Picture of Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIGOn December 4, 2001, CO-LaN called a General Assembly meeting. Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIG as representative of IFP, holding the position of President of CO-LaN, chaired the meeting and delivered a report (PDF, 1890 Kbytes) on the non-technical activities of the organization since it was founded.

Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIG begins by listing the seventeen founding Members and mentions that four new Members have joined CO-LaN since the constitutive meeting. Bertrand points out that all due diligences with respect to the French administrative services have been carried out.

Then he gives details on the inner workings of the CO-LaN Board of Directors and its Executive Board. He lists next the service contracts signed by CO-LaN including a major one with Aspentech.

Elections to CO-LaN Board of Directors take place for the different member groups defined by the current bylaws. The nine positions available are all filled. Regarding the Executive Board (President, Treasurer, Secretary) positions, IFP retains the presidency, represented by Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIG. Treasurer and Secretary will be designated by the Board of Directors.

Bertrand informs the members that a new website for CO-LaN is up and running, delivered by the Global CAPE-OPEN Support project. The project also serves to organize CAPE-OPEN Tour Days, to publish the CAPE-OPEN Update newsletter (its 1st edition was issued on Oct 1, 2001 and sent to 1400 recipients).

Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIG concludes his presentation by listing the activities planned for CO-LaN in 2002, as per the missions devoted to the organization.

Picture of Michel PONSMichel PONS, representative of TotalFinaElf, then delivers a technical report (PDF, 3521 Kbytes) on CO-LaN activities in 2001. These are divided into website development, CAPE-OPEN Tester Suite and Special Interest Groups. Michel PONS provides details on the public and private sections of the new website, pointing out the existence of the BSCW collaborative tool and of bulletin boards. He also outlines the development plan for the website in 2002.

The CAPE-OPEN Tester Suite is then described, making first a note that the UNIT and Thermo Tester elements have been developed as parts of the Global CAPE-OPEN project. For additional testers, the development work needs to be subcontracted. Requests for bids have been issued for a COSE Unit and Thermo Tester, for a PPDB plug tester, for a SMST plug tester and for a MINLP plug tester. Adduce GmbH, ProSim SA and UPC have been awarded the development contracts.

Among the upcoming developments, a number of new testers are envisioned and prioritization on these is needed.

Regarding Special Interest Groups, none was created in 2001, all knowledgeable and experienced people being still busy with Global CAPE-OPEN work. Michel PONS then discusses the situation of the Unit Operation, Thermodynamic and Physical Properties, Numerical interfaces before listing the possible tasks and organizations involved for Special Interest Groups supporting each of these interface specifications.

Michel PONS, as representative of the organization (TotalFinaElf) assuming the role of Treasurer of CO-LaN, gives a report (PDF, 1223 Kbytes) on the 2001 budget and on the proposed 2002 budget. CO-LaN received 104 K€ in member fees as well as subsidies from the Global CAPE-OPEN project for various developments. 17 K€ were spent on the CAPE-OPEN Tester Suite development. The core part of the 2002 expenses will be further development of the CAPE-OPEN Tester Suite while the revenues from member fees are expected to remain in the same range.

Picture of Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIGThen Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIG presents (PDF, 2508 Kbytes) on the discussions held with Aspentech which took position against the Master Plan of CO-LaN as developed within the Global CAPE-OPEN project. CO-LaN Board of Directors has proposed several changes to CO-LaN bylaws to address Aspentech‘s concerns and Bertrand describes them in detail.

In particular, the organization of Special Interest Groups, their creation, scope and termination is adapted to meet the points raised by Aspentech in their CAPE-S™ proposal which is in direct concurrence with CO-LaN and CAPE-OPEN.