Thanks in advance,
Frank Maurer
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WET ICE Workshops 1996
WET ICE '96 Workshop "Project Coordination"
Call for Papers
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Workshop Description --------------------
Due to global competition, reduction of product development times and costs are increasingly important requirements for engineering processes.
To reach this goal, we observe the emergence of virtual corporations. Virtual corporations are temporal corporations among heterogeneous groups and organizations based on key competence. The purpose of these temporal alliances is to quickly respond to market opportunities, to improve product/service quality, and to achieve more flexibility in work and work organization, or to work on projects larger than can be managed by any single company, such as the international space station.
A major requirement for the creation and management of virtual corporations is distributed project coordination. This includes project planning and scheduling, execution of projects, coordination of tasks, resolution of competing objectives, achievement of global coherence, change propagation, communication across heterogeneous groups, and maintenance of access to valid information. Without these and similar functions, work becomes disorganized and the goal of time and cost reduction cannot be achieved.
Yet, most existing computer support for distributed work is "groupware" that only increases the sharing of informal information among people. Computational methods that use process models and structured data in order to link software and people at the task level are still not widely employed and the lack of coordination of distributed processes is the most crucial bottleneck limiting the size and complexity of projects and products today.
As an alternative to groupware, workflow management systems are used to support routine tasks that can be planned and implemented before enactment. For many processes this is not possible: in software engineering for example, the planning of later stages of design and implementation is based on the result of the earlier stages.
Thus, groupware systems provide too little structure and current workflow techniques are too restricting to support virtual corporations.
Of particular interest, this is true even in distributed engineering projects where many of the tasks can be analyzed prior to execution and where the duration of cooperation is typically long. I.e., engineering projects are in some sense the "best case" of virtual companies that may in general be very dynamic. Distributed engineering projects are also particularly interesting because of the obvious need to reduce cost and increase speed by allowing engineers and designers in different organizations to work directly on a peer-to-peer relationship rather than being mediated by several layers of management.
This workshop focuses on techniques and systems that allow flexible planning and control of processes in distributed projects in all domains of virtual enterprises, but especially in engineering. The workshop topics include (but are not limited to): - application requirements (e.g. from software engineering, mechanical engineering, architecture, city planning) on collaborative processes - project planning and management - design flow/workflow management and the global networks - notification mechanisms that support project coordination - knowledge management - managing design rationales - integration of heterogeneous perspectives - integration of intelligent agents into engineering processes - use of agent technologies for system integration - use of the WWW for project coordination
Within the workshop the use of the WWW in systems, such as for agent interfaces, data structuring, project planning or team coordination should be emphasized.
Preliminary Call for Papers and Review Procedure ------------------------------------------------
Submissions should survey technology, or describe original research, design and development, and/or applications of enabling technologies for project coordination. Results should be clear and useful to other practitioners in the field. Simple descriptions of yet another system, with no reproducible, useful results or lessons will be rejected.
Papers up to 6 pages (including figures, tables and references) can be submitted to the workshop. Final papers will follow the IEEE's format which is single spaced, two-columns, 10 pt Times/Roman font.
Initial papers will preferably be sent via email to Frank Maurer (Address see below) before March 15, 1996. URLs of papers in HTML format are preferable. URLs of PostScript papers is the next most preferable. PostScript papers may also be sent via email or, least preferable, as hard copy. Submissions of PostScript files that cannot be displayed and printed on a unix workstation will be rejected. If you are not able to test the UNIX-compatibility of your paper contact Frank Maurer.
Submitted URL's of papers and/or of home pages will be included into the WWW page of the workshop (URL see below).
Only 6-8 papers will be accepted for presentation. If you would like to participate in the workshop without submitting a paper, please submit a position paper describing your work and interest in the topic. Any authors submitting a paper, whether or not accepted, will have preference over participants submitting only a position paper. The total number of participants will be no more than 20.
Every paper will get at least three reviews. Accepted papers for the workshop will be included in the post-proceedings to be published by IEEE Computer Society Press
Authors are required to review at least 2 other submissions which will be determined by the workshop organizers.
All submitted papers will be made available via the workshop WWW page. Participants are encouraged to peer-review additional articles on a free basis. That is a good way to prepare for the workshop and will help the other participants in their preparation.
Further Information -------------------
For further information concerning this WET ICE workshop on "Project Coordination" see WWW URL
http://wwwagr.informatik.uni-kl.de/~maurer/WETICE96.html
The IEEE Fifth Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WET ICE '96) will be hosted by Stanford University between June 19-21, 1996. For further information see WWW URL
http://www.cerc.wvu.edu/WETICE/WETICE96.html
Important Dates ---------------
- Notice of a planned submission to workshop organizer Now - Full papers due to workshop organizer March 15, 1996 - Notification of decisions to authors April 19, 1996 - Advance registration May 17, 1996 - Workshop June 19-21, 1996 - Final papers due June 28, 1996
Workshop Organizers -------------------
Dr. Frank Maurer University of Kaiserslautern FB Informatik - Expert System Group P.O. Box 3049 D-67653 Kaiserslautern Germany Tel.: +49 631/205-3356 Fax: +49 631/205-3357 E-Mail: maurer@informatik.uni-kl.de WWW http://wwwagr.informatik.uni-kl.de/~maurer
Dr. Charles Petrie Center for Design Research Stanford University 560 Panama Street Stanford, CA 94305-2232 USA Tel.: +11 415/725-0162 Fax: +11 415/725-8475 E-Mail: petrie@cdr.stanford.edu WWW http://cdr.stanford.edu/people/petrie/home.html
Dr. Johan Vanwelkenhuysen INRIA/Acacia 2004, route des Lucioles - BP 93 F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex France Tel: +33 93 65 77 88 Fax: +33 93 65 77 83 E-mail: jvanwelk@sophia.inria.fr WWW http://www.inria.fr/acacia/personnel/jvanwelk/johan.html