and technological development programme in the field of information technologies, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 7.1 - Business Best Practice Pilots Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator Kvaerner Construction EU contribution No data Address Maple Cross House Denham Way WD3 2SW Rickmansworth United Kingdom See on map Total cost No data Participants (6) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Cap Gemini Innovation France EU contribution No data Address Rue Thiers 86-90 92513 Boulogne See on map Total cost No data Centre Scientifique et Technique Du Batiment France EU contribution No data Address 290,Route Des Lucioles 06904 Sophia Antipolis See on map Total cost No data Derbi Informatique France EU contribution No data Address Boulevard De La Bastille 18 75579 Paris See on map Total cost No data J.M. Byggnads Ab Sweden EU contribution No data Address Tegeluddsvagen 100 10254 Stockholm See on map Total cost No data Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan Sweden EU contribution No data Address Drottning Kristinas Vag 8 10044 Stockholm See on map Total cost No data UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address THE CRESCENT 43 M54WT SALFORD,MANCHESTER See on map Total cost No data
