Governance
AI-Matters' governance structure
It keeps the same overall objectives as were defined in the DoA with enhanced practicality and efficiency. If changes are needed in the course of the project, procedures have been defined to enable them and this deliverable will be updated accordingly.
The governance structure of AI-MATTERS comprises the following bodies:
- The General Assembly (GA; referred to in the Consortium Agreement as a Programme Steering Committee)
- The Executive Board (EB)
- The National Co-Funding Committee (NCFC)
- The Advisory board (AB) under EB
- The Ethics Screening and Compliance Committee (ESCC) and Evaluation and Quality Assurance Committee (EQAC) under GA
- Committees dedicated to particular Work packages
General Assembly (GA): the highest body of the Consortium represented by all of the Consortium partners; rights and obligations of GA are defined in the Article 6 of the annexes (In the Consortium Agreement it is referred to as a Program Steering Committee).
As a paramount entity it shall appoint and approve key person in the governance structure as well as key documents of the Consortium. An important part of the agenda comprises feedbacks to the Executive Board regarding its activities, decisions and quality of the services as well as measures resulted from the Consortium evolution (Proposals for project changes).
Advisory Board Members
| Nº | Member name, surname | Suggested by | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
pierluigi.petrali@dihlombardia.com |
Italian Node (MADE) |
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2 |
marco.macchi@polimi.it |
Italian Node (MADE) |
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|
3 |
mobitko@ra.rockwell.com |
Czech Node (CTU) |
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|
4 |
jan.prochazka1@t-mobile.cz |
Czech Node (CTU) |
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|
5 |
jbilbatua@mondragoncorporation.com |
Spanish Node (Tecnalia) |
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|
6 |
francois.de-la-fontaine@safrangroup.com |
French Node (CEA) |
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|
7 |
lafaye@dawex.com |
French Node (CEA) |
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|
8 |
B.R.H.M.Haverkort@tilburguniversity.edu |
Dutch Node (BIC) |
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|
9 |
arne.raulf@dlr.de |
German Node (ARENA 2036) |
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|
10 |
niki.kousi@eitmanufacturing.eu |
Greek Satellite (LMS) |
Dr Niki KOUSI
Dr. Niki KOUSI (female) is serving as Managing Director of EIT Manufacturing South East, located in Athens, Greece and supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).
Previously, Dr. Kousi served as Project Manager and Coordinator in numerous industry-driven international projects focusing on development and implementation of manufacturing innovation / business strategies. This has been accomplished in cooperation with universities, industry, and research institutes and in the context of European R&D&I projects.
She has been leading teams of professional staff engaging a broad array of stakeholders in industrial innovation projects as well as private cooperation with industry. She holds a Mechanical and Aeronautics Engineer diploma and a Doctor of Philosophy focusing on cutting edge enabling technologies for flexible and hybrid manufacturing systems. She was Finalist of the Innovation Radar Prize (2019) organized by European Commission, under the category Woman Led Innovation.
Pierluigi PETRALI
Pierluigi Petrali works as Director of Digital Innovation Hub Lombardia, a non for profit association owned by Lombardy Industrial Associations. He’s currently member of Scientific Committee of World Manufacturing Foundation, member of Advisory Board of Osservatorio PMI Digitale of Politecnico Milan, Chairman of Advisory Board of EIT Manufacturing CLC South, member of Advisory Board of Horizon Europe project TRICK.
Before joining DIH Lombardia, he spent more than 30 years In Whirlpool EMEA, where, after a first experience in industrial automation as System and Network Manager and as Project Leader, dedicated himself to topics of innovation and Product-Process Design support, defining and using processes based on methodologies such as TRIZ, Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, Complexity Management, and contributing to the definition of the global process of New Product Introduction.
As responsible of Whirlpool EMEA Manufacturing Research and Development from 2006, he coordinated all the activities in industrial research comprising the participation to more than 20 European Funded Projects under FP7 and Horizon 2020 program on various topics such as Internet of Things, Technology Forecasting, Big Data, Edge Computing, Process Engineering, Cyber Physical System, Digital Platforms, Electro Magnetic Welding, Predictive Maintenance, Collaborative Robotics, and Zero Defect Manufacturing.
He’s author and co-author of 4 patents and 16 scientific paper and delivered speech in more than 30 national and international conferences. He’s also a TRIZ Certified Specialist (MATRIZ certificate 03/00161).
Laurent LAFAYE
French entrepreneur, co-CEO of Dawex, Laurent Lafaye has a recognized track record in the field of the data economy and regularly speaks to decision-makers about the creation of data ecosystems and the challenges of data circulation, from data trading to developing data hubs and data marketplaces.
Co-founded in 2015 by Laurent Lafaye and Fabrice Tocco, Dawex is the leader in Data Exchange solutions to distribute or share data products, with trust, for any business case, in compliance with data regulations.
Dawex technology enables organizations to create data ecosystems and data spaces to address economic, environmental and decarbonation challenges.
In 2020, Dawex was awarded Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, joined the Global Future Council on Data Policy and spoke at Davos in 2022 about creating trust in data exchanges. Dawex is also the initiator of an international standardization program on Trusted Data Transaction.
Joseba BILBATUA
Currently Joseba Bilbatua is responsible for Advanced Manufacturing research and Innovation projects at the headquarters of MONDRAGON Corporation. It’s experience spans over more than 25 years in the manufacturing and production industry. He gained an honour Degree of Science in Physics from the University of the Basque Country and a MSc. in Advanced Manufacturing Technologies from the Engineering School of Bilbao.
Joseba has been committed to relevant European manufacturing innovation activities and initiatives. Active member of the European Technology Platform MANUFUTURE, member of the partnership board of the European factories of the Future Research Association (EFFRA), and strongly involved in the preparation and submission of the finally winning proposal for EIT Manufacturing, being now the Partner Master Contact for MONDRAGON at the EIT-Manufacturing.
