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Objectives



This project is a specific research action targeted at closing the gap between networked embedded systems technologies and their application in large-scale business processes and enterprise systems. The core objective is to develop a new approach to business processes that concern physical entities in enterprise environments (goods, tools etc). Our technical approach is based on Collaborative Business Items (short: CoBIs): these are physical entities in enterprise environments, with embedded sensing, computing and wireless short-range communication. Items have unique digital identity, embody sensors to monitor their state and environmental conditions, communicate peer-to-peer, collaborate in order to fulfill collective services (such as observation of conditions that no single Item could obtain independently), and interface backend systems to make their service integral with overarching business processes.

These Items bring closer together the state of an enterprise as represented in a business process with what is actually happening in the real world. Moreover, collectively these Items constitute a platform for directly handling processes at the "Point of Action": they facilitate business services that deal with problems and decisions where and when they arise. Many services that traditionally have been handled centrally in backend systems can be made more reliable, responsive, scalable and cost effective by directly embedding them with the concerned goods and tools. Moreover, entirely new services can be introduced to support critical processes that so far had to rely entirely on manual and error-prone procedures.

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