Schedules and Milestones

One year after the start of each of the theoretical tasks (T-1,...,T-5) reports will be available with a state of the art and a detailed description of the theoretical results which one expects to obtain during the project. Task formulations will be adjusted where necessary (research plans are never fully predictable). Though the teamleaders know each other, exchange of Postdocs is an important way of implementing the cooperation during the course of the project. In its wake, a number of Ph.D. theses will be prepared.

For the applications, contacts will be established with SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français) about the problem of production of time tables. Preliminary results obtained in the Netherlands will be useful in this perspective. Other contacts exist with a manufacturer of jet engines. Contacts with Railned, a subsidiary of the Dutch Railways and responsible for the infrastructure of the railway network (capacity, safety), and with the NMBS (Belgian Railway Company) will be intensified. The implementation of DES to a real-life French flexible manufacturing system will be reconsidered. During the first year after the start of the application tasks (A-1,...,A-3) the proposers will visit plants, some of which have just been mentioned, in which it is likely that the theory of DES will be of benefit. After this first year, it should be clear which applications offer most expectations for a successful implementation of theory and software.

With respect to software (the tasks S-1, S-2), the scope of the existing packages will be evaluated, the possibility of integration will be considered. Missing functionalities will be identified and an evaluation of the task to supply them will be done. This is mainly S-1 and this task will be finished within a year after its start. Half a year later the specifications of the planned software tools should have been written down. At the end of the project the package meeting the specifications should be available for academic researchers and for commercial developers.

During the project, the partners of each task will meet at least once every half year. The young researchers will visit the other partners for some period of time. All partners will meet once a year (such meetings can be combined with one or more of the task meetings).