Electronic Tendering, Bidding, and Negotiation Real Time System

IST-1999-10478

http://voyager.sund.ac.uk/e-ntry

Tendering and the subsequent bidding are increasingly becoming an essential component of procurement in a wide range of Industry Sectors, including the Service Industry, and both in the Private and Public Sectors. This project intends to focus on the Manufacturing Industry, where tendering and bidding are common procurement practices in many businesses and for a wide range of complex and expensive products, ranging from civil works and buildings, to aircraft, ships, chemical plants, production facilities, down to smaller-size products, such as industrial equipment, customised machine tools, telecommunication equipment, etc. In all these Sectors, a number of key competitive levers, spanning across the entire procurement process (tendering, bidding and subsequent manufacturing and supply processes), can be identified. E-NTRY will incorporate a set of basic, truly generic functionality (corresponding to the high-level model of the entire procurement process), which self-configure themselves based upon the explicit models underlying. Such models will make it possible to easily adapt E-NTRY to other Industry Sectors and, even within a specific Industry Sector, to adapt E-NTRY to suit the needs of a specific bid. Therefore, E-NTRY will ensure a degree of genericism and of flexibility far beyond the current state-of-the-art.

The objective of PICK is to develop two innovative methods and tools for effective management of corporate knowledge needed to support main process improvement (PI) steps, specifically for manufacturing processes. The methods and tools will be tested within the industrial environments of three large automotive and aerospace companies under real conditions. PICK will solve several fundamental technical problems, the most challenging being the one related to the development of an innovative system for unique knowledge management which can be used for different PI related tasks, both in planning and execution phase. PICK will also contribute to standardisation of interfaces needed for capturing knowledge from different systems. The technological objective is to develop two innovative methods and tools for the effective management of corporate knowledge needed to support the main process improvement (PI) steps, specifically for manufacturing processes. The business objectives are to achieve direct benefits for the end-users based on the application of PICK methods and tools in terms of: reduction of effort/costs for PI tasks, planning/execution of changes in processes (especially in run-up phases of the re-designed process), reduction of risks when changes in processes/products are done, e.g. reduction of potential wastes and re-work, down times of machines and workers etc. The application of PICK results will improve the possibilities to involve all employees in PI tasks, to easier transfer/share knowledge between manufacturing areas/lines, or between different plants.

This Project will design, develop, pilot, evaluate an innovative Internet-based E-Commerce platform (E-NTRY) enabling more open, transparent, fair and, at the same time, more efficient and more cost-effective industrial procurement practices. The software system will support in a comprehensive and integrated way the entire range of activities, both within individual organisations and across the entire procurement chain involved in the 3 key processes of: Tendering, Bidding and Contract Negotiation. It is a specific objective of E-NTRY to create a generic tool, meeting the requirements of a wide range of Industry sectors: pilot Users are a tendering and a bidding company from the Telecommunication Industry, but requirements and solutions will be generalised by E-NTRY IT partners to other sectors, and most notably to the Maritime Industry, Civil Construction and Public Administration. The project will exploit advanced technologies, and most notably XML, Java, workflow inter-operability and CORBA technologies.

TXT e-Solutions Spa

GUSMEROLI, Sergio

Address: Via Frigia 27
Postcode: 20126
City: Milano
Region: LOMBARDIA
Country: ITALY
Tel: +39-022-5771310
Fax: +39-022-578994
email: gusmeroli@txt.it

• British Maritime Technology Limited
• Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A.
• University of Sunderland
• Intracom S.A. Hellenic Telecommunications and Electronics Industry
• Team Tecnologia Energia Ambiente Materiali S.r.l.