Joseba is one of the five Spanish delegates at the international committee for the Digital Product Passport standardization (CEN-CLC/JTC 24 DPP). He is also managing the AI Community created inside Mondragon Corporation in 2019, which gathers nowadays more than 25 industrial cooperatives from the Corporation interested in the application and development of AI.
François DE LA FONTAINE
François de la Fontaine has been Deputy Director of Manufacturing 4.0 at Safran since 2021. He began his career with the Group in 1987 at Snecma (now Safran Aircraft Engines).
In 2001 he was appointed Head of the Rotating Parts Machining Department. In 2007, he was appointed Head of Production and Site Management at Messier-Bugatti-Dowty’s Bidos site (now Safran Landing Systems).
In 2012, he became Vice-President, Strategy and Industrial Brands at Turbomeca (now Safran Helicopter Engines) in Bordes. In 2017, he laid the foundations for a Factory of the Future project for the Safran Group and a technology roadmap to support it.
François de la Fontaine, 62, is a graduate of ICAM – Icam, school of engineering in France and worldwide (class of 1986).
Marek OBITKO
Marek Obitko is Advanced Technology laboratory manager, in the Rockwell Automation R&D Centre in Prague, Czech Republic.
After getting Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence with the thesis focusing on industrial applications of ontologies, he continued as a research scientist exploring knowledge representation technologies in industrial automation.
He then used the opportunity to build and run R&D teams in the areas such as security, collaborative engineering, or information and edge applications platform. Currently he is building AT lab as a part of corporate-level research organization.
He acts as the coordinator of the collaboration with CIIRC at Czech Technical University, focusing on the usage of semantics in Industry 4.0. He is the co-author of 6 granted patents and over 40 published research papers and was serving a referee for various conferences and journals.
Arne RAULF
Arne Raulf heads the Department of Algorithms and Hybrid Solutions at the Institute for AI Safety and Security at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
The DLR Institute focuses on safety and security of AI and its use in safety-critical applications such as aviation, space, energy and transportation. In addition, Arne Raulf is co-lead in the tech area Industrial AI & Data Science at the Arena2036.
Arne studied Bio-Physics/Bio and Neuroinformatics and worked as a Post-Doc at a large institute of the Ruhr-University Bochum. For the challenging task of department head at DLR, Arne turned down calls for professorships.
He is particularly motivated by the opportunity to bring AI to such critical application areas and transformative environments in research and business.
Marco MACCHI
Marco Macchi is Full Professor at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano.
His teaching and research activities regard industrial technologies, asset lifecycle management, operations and maintenance management, smart manufacturing.
Serving the scientific community, he is currently the Chair of the technical committee IFAC TC 5.1 Manufacturing Plant Control; he is Member of the IFIP WG 5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems; he is co-leader of the Special Interest Group (SIG) on “Product and Asset Lifecycle Management” at the IFIP TC5 WG 5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems; he is a fellow of the International Society of Engineering Asset Management (ISEAM).
Concerning his role in scientific journals, he is Member of the International Editorial Board of Production Planning & Control: the Management of Operations, and of Reliability Engineering & System Safety, and he is Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing.
He is author/coauthor of more than 250 publications, as books, contributions to books, journal articles, articles as part of conference proceedings.
Jan PROCHAZKA
Jan Procházka works as Industry 4.0 Tribe Technical Lead at T-Mobile Czech Republic a.s. were he focuses on building of an ecosystem of services around 5G private campus networks.
Since 2003, he has been working on the digitalization and automation of industry.
In the years 2004–2010, he studied theoretical computer science, focusing on artificial intelligence, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms and robotics at Charles University in Prague.
He is a Certified LabVIEW Architect (CLA) since 2016.
Boudewijn HAVERKORT
Boudewijn Haverkort (MSc 1986, PhD 1991, University of Twente) is a professor in computer science and academic administrator, having worked for almost 35 years in technical applications of computer science, at several (technical) universities.
He has published over 200 papers on his work and guided 30+ students towards their PhD. He served as scientific director of the public-private Embedded Systems Institute in Eindhoven (2009-2013), and was appointed Dean at the Tilburg University in 2019.
As of October 2024, he will be Dean at the University of Twente, for the School of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. Topics he has worked on include performance and reliability modelling and analysis of computer and communication systems, internet technology, cyber-physical systems, smart industry and smart energy systems, big data and applications.
In 2023 he received the jean-Claude Laprie Award for seminal work “in applying the theoretical formulation of model checking in engineering practice to design and evaluate dependable and mission-critical systems”. He was elected an IEEE Fellow in 2007.
Alexis PIGEON
Alexis Pigeon has over 20 years of industrial and engineering experience, primarily in the automotive sector, specializing in process innovation, digitalization, and industrial strategy. Currently, he works as Platform Industrial Director at Valeo, focusing on HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air-Conditioning) systems, overseeing 20 global production sites and managing a team of engineers. His key responsibilities include developing industrial strategies, managing CAPEX, and driving digitalization efforts.
Previously, he held positions such as Industrial Digitalisation Director, where he led initiatives to improve manufacturing efficiency through digital tools and process automation. Alexis also played a significant role in the French government’s “10K ventilator project” during the COVID-19 pandemic, coordinating with major industry players to produce ventilators rapidly.
Earlier in his career, he worked at PSA Group for nearly 16 years, contributing to innovation in automation and robotics, particularly in smart factories and Industry 4.0 technologies. Alexis has a proven track record in leading projects that enhance manufacturing efficiency, reduce costs, and integrate cutting-edge technologies into production processes.
