 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to our industry innovation days, which are part of the cost action to on four or two on quantifying the value of structure health monitoring. I'm extremely happy that we have been organizing this event. And I'm extremely happy about the support by a head of SOSA, and I would also like to especially welcome Antonio SOSA as an executive of the BWISAP. So we are most, most of us are physically here, but there's also one guest to be introduced also later, Jorgen Kühler, who you may have just heard, saying hello. This is Jorgen Kühler joining via Skype. But later something more. We will be working through today the case studies, but after the welcome, after the introduction of the cost action, after some words, all the case studies, which role they are playing, then we have the individual case study presentations. We will have a panel discussion afterwards, and they once then concluded with a networking dinner for which you are all welcome, and we can continue our discussions then more informally. Later, we will have a standardization perspective where we are introducing our activities, and maybe they should be complemented with something more. We will try to explore it on day two, and the last part of day two relates only to our cost action, two, one, four, or two, where we are working on integrating the input, which we have collected from these two days directly to our activities. So this was a short overview. Again, welcome. And I would like now to give the words to Antonio Souza, executive board member of Prisa, and we are extremely happy that you joined. Thank you. This was created in 1972. It's one of the oldest concessionaries in Europe, in line with other concessionaries in Italy, France, and Spain. And in fact, we have a very good footprint. We managed six concessions, spread by 19 motorways, about 1,600 kilometers. And it means more or less 40% of the network in Portugal. But in terms of toll revenues, we have a market share of 15%. Our network is, as we said, the backbone of the system in Portugal. We are from the north to the south. And we run this concession, the main concession for 45 years. So the shareholders are a very old Portuguese group, family group with roots in industry and with business in health care and chemicals. And the second partner is a fund that you may know, ARCS. Our figures are very good. We are, in fact, the bigger operator in Portugal, slightly above Anna. Anna is the airport's operator. We grew 6% this year. So we are in a good way. It's like this. We run everything in this concession, except in auto straddles of the Atlantic that we only do road assistance and maintenance of the equipments. For the other five, we do a complete operation. These secondary companies provide services to the concessionaires. And I will talk briefly about bridge operation and bridge infrastructure on the infrastructure. In fact, they are responsible for operation and maintenance. We have this separate in two companies. The operations company is centralized at the operational coordination center. It's a big structure that we developed by our own technology. And we centralized everything about operations in this building. It's very, very impressive. The other company that matters for today is bridge management of infrastructure. It's a BGI. So this is the figure that the company runs. And we have, as you can see, more than 2,500 structures, 1,300 entrances, and every other equipments. We have a complete program of monitoring for everything that matters in the highways. And I don't borrow this. And our ambition today is to create a real asset management system where we are now concluding the design phases. And by the end of the year, we start with implementation of this system with a complete catalog of the assets. With an integrated vision, we have some management systems for structures, for bridges, for pavements, but they are independent. They don't talk with each other. It's not good for a very healthy management. So we need an integrated vision for the assets. We need to implement an effective risk management. And we have now defined the risk metrics. And we have digitized everything. So we have to have digital monitoring for this process for achieve the goal. The idea is reinforce a culture of maintenance. It's very important. Until 2012, our company invested 300 million euros per year. New projects, new designs, new bridges, new motorways. It's a I used to joke with my engineers saying that it was a time of open bar. For the engineers, it's really a good thing to build new bridges and new motorways. But after that, we spend about 50, 60 million euros per year in maintenance, in repairs, in windings, in maintenance. And it's very important to change the culture for this. So for the digital monitoring, we are now with the big project with Dr. Alder Sosa. It's a case study of this cost action. For the Razia Bridge, the Razia Bridge is one of our longest bridge. And what we pretend is to change the vision of the maintenance of the bridge until the end of the concession. How this social health monitoring of this bridge can help us to define a new maintenance policy. Thank you. And I hope you enjoyed the conference and the city. Thank you very much. So thank you very much for being here. I know these people from the sector born in their full agenda. So it's a pleasure to have you here. And I think it was very valuable to see, which I think is the scope of this small workshop, mainly bringing these decision making people with their concerns, their priorities to share with this community, so our researchers. So we can bring some bridges in terms of that. So in this context, as Sebastian said in the beginning, under the scope of this cost action, what if I had to manage me, we came up with a concept, we call it industry innovation base, which is being organized and lead by myself, Jochen Kahnler, that is online, I think. Maria Pina, which is here. Sebastian Thons, which is the share of the action, and Wim Gauage is also here. So we are trying to figure out a little bit how we could have a small strategy here to better communicate with these decision makers. So what I will present briefly is the concept to this project. And I hope that this might be something that triggers you from the industry side to better engage with us, because I also believe that today and tomorrow, the teachers, the lecturers for this workshop are not we, it's you, these decision makers that should share with us what you want from this cost action, or how this cost action could help you, as Antonia Sosa said. For example, to have a better maintenance, better strategies to get higher efficiency levels in terms of better, I would say. So basically, very briefly, I will outline the objective, the concept, and then what it contains in terms of these industry-vision days. So the bottom line, okay, this is a nice