Due to its origin focused on the office automation IT technologies and concepts do not currently reach the industrial standards in areas such as security, wireless and real-time.
To keep Europe’s dominant market position for automation systems, the Integrated R&D-Project “Virtual Automation Networks” - which is funded by the European Union - has to cope with the technical challenges and it has to avoid dependencies from the mostly non European producers of the relevant IT technologies.
Correspondingly, the objective of VAN is to adopt, modify and extend common office communication/IT solutions according to the above mentioned standards - aiming at real knowledge-based, intelligent, agile manufacturing enterprises.
This implies new dimensions in the horizontal and vertical integration between office and industrial automation domains, focused on a new dimension of a uniform networking of production and manufacturing processes.