European project H-Know draws to a close with excellent results
The Manufacturing Systems Engineering Unit (UESP) attended the final evaluation meeting of Project H-Know – Advanced Infrastructure for Knowledge Based Services for Buildings Restoring on 31st January 2012 in Brussels. According to the evaluators, all project objectives were achieved successfully and the results demonstrate great potential.
H-Know (Heritage Knowledge) began on 1st January 2009 and ended on 31st December 2011. The project focused on construction rehabilitation, restoration and maintenance management (RRM). As part of the project, R&D was conducted in collaborative network management for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) and in learning and knowledge management.
The project created a platform to support and encourage collaboration between companies and technology and research centres. This platform integrates social networking functions with information and knowledge management functions.
INESC TEC led the design and development of the platform due to its experience in the design, evaluation and management of collaborative networks. The expertise gained from this project can be used in other projects, such as consultancy projects. Although the project was developed in the civil construction area, it could be applied to any type of innovation network, for example those driven by business associations or innovation centres.
One distinguishing factor of this project is that instead of just creating a prototype, it led to the creation of a (almost) final product that can be adapted to various types of networks. When asked about the success of the project, António Lucas Soares, the INESC TEC team leader states that he is “truly satisfied” to see “how the two industrial partners really strove to make the platform operational to establish collaborative networks in the short term.”
The first industrial partner is CAPEB (France), the association of trade unions for small construction companies in France. CAPEB is based in Paris and is studying the best way to use H-Know to create and manage its internal network of associate companies. TEICOS (Italy) is the second industrial partner and is involved in an Italian association for small construction companies (ASSIMPREDIL). TEICOS aims to use the platform to manage innovation projects in the association. In both cases, they requested support from INESC TEC to configure and implement the networks.
The INESC TEC project team included António Lucas Soares, Pedro Castanheira, Fábio Alves, Manuel Silva and Carla Pereira