bridge, which in fact is the Zerib bridge, in the Christianity from Rizzo, just to illustrate that this is a big structure, so there are issues about maintenance, about repairs, or whatever. So, and then we have a lot of information, I will show you also for this bridge about, we have a finite element model, for example, for this bridge, very fine, a lot of information, either from the medical analysis side, as also from the monitoring side. All this structure for this specific case, it's, I would say, a very comprehensive case study, perhaps not yet in this issue of the value information level, but in terms of available information, there is a lot of information available about the structure, about monitoring system, materials, loading, whatever. So, at the end, while I'm just showing this small video, there is a lot of work done in this structure. This is a finite element model that was developed in the software, so a very fine model, everything was included to a point that even we simulate the construction sequence since the first pile until the end of the operational lifetime, and so the question now is here about, well, we have all of this, all this information, so comprehensive database, the issue is, how we get some benefit, not for the researchers, because for researchers, I can say that I have already published eight and papers just due to this bridge, which I'm very happy from the Academy point of view, but from the industry point of view, we, I think, we not yet get this benefit to save some costs, yes? So, the idea is that perhaps we have all this information that we have, and we can see very briefly here in terms of monitoring, show the three main phases, as I said, is a very comprehensive case where we have data since the early stage of the construction, we can see results from the finite element model, results from the monitoring side, things gets quite well in terms of the accordance between both, and so the issue is, how can I now transfer all this knowledge to the owner? How I can use this in terms, what do we use? What, at the end of the day, I think, is to have a decision at the end of the year, the amount of the budget that these people sign in the checks on the next zero, the next five years, so I think we need to go in that direction, and in that context, these industry innovation days, and in the construction, we've been working with the experts on the value of information setting up a framework that is able, in certain way, to answer these questions, mainly in the perspective of what is the benefit in terms of costs? So, a lot of information is included in this framework, I will not take too much in details, not to propose this presentation, but you can see that we have information about the knowledge, about the decision context, information about the assets, so in this case, as an example, I used a two-zero bridge, what are the objectives, in this case, minimize costs, or maximizing capitalized tools? We have some inputs in the monitoring, we may have some indicators that we need to select properly to optimize this value of information, and of course, from a decision point of view, also, what are the remedial actions if something is needed to do, in terms of maintenance repair? So, this is a framework that aims, at the end of the day, give to the owners a plan that tells you, based on all this information, how to do a better approach for that asset management structure. So, in this context, we know all of these, but mainly, the objective of industry innovation days is to improve the decision basis, okay? And mainly pushing all these discussion about the value of information for the more, as I say, more cost-efficient and reliable and safe strategies from decision-maker point of view, okay? So, all of this work, we are trying to show this in these industry innovation days, is not from the research point of view, but mainly from the decision point of view, okay? So, the audience that we are aiming to attend is the industry. So, and the idea is that, in fact, we need to jump, yeah? So, it's a very brief craft. So, there is a lot of work in academia, and we know that there are some spin-off startups that do a lot of monitoring, new sensors, new systems, but in fact, we need to push this value to the society now, when in fact, we can, let's say, give a payback to these decision-makers that they want or they wish to invest better, and so we, as experts, should at least try to help them to do better decisions by improving mainly the level of technology that is being applied in this framework. So, we are aiming that with these case studies that we have in this construction, of course, each one has their own specificities, the degree of maturity, but the objective is that we reach to this level that we may have some system prototypes effectively demonstrated in the field, like a product in terms of, okay, we are giving evidence that these case studies that we are discussing here that were selected based on the good knowledge that they can offer, that in fact, we have a level that a maturity level that gives confidence to the decision-makers to use them, to invest. So, when they decide the budget, perhaps we can have a small budget to invest. This is the main concept. So, and all this should be done. So, basically, we decided last year on the meeting so that we should have a dedicated workshop for decision-makers, which is taking place today and tomorrow. This was the first step, which I hope, honestly, that you take the most benefit of it by presenting these case studies and we are looking forward for questions and ideas, and also some special sessions in suitable conference, not so in the part of very specific research with more generic conference, where we, these decision-makers, normally you like to go to see what is the latest cutting-edge technologies in this field of management. So, in this, we are hanging at the end of these industrial days, composed by these two events, that we may be able to, to a step forward and translate these, of other, they say, gem, terminology, which is quite sometimes complex and dense in terms of the technique itself to something more practical decision-making for your side in the industry. So, in the workshop, which we are taking place now, our objective is that, mainly, getting your feedback, what is your expectations, your experience, even your frustrations in user monitoring products, it's good to know what is something that went bad, good, whatever. And this also would be served as a step forward to reach to the end of this construction, saying that, okay, we have these, what these case studies that we are trying to explore the volume of information on sort of monitoring, but with these workshop and these sessions, we can also say that this was also discussed with the real world in terms, we approached the decision-makers, we present these, and we got them impression, their feedback that they