h1. ISTA3 Project

*ISTA3*: 3rd generation Interoperability for Aeronautics Sub-contracTors

ISTA3 has been initialized by the *Pôle Grand-Sud-Ouest (PGSO)*, one of the funding research pole of the Virtual international Laboratory for corporate interoperability (Laboratoire international Virtuel pour l’Interopérabilité d’Entreprise INTEROP-VLab (www.interop-vlab.eu)), and the project takes benefit of the skills acquired by partners in European projects INTEROP and ATHENA.

Most of ISTA3 partners are located in Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées, but also in Pays de Loire and Nord-Pas de Calais regions. The project has been labeled by the Aerospace Valley Pole (Aeronautics, Space, Onboard systems) in Aquitaine/Midi-Pyrénées and received support of the alliance of the 3 aerospace clusters: Astech (Paris Aerospace cluster) and Pegase (PACA Aerospace cluster).

It has also been labeled by EMC2 pole (Metallic assembly and complex composites) in Pays de la Loire region, for an additional module.

The project has been elected by the 6th FUI (Fonds Uniques Interministériels - Unique interministerial funds-) from Central Direction of Competitiveness, Industry and Services (DGCIS) of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry, and the approval of funding associates regional agencies (regional council, chamber of commerce and industry...).


It is handled by a consortium, constituted of 13 partners: aerospace industry, research and development centers (private laboratories and universities), training organization, IT companies. GFI group handles the project.

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h3. General Information

In Aerospace industry, the strategy of the main aircraft manufacturers is to outsource more and more sub-assemblies. Thus, level 2 Subcontractors (STR2) develop more complex relationships and high value-added with level 1 sub-contractors (STR1) and their subcontractors (STR3 and following ranks STRN). These relationships, as part of the design and manufacture of composite parts, use different methods of work and are handled through various tools for Design, PLM, Technical Data Management, Production Management.... These tools must be interoperable in a flexible and economical way (fast adaptation to new cooperation ...).
In this context, the Interoperability for Enterprise Software and Applications (IESA) becomes a major issue.

ISTA3 is a research-oriented project, which means it uses research results, which target is to produce prototypes; industrially tested, for which one or several companies showed some interest to obtain a competitive advantage. It is integrating the best of current research in Enterprise Interoperability: EM/ BPM (Enterprise Modeling / Business Process Modeling), Performance Evaluation, MDI (Model-Driven Interoperability), SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture ) Ontology.


h3. Main targets

ISTA3 Project has several objectives, from different points of view:

* To develop innovative solutions, try them and evaluate their industrial added value to combat potential threats to the subcontractors;

h3. Positioning

We analyzed the most recent research projects related to Enterprise Interoperability (EI): VIVACE, BOOSTAERO, SEINE, ASICOM, EPICE, INTEROP, ATHENA, European Commission FP7 and recently BOOSTAERO SPACE.

It has to be noticed that most of members of ISTA3 Project are participating or have participated to these projects. Furthermore, EBM Websourcing has been selected by AFNET to implement the SEINE reference platform.

|| Project || Contributions for ISTA3 || Contributions from ISTA3 ||

* Standard format for exchanged data and payload
* Specification of meta-data exchanged between partners and the SEINE platform | ISTA3 results used by SEINE :

| BOOSTAERO SPACE | Needs of aerospace subcontractors, from an international point of view | Results of ISTA3 (connectors, ICU, methods, services) helping the connection of applications on the BOOSTAERO SPACE Hub, developed from the SEINE platform |


h3. Detailed description

In a first phase, the ISTA3 Project complete the work and contributes to the implementation of the SEINE platform (Standards for Business Innovative Digital Scope), developed under the GIFAS (Industry Manufacturers Association for Aeronautics and Space) by AFNET (Association francophone NET). This contribution is to develop connectors for connecting the aerospace sub-contractors to the SEINE platform for the design and manufacture of composite materials.

*IMAGE 1*

An academic and professional training program accompanies the production of the results.

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In the third phase, ISTA3 studies the possibilities to transfer the results to other aerospace domains, such as wiring and logistics.
* A different industrial sector: the wiring. It only needs to analyze the specifications of this domain in interoperability and assess changes to the key results of Phase 2 (interoperability between software tools for design, definition of a different ontology ...)
* Another industrial domain during product life cycle: the logistics. Interoperability has been resolved in this sector within a framework of standardization (see the work of BoostAero). We propose to evaluate the contributions of the third-generation interoperability, the value added according to existing solutions in this area.