ICARE

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ISO9000 On-Demand Consulting And Remote Electronic-training for SMEs in urban & rural areas

Project Description

ICARE 9000 - ISO 9000 On-demand Consulting And Remote Electronic training for SMEs in urban & rural areas (UR1016) - was an advanced prototype implementation and test in order to provide an innovative approach for ISO 9000 certification using remote training & consulting supported by multimedia tools.

Setting the Scene

A few years ago, studies undertaken by the EC led to the result that European SMEs could hardy compete at an international level and satisfy the quality standards of IS0.
Additionally, companies located in urban & rural areas were disadvantaged by limited time, human and financial resources in order to overcome distances to training & consulting centres necessary to support the ISO certification processes.
On the other hand, the Bangemann Report underlined the importance of telecommunication networks for the European economy and the society of tomorrow.
Therefore, ICARE 9000 wanted to provide an innovative approach based on remote training & on-demand consulting using multimedia tools within the ISO 9000 certification process of SMEs in order to achieve enhanced international competitiveness, increased flexibility, advanced
communication facilities and a synergy between technology and expertise providers, and training centres and SMEs.

Approach

The consortium consisted of 8 partners, comprising 5 training centres, 2 telematic technology provider, and 1 training centre /technology provider.
24 SMEs were associated to the 6 training centres to evaluate the resulting prototype developed on SME's & trainer's needs.

The approach taken to realise the ICARE 9000 platform followed the five-phase model recommended by the EC.

Requirements: Based on interviews with SMEs the user requirements for remote training & consulting in ISO 9000 was analysed.
Specification: Based on results of the analysis, a specification of the necessary prototype components and a corresponding integration schedule were pre-pared.
Integration: An ISDN network had been installed to establish an efficient communication network. Based on a market analysis the main components of the specified prototype were selected, adapted, integrated and installed at 8 partners and 24 user's places.
Validation: All partners provided permanent user support and training to the user groups during the whole project, and arisen problems influenced prototype revisions. Various evaluation sheets had been designed and filled in by all users and consultants in order to achieve quantitative results on the acceptance and the validation of the demonstrator's components.
Exploitation:
The consortium discussed and revised their previous exploitation plans based on the final prototype and components available.
They exploit the ICARE 9000 results according to their business segments.
Dissemination and Demonstration materials were developed and distributed on various general business events and conferences.

Results and Achievements

The concrete prototype is based on a clients / server model. For its availability, the clients are PC, Windows 95/97, Internet and ISDN based and comprise 3 main components: a user interface for an user friendly access to all ICARE 9000 services partitioned according to the service areas, a desktop multimedia conferencing (DMC) system for innovative, efficient communication and advanced services using ISDN, a multimedia mail tool, adapted to the established Netscape and DMC tools for efficiently sending, receiving and reusing of multimedia information. These tools were frequently used in the day to day business and training by/ of partners and SMEs. The training material and quality management tool, called NICODEMUS and provided by ATTEXOR, had been installed in the national languages of the users but refused to be useful. The server comprises further 2 main prototype components, which are a booking system for reserving training & consulting sessions, and a multimedia database for comprehensive ISO 9000 relevant information presented in various media accessible via the Internet.
Learning objectives and new items to be accessed by SMEs permanently extended the database.
The DMC tool is compliant to the H.320 standards and based on the TELES.Family patent. The server implementation guarantees the requirements for security and information privacy by using SSL browser, SSL protocols, and PERL scripts.
The prototype is based on the ICARE 9000 pedagogical methodology which structures according to the various stages of ISO 9000 certification, individual company's diagnosis, and individual training plans based on learning objectives. The GENELEC tool had been extended and used for managing the individual training plans.

Conclusions and Plans for the Future

The validation demonstrated the acceptance of all ICARE 9000 prototype components except the training material and document management tool. The training content would be an essential part of a commercial ICARE 9000 product and service. On the other hand, teleworking gets increased influence in European societies with benefits for various types of organisations and individuals. Underlined by the acceptance of technological components of the prototype supporting the teletraining, consulting, communication and work, the consortium decided to exploit and adapt the scaleable components according to their business segments and opportunities.
Some partners already established further collaborations; one partner replaced the training material by a national high quality product and established a product based on the ICARE 9000 prototype.

