Automotive enterprises are becoming more customer-centric to meet today’s challenging market demands. Thus, mass customization adds industrial value to the enterprise in gaining competitive advantage. The automotive industry has furthermore become highly networked and requires improved communication on products and components in its B2B relations. In this context, CATER is tailored to bridge the gaps in existing ICT through an integrated system that caters to the needs of customers, manufacturers and suppliers. There are three major aspects of the proposal.

 

First, CATER is a design philosophy and showcases best practices of networked business. The goal of n-business is to achieve at mass customization over the Internet through coherently integrating manufacturing production automation with supply chain management and sales-service support into a collaborative web. A suite of innovative solutions for n-business will be developed in CATER.

 

Second, CATER introduces ICT innovations in various business processes. The innovations include: citarasa engineering, 3D do-it-yourself design system with virtual reality interface, teardown reconfiguration system, design history system, and integration of CATER databases within supply chain management.

 

Third, CATER demonstrates the need for a semantic driven system that ties together customers and designers. Customers are supported in their online customization of cars; their affective and cognitive needs are addressed to provide e-catalogues of design options. Designers, on the other hand, need to be supported in their design activities through teardown and design

history management systems so that they can provide reliable and timely solutions.

CATER generated semantics provide a common vocabulary and platform that connects and integrates designers, suppliers and related stakeholders within a supply chain management framework.