On March 8, 2007, within the CAPE-OPEN 2007 Annual Meeting, CO-LaN held its Annual General Meeting.
DOW (represented by Werner MERK) and IFP (represented by Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIG) delivered the reports. They emphasized that 29 members out of 60 attended the meeting which is a all-time high. A few organizations which were not members (but some would become) were also present.
Activities in 2006
Membership is now 60 members strong, representing a progress of seven members since the previous Annual General Meeting held in Cannes. The Management Board congratulated the Thermo SIG for releasing the Thermodynamic and Physical Properties interface specification in version 1.1. It was also noted that the Methods & Tools SIG released .NET Guidelines which can be easily used as a basis for a dedicated training session. The resources to advance COLTT (CAPE-OPEN Logging and Testing Tool) have been given to the Interoperability SIG leading to the release of the first version of COLTT during the CAPE-OPEN 2007 Annual Meeting. A Refinery Reactors SIG has been launched with first demo to be made during the CAPE-OPEN 2007 Annual Meeting.
Contracts have been awarded to Michel Pons Technologie for its role as CO-LaN’s Chief Technology Officer and to SHMA Ltd for undertaking the development of COLTT. The consultancy contract with Aspentech is still on-going and dedicated to making the Visual Basic Unit Operation Wizard fully compliant with version 1.0 of the CAPE-OPEN standard. CO-LaN is grateful to all the Associate Members who have made available licenses of their software products in order for CO-LaN to conduct interoperability tests.
Management Board pointed to a statement made by BP which is telling much about daily usage of CAPE-OPEN technology. An article in a technical journal in the Netherlands also described usage of CAPE-OPEN within industrial companies.
A number of dissemination actions took place in 2006. Apart from visiting a number of member prospects, one of the most notable events was the 3rd CAPE-OPEN US Conference, held within the AIChE 2006 Annual Meeting. It was very well attended and rated as the most important topical conference within the entire AIChE meeting. Four sessions were organized with their full load of papers. A similar event is already scheduled for the AIChE 2007 Annual Meeting.
The CO-LaN website is now completely operational with the development of a members area where SIG activities are reported. No less than 24 news posts were made in 2006.The need for a collaborative tool is felt and a solution provided by US EPA is currently tested.
On training, it is worth noting the course given at AIChE 2006 Annual Meeting by ProSim SA with 10 participants and the one on .NET given on March 7 with 20 participants.
Approval of status report for 2006 by all Full Members present or represented.
Financial report for 2006
The report given by Bertrand BRAUNSCHWEIG showed a deficit around 10 K€ which was in accordance with the strategy defined earlier. CO-LaN has large accumulated funds which need to be put to work for maintaining and developing CAPE-OPEN.
Approval of financial report for 2006 by all Full Members present or represented.
Budget and activity proposal for 2007
The plan calls for a deficit of 25 K€ in 2007 with increased expenses related to COLTT development.
Approval of budget for 2007 by all Full Members present or represented.
Election to Management Board
Shell, represented by Ray DICKINSON, was elected as President. TOTAL, represented by Francis LUCK, was elected as Treasurer. BP, represented by Peter BANKS, was elected as Secretary. IFP, DOW and BASF were elected as Members of the Management Board.