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Acknowledgement and Legal notice / Disclaimer |
The
CONTRACT project is co-funded by the European Commission under the 6th
Framework Programme for RTD with project number FP6-034418.
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In CONTRACT we have tested and validated our approach by modelling three real-world scenarios of interest for Certicon, Y'ALL and Lost Wax. These scenarios were also the source of early requirements on the main components to be developed.
Scenario 1: Electronic Contracting for Modular Certification Testing
The business model of modular certification testing has been developed by Certicon a.s. in cooperation with the Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics (CSKI). Modular certification testing allows a large number of heterogeneous and independent businesses to flexibly collaborate on the provision of certification services. The model has been applied to computer literacy testing using the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL2) concept, first in the Czech Republic and later in Slovakia, and can be equally well applied to other certification programmes of the similar structure.
The certification domain represents a dynamic ecosystem of business entities engaging in on-demand service-oriented interactions. Business relationships in the domain range from one-off transactions to long-term partnerships. Services provided have clearly defined interfaces, enabling dynamic provider selection based on changing requirements and conditions different providers offer.
A prototype of the Modular Certification Testing scenario has been developed by Certicon with the assistance of researchers at CVUT.
Scenario 2: Electronic Contracting for Dynamic Insurance Settlement
The Insurance domain highly relies on traditional ways of claims handling. Every aspect of a claim is dealt with by different specialized persons working in different departments of the company, or in different companies involved in the total claims handling process. Therefore, the whole process is very costly. Nowadays, the insurance market is looking more and more for ways to economize the claims handling by increasing the level of process automation and improving the integration of all different parties (e.g. victims, witnesses, surveyors/experts, lawyers, insurance companies, middlemen and doctors) and systems involved in the process.
The Dynamic insurance settlement use case describes a CarRepairGrid system to be built by Y'ALL for an imaginary company called Damage Secure, which looks after and controls all businesses involved in dealing with car damage claims for a number of insurance companies. The goal of Damage Secure is to enhance the quality and efficiency of the total damage claims handling process between consumers, damage repair companies and insurance companies. Every year around 100 000 damages are reported to Damage Secure, of which 40% are repairs and 60% replacements. If CarRepairGrid can work without human intervention, it could potentially save 172M Euros.
A prototype of the Dynamic Insurance Settlement scenario has been developed by Y'ALL with the assistance of researchers at UPC.
Scenario 3: Electronic Contracting in the Aerospace Aftermarket
The aerospace aftermarket is increasingly populated by customers buying a service rather than a product. In this use case, the aircraft engine manufacturer is responsible for providing the required number of serviceable engines so that the airline operator's aircraft can be kept flying. The engine manufacturer is paid by the hour when the engines are available and may face a penalty if planes are on the ground waiting for a serviceable engine. In this business model, servicing and maintenance becomes a key driver of long term profitability for the engine manufacturer. Aftercare contracts are worth millions of Euros and can last several years. They are complex with stipulated service levels and penalties for failure to meet them.
A unique feature of this scenario is the Aerogility™ system, an agent-based decision support tool developed by LostWax to simulate aerospace aftercare. Thanks to the work carried out within the project, Aerogility™ will be able to show the effects of variations in contracts - not only in profitability but also the different aftercare strategies needed to meet the revised contract.
A prototype of the Aerospace Aftermarket showing the future intended extension of Aerogility™ has been developed by LostWax with the assistance of researchers at KCL.
Other scenarios
In order to ensure enough generality of the CONTRACT technology, other scenarios have been considered at different stages of the project:
- Service-Level Agreements in Software Engineering: Fujitsu has worked in a scenario which emphasizes workflow tracking and strong integration with Interstage™ software development tools and domain-specific metrics. A prototype has been created to validate the integration of the contractual application environment with Interstage™.
- Assistive Service Contracts for Elderly People: UPC has worked in a scenario exploring the benefits of electronic contracting to mediate in the provision of user-centric services for elderly people in the frame of the EU project SHARE-it.
- Semiconductor Manufacturing: KCL has worked on a scenario exploring the benefits of electronic contracts to monitor the agreements between a semiconductor chip supplier and a consumer.
- Collaborative Process Automation in ERP/CRM Industry: CVUT has worked in a scenario where electronic contracts are used to refine the responsibilities of the members of a Request-Based virtual Organisation and provide better ways to monitor the fulfilment of these responsibilities at execution time. The scenario is one of the use cases from the EU PANDA project.
Further readingCONTRACT deliverable D6.1 Use Case Outlines and Requirements
CONTRACT deliverable D6.1a External Use CasesJakob, M., Pechoucek, M., Miles, S., and Luck, M. 2008. Case studies for contract-based systems. In Proceedings of the 7th international Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: industrial Track (Estoril, Portugal, May 12 - 16, 2008). International Conference on Autonomous Agents. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Richland, SC, 55-62. Jakob, M., Hodik, J., Vokrinek J. Contract-centric Design of Cross-organisational e-Business Systems: A Case Study. In: Proceedings of the DIGIBIZ Workshop on Technological trends in Enterprise Systems for SMEs and large enterprises, London, UK. Springer, Heidelberg, 2009. Javier Vázquez-Salceda, Roberto Confalonieri, Ignasi Gomez, Patrick Storms, Nick Kuijpers, Sofia Panagiotidi and Sergio Alvarez. Modelling Contractually-Bounded Interactions in the Car Insurance Domain. Proceedings of the DIGIBIZ Workshop on Technological trends in Enterprise Systems for SMEs and large enterprises, London, UK. Springer, Heidelberg, 2009. Meneguzzi, Felipe and Miles, Simon and Luck, Michael and Holt, Camden and Smith, Malcolm and Oren, Nir and Faci, Nora and Modgil, Sanjay and Kollingbaum, Martin (2008) Electronic contracting in aircraft aftercare: A case study. In: Seventh International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.
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The project started on the 1st of September, 2006 and finished on July 31st 2009.
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European Commission Framework 6 IST Project
Scenarios 
