Up to the minute KM research, and case studies. The share-holders of ATB are the State of Bremen and a group of important industrial companies. ATB has established a research team of 16 scientists which is supported by about 20 employees working on a temporary or part-time basis. ATB operates on the basis of a quality management system, which is fully compliant with ISO 9000. One basic objective of ATB is to apply system tech-nology methods and tools in order to improve the quality and efficiency of processes in various application areas.
Special emphasis is given to the improvement of software engi-neering processes.
ATB is currently acting as a main RTD partner in the IST project PICK overtaking responsibility for the development of two tools for the identification of problems and their reasons in the manufacturing processes, as well as for the planning of the process improvement activities. Further more, ATB has developed the BQM methodology for the efficient implementation of QM systems within SMEs. BQM has successfully been applied to about 70 SMEs in the region of North Germany. About one third of ATB s annual turnover is realised in the business area of Software Sys-tems Technology and the Exploitation of ICT tools. Within this business area, ATB has gained a very good overview concerning the enormous variety of software best practice methods and ICT tools available on the market.