feel, and we, as far as it's possible, take this feedback into the case study analysis, okay? I think we bring more credibility, a robust solution, and all of us in a win-win partnership wins, I think. So, we will have also, as I said, this workshop, and just to get you in advance, there is two special sessions in two conference, this year and the next year, which is the apps conference. We selected this conference because it's quite generic. It's very towards practitioners, engineers, decision-makers, which I think is a, we catch a good audience here, and we also are aiming to get some marginal benefits for other two conference, more specific, the first one in social monitoring, and the second one, Yagmat, more also very interesting decision-making, but because it's also focused on maintenance, next, this year in Austria. So, we are having these special sessions here, and we are going to take a little bit on this context of industry innovation days, as well in these special sessions. So, frankly, I will say, why invest in NACG, JNB, and civil engineering engineering structures? So, we need to show evidence to you, decision-makers, that is worthwhile, and there is a benefit on applying these systems. We really want, at least as the leader of this event, and trying to push forward this, I'll be very happy that this target audience, owners, authorities, concessionaries, that you also are happy with this discussion, and it takes some notes for you for the future, and mainly because we are working on this construction at the moment in real case studies, or real structures, as far as I know there is 16 case studies? 19. 19, yeah? Okay. I'm not saying, of course, depends on the level of maturity, knowledge on each one, but there is a new European World War movement with a lot of studies from different countries that compose this portfolio for you to help you in terms of getting a better knowledge on these real applications fields, not only to your own structures, as in the Zero Bridge case, but worthwhile what is happening. And, okay, as I said, it will be very nice as well, that for example in this special session that will be in France, that we could have a formal joint collaboration between academia and industry, maybe for example as a joint paper, where you, as a decision maker, could go to conference, perhaps present the problem, and then that is your colleague that tries to solve and present a solution for your problem, okay? So this has been already closed, the submission of the abstracts. We succeeded in 12 abstracts, and we are looking forward in November, not September this year, but hopefully if you are there, and also see a little bit more of what we are working on. Finally, I'm too close, I need to also move forward. In terms of deliverables, we have some deliverables already specified for industry innovation phase, but so we have some dissemination deliverables because it's important that this level of the constant action concept. But one that I will highlight in this workshop when we want to discuss with you as well as an output is what I call here the technical recommendation to support owners in a potential renegotiation of the contractions with the local authorities. So for example, I think as Thomas also said, we want to change a little bit the paradigm of asset management to something more proactive rather than reactive, but perhaps this ACGM issue might help you also as a contribution for this objective. So what we are trying to work, and this is also something that we will discuss during these two days, is that we are working in a technical recommendation that is a draft, an idea, so basically something that could be a very short document mainly towards decision makers. We would like to have your help in the writing side of this document because it's a top-level document that will take extract, let's say the most significant outputs from this constant action from the guidelines that are being prepared, summarize this in something very short of the four pages, I would say like this, no more than this, and then a second part like a request form that for example, a bridge owner that has a structure that he wants perhaps renegotiate how they do maintenance on that structure, they could with this document which has some let's say credibility because it's signed from a very big community at European level even worldwide that we show evidence that if your structure that is being monitored and it's giving evidence according to the guidelines that we are producing this construction, you can perhaps attach this very short document to your report that you need to deliver to the authorities and then a request perhaps to try to civilize the authorities that we would like to talk with you case by case at this stage perhaps, how we could do a little bit better the maintenance of this bridge? Could we try to renegotiate the next inspection perhaps not in the next year, the following year? If not possible, could we try to optimize the extension of inspection in terms of the time that we invest? I believe that at least my experience, this is in fact what decision makers wants to see there is a cycle here, but it closed, there is a lot of work and evidence, okay, monitoring the development information tells you that if the structure is safe might tell you some indications in a more proactive approach when something goes down, but also it's also a thing that we need to move forward, is to change the quality in terms of asset management. So what you are trying here also to produce, this is under discussion and open to the audience, is trying to produce a very short document as something that if the owner wishes to ask for renegotiation, you can download this from the cost website and according to the guidelines, if there is evidence, they can attach this to a technical report, submit to the authorities and try to speak with the authorities maybe to see if we can change this. I know that it's not, you don't do this in one single step, it takes sometimes, it's a culture, but I think we need to start from some point, so and to conclude, I won't just try that, this document, it's as I said the top level document, so it is written in a way for decision makers, it's non-technical, okay, there is basic on cost, basic evidence that there is benefit and I hope that we can at least try to produce this to help you and if this is for fun. And thank you very much and I hope that you enjoy these two days as much as possible and please ask to these, our colleagues that we present today, these case studies, everything that you want to ask, there are no silly questions, if it's something that I want to ask, ask it, because today, in my opinion, you are the lecturers, you are the teachers to this research community that will highly appreciate your feedback in what we are doing to get at the end a better product for you, many of our decision makers. Thank you very much.