InteliGrid - How can engineers work together in virtual organizations?

Engineers have been working in virtual organizations (VO) for years, but such partnerships are becoming more common. The temporal involvement of a partner in a virtual organization needs to be set up quickly. In such contexts a grid-based approach is appropriate.

The goal of the InteliGrid Project is to provide a grid-based integration and interoperability infrastructure and thereby exploit the potential of grid technology for complex industries such as construction, automotive and aerospace.

The key scientific question addressed by the InteliGrid Project is how grid technology can be used to address the interoperability of software and services working with complex and semantically rich information.

A specific technological goal of the project is to make the grid infrastructure available to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) that provide the engineering software. The core competencies of these companies are in areas such as structural mechanics or 3D solid-modelling, and not in the latest trends of middleware technology. InteliGrid will provide such middleware and help SMEs enhance their applications with grid-computing capabilities.

The project has already shown how typical server-side applications can be made grid-computing compatible and how client-side applications such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) can interface with the grid. The next phase involves the development of the next generation of key engineering collaboration software using the InteliGrid middleware, an ontology service, a product model database server, a project Web collaboration service and characteristic computer aided design software.

The final results of the project will be the generic business-object-aware extensions to grid middleware, implemented in a way that allows grids to commit to an arbitrary ontology. These extensions will be propagated to toolkits that allow hardware and software to be integrated into the grid.

InteliGrid has some important roles for the industrial participants in the projects as the services provided are to be related to practical use and businesses. The industrial partners are: Obermeyer Planen + Beraten, Germany, Sofistik Hellas, Greece, Jotne EPM Technology, and Conject AG, Germany.

EPMT plays a central role in the InteliGrid Project by providing the specific technology and knowledge needed for developing the integrated Product Data Management services. The experiences acquired in the VIVACE project regarding engineering data management are providing important real-life examples for InteliGrid. This is especially important for the development of InteliGrid’s awareness of “business concepts” which, in VIVACE, are related to the aeronautics industry.

By grid-enabling the EXPRESS Data Manager™ functionality and Database Management facilities, InteliGrid may offer the full set of product data management resources as services for VOs. EPMT is an example of a software development company that will use InteliGrid as a market outlet for specialized engineering software and services.

InteliGrid is developing grid middleware extensions. The business potential is in the increased use of VOs in complex engineering projects and in life-span operations on complex products such as buildings or aircraft.
Through InteliGrid, Jotne EPM Technology will be able to distribute the EXPRESS Data Manager™ through an alternative market channel. The EDM functionality will be offered on InteliGrid as pay-per-demand services opening the possibility for more ad hoc use of the products. Large consumers of EXPRESS Data Manager™ will still benefit from buying the products and the licenses, but InteliGrid will increase the market penetration and broaden the user community, especially in the AEC industry.