Timescale:
(Begin) 01.01.96 - 31.12.97 - 31.03.98 (END)

Keywords:
ISO 900 remote-training, -working, -consulting, desktop multimedia, conferencing, ISDN, Internet, multimedia database, multimedia mail, pedagogical method.

Major Validation sites

Institution/Organisation	City/Town + Postal code	Region	Country
TELES GmbH	10587 Berlin	DE3	DE
Aktiengesellschaft f�r Prozesssteurungs u. Informationssystem	10587 Berlin	DE3	DE
RWTH-Aachen - Lehrstuhl f�r Informatik IV	52056 Aachen	DE3	DE
AGESFAL,Assesores de Gestao e Formacao Empresarial Lda	2765 Estoril	PT13	PT
CRITERION	Limerick	IE003	IE
TECNOPOLIS CSATA Novus Ortus S.c.r.l.	70010 Valenzano	IT93	IT
UFCM, Soci�t� Europ�enne de Formation S.A.	06150 Cannes la Bocca	FR82	FR
De Stichting Praktikcentrum Informaticaopleiding Leeuwaarden-Telematica AdviesCentrum	8921 ET Leeuwaarden	NL22	NL

Other Characteristics of the Project

Users involved
Two types of user are considered in ICARE: the training centres and the SMEs in urban and rural areas

Technologies and/or approach used
The services used will be based on user requirements. New training and consulting methods based on videoconferencing, and Multimedia mail may be used. Modern communication tools combined with the outcome of European R&D programs in telematics applications will be evaluated and applied.

Expected benefits for the citizen

re-enforcing development of emplyment in the Community
contributing to the strengthening of the social cohesion of the Community
improving the quality of life of citizens

Expected benefits for the users of the application

Enables SMEs, particulary in the urban & rural areas, to become more competitive at an international level
Demonstrates, and focuses on, the innovative use of multimedia telematics to increase the user’ s awareness of telematics tools for business.
Demonstrates clear results in terms of quality improvement: it is expected that all the SMEs involved as users will be ISO9000 certified at the end of the project

Expected benefits for the European Industries

contributes to the strengthening of the economic cohesion of the Community
re-enforces competitiveness and development of employment in the Community

Contribution to EU-policies

The ICARE project is in full accordance with the contents of the Information Society Initiative, and addresses clearly the needs of information services of European SME’s aiming to improve their competitiveness rhorough telematics. ICARE focuses on a specific set of telematics service in the areas of tele-training and tele-consulting which do not exist at the European level.

Coordinator

Institution/Organisation	TELES GmbH
Person	Dr. Birgitt HEINZ
Address	Dovestrasse 2-4 D
City + Postal code	10587 Berlin
Region	DE3
Country	DE
Tel/Fax:	+49 30 399 28 241/+ 49 30 399 28 01
E-mail 1 & 2:	Heinz@teles.de/hescola@teles.de

Other Contractors

Institution/Organisation	City/Town + Postal code	Region	Country
Aktiengesellschaft f�r Prozesssteurungs u. Informationssystem	10707 Berlin	DE3	DE
RWTH-Aachen - Lehrstuhl f�r Informatik IV	52056 Aachen	DE3	DE
AGESFAL,Assesores de Gestao e Formacao Empresarial Lda	2765 Estoril	PT13	PT
CRITERION Centre for R&D into Human Resource Strategies for Adaptation	Limerick	IE003	IE
TECNOPOLIS CSATA Novus Ortus S.c.r.l.	70010 Valenzano	IT93	IT
UFCM, Soci�t� Europ�enne de Formation S.A.	06150 Cannes la Bocca	FR82	FR
De Stichting Praktikcentrum Informaticaopleiding Leeuwaarden-Telematica AdviesCentrum	8921 ET Leeuwaarden	NL22	NL

Other Relevant Information

The project started on January 1st 1996 and the final stage will be reached on:

December 31st 1997
1st Annual Review Report September 1996
2nd Annual Review Report September 1997
associated web-sites: http://icare.csata.it/icare & http://www.teles.de & http://ocean.tno.it/icare

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