The research teams are also aiming to develop a basic semantic platform that will integrate a company’s internal planning of resources with management of the digital content of agile business processes. One specific scenario taken from the domain of mechanical engineering will demonstrate the requirements of an ontology based intra- and intererenterprise communication for solution and application retrieval in the Engineering domain. A prototypical demonstrator will illustrate the solution approach.

empolis is a software company specialised in knowledge management and information access technologies. Knowledge based technologies form the basis for empolis’ products. Starting from core Case-Based Reasoning technology, empolis has evolved its tools towards a semantic processing technology. It is a platform for the implementation of hybrid intelligent applications that can make use of a variety of AI technologies, including e.g., the CBR kernel, a rule engine, machine learning and user modelling techniques, to name a few. Today we offer a complete framework for setting up intelligent content management, knowledge management, retrieval and assistance systems. empolis is an arvato AG subsidiary, an international media service company and part of Bertelsmann AG. empolis employs 200 people in Germany and international divisions.

Erfolgreiche Produkte sind die Grundlage für jeden Unternehmenserfolg. Die Entwicklung wettbewerbsfähiger und innovativer Produkte und die Optimierung der notwendigen Produktentwicklungsprozesse sind daher die zentralen Themen des Lehrstuhls für Produktentwicklung der TU München. Ziel des Lehrstuhls ist die Entwicklung effektiver Methoden und Werkzeuge für die Produktentwicklung und der gezielte Wissenstransfer in die Unternehmen.

Jasmin Franz is Director of Research & Consulting at empolis GmbH, an arvato AG subsidiary (international media Service Company) and part of Bertelsmann AG.

Dr. Franz is responsible for the coordination and administration of all research activities at empolis. In this position she is also managing European and national research projects since many years such as VICTORY (FP6: Audio-VIsual ConTent search and retrieval in a distributed P2P repository), METOKIS (FP6: Methodology and Tools Infrastructure for the Creation of Knowledge Units), SEKT (FP6: Semantic Enabled Knowledge Technologies), INKASS (FP5: Intelligent Knowledge Asset Sharing and Trading), IPQ / ToolIP (Development of methodologies and procedures for IP Qualification) and CIKM (Search for a methodology to measure the interrelation between Knowledge Management and Innovative Performance).

In addition Dr. Franz is also actively involved in empolis’ Theseus activities (http://theseus-programm.de), a National German High-Tech-Initiative that is coordinated by empolis. She also cares for the technology transfer internally at empolis and externally through a variety of publications and presentations at national and international conferences and universities. Jasmin also acts as organizing member and session chair for semantic technology conferences, as author and evaluator for scientific journal articles and as co-author for the yearly Trend Report Knowledge Management published by Bitkom (Bundesverband Informationswirtschaft, Telekommunikation und neue Medien e.V.).

Jasmin Franz holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Würzburg in Germany where her studies concentrated on Linguistic Information Processing. She has many years of experience in the field of semantics, pragmatics, knowledge management, technical documentation and localization business. Her current focus lies in the areas of ontology based Knowledge Management and applied Semantic Web technology.

Herr Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Gaag studierte an der TU München zwischen 1998 und 2004 Maschinenbau mit den Vertiefungen Systematische Produktentwicklung und Informationstechnik. Seit 2004 ist er als wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Lehrstuhl für Produktentwicklung der TU München tätig. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen in der Weiterentwicklung funktionsorientierter Produktmodelle sowie der Nutzung neuer IT-Ansätze zum Wissensmanagement von Produktentwicklungsprozessen.

Dr. Jasmin Franz, empolis GmbH, (DE)

Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Gaag, TU Munich, (DE)