An ICT Platform for the Vertical and Horizontal Integration of Information in Large Utilities Plants

One of the main limits of the current technology for the management of large plant is the lack of Vertical and/or Horizontal Integration of Information. Vertical integration refers to the need to integrate systems implemented at different administrative level of an organisation. Horizontal integration allows the user of large plant to execute very complex transformations on data coming from several real applications, also of different types. The Mobicossum project, IST 1999-57455, is a CRAFT project which aims to realise both Vertical and Horizontal Integrations, providing for a set of high level services useful for the management of large plant. This goal has been realised through the definition of a Middleware between user (including mobile workers using mobile devices) and lower level applications.