D4.1 - Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers

SELECTION PROCEDURE AND ONBOARDING CRITERIA FOR AGRIFOODTEF CUSTOMERS 30 JUNE 2023 Horizontal logo Ref. Ares(2023)7586626 - 08/11/2023 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 2 Horizontal logo Project cofunded by the European Commission within the Digital Europe Programme Dissemination Level PU Public x CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services) □ CL Classified, as referred to in Commission decision 2001/844/EC □ Deliverable number: Deliverable name: Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers Work package: WP4 Lead WP: JR Lead Task: 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 3 Horizontal logo Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 3 Document Revision History ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Executive summary .................................................................................................................................................. 5 1. AgrifoodTEF High Level Procedure and Onboarding Tasks ............................................................................... 6 2. Eligibility Check Process for Customer Onboarding .......................................................................................... 7 2.1. Technical eligibility ........................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2. State-Aid and administrative eligibility ............................................................................................................ 8 2.3. Eligibility extension – Financial capacity .......................................................................................................... 8 3. Service Feasibility Process for Customer Onboarding ...................................................................................... 8 3.1. AgrifoodTEF Service customization .................................................................................................................. 8 4. Documentation ................................................................................................................................................ 9 4.1. Onboarding specific documents and forms ...................................................................................................... 9 4.2. Customer Service Tracking from onboarding to service delivery .................................................................... 10 5. Mapping of Service Request on AgrifoodTEF Service catalogue – an example ............................................... 11 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 4 Horizontal logo Document Revision History Date Issue Author/Editor/Contributor Summary of main change 08/06/2023 V0 Raffaele Giaffreda - FBK First document version 25/07/2023 V01 PSG review Changes from partners feedback 28/09/2023 V02 FBK team Final version 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 5 Horizontal logo Executive summary This document describes the Onboarding Procedures to be followed in AgrifoodTEF to enable the provision of services. The step-by-step procedure is meant to assist Consortium Members in the process of assessing whether a third-party organisation, external to the project, satisfies the requirements for accessing an AgrifoodTEF service. This results in the selection of candidate customers being regulated by clear rules. 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 6 Horizontal logo 1. AgrifoodTEF High Level Procedure and Onboarding Tasks Figure 1 - Onboarding overall process The AgrifoodTEF project has been created to provide test and experimenting services to all those organisations that work on AI and Robotics solutions for the agrifood sector and that need support. Figure 1 represents the overall flow-chart diagram regulating the onboarding procedure for service delivery within AgrifoodTEF. Onboarding concerns the first part of the full service interaction cycle, from processing a Service Request to the stage where the TEF team and the correspondent customer representative start the Service Planning part, which is out of scope for the Onboarding procedure and to be managed by the Partner(s) appointed as contractor(s) for the execution of the envisaged AgrifoodTEF service. AgrifoodTEF website publishes a catalogue of services available from the Partners that are member of the Consortium. This catalogue, duly versioned in its releases for ease of referencing, will be continuously updated throughout the project execution and will be the first port of call for potential AgrifoodTEF Customers, who will be able to see what is on offer and who to engage with in order to proceed with their service request, produced at first in a free text format. Following such first interaction, the following step consists of filling in a Service Request form, highlighting the path through the Service Catalogue hierarchy leading to the required service (see further details in Section 3.2 below). This request will be sent from a AgrifoodTEF Customer to an AgrifoodTEF Lead Partner, highlighted in the Catalogue as the Partner representative for the service of interest. If a specific Catalogue Service is not quite what is expected, we envisage the opportunity to negotiate the content of the existing or creating a new Service (related to the one identified) that the Customer would like to see executed. The opportunity given to potential customers to specify themselves a tailored service building on what they find in the Catalogue is the means through which we want to 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 7 Horizontal logo reach the right balance between what is on offer and what the market needs, especially in the preliminary phase of project execution. The next step is an assessment of the request from the Lead Partner who validates the feasibility within the AgrifoodTEF scope and the availability of the needed resources. This check is to be done individually by the Lead Partner if it is to become the sole contractor; otherwise it must involve other Partners if some level of support is needed. Once this step is executed, the Lead Partner (representing itself or a group of Partners) forwards the related documentation (service request description and auto-certification on the State-Aid matters) to the Onboarding Committee for their evaluation. Should additional info be requested, the OC declines the request and it becomes care of the Lead Partner to address the comments and procure the requested additional info before resubmitting. 2. Eligibility Check Process for Customer Onboarding The figure below illustrates further details of the eligibility checks of the onboarding process to be managed by the AgrifoodTEF Onboarding Committee (AFT OC), which is represented by the members of the Project Steering Group, where each Country represented in the Consortium has one representative through the Node or Satellite Leader. Figure 2 - Eligibility check process Following interactions between customer and the identified Lead Partner, the Service Request Description is drafted and sent to the AFT OC members who can individually express their evaluation, for a timeframe of 5 working days. If a more detailed discussion is required, the AFT OC includes the case in the following fortnightly meeting (online). If the OC raises no concerns, the request is to be considered approved. 2.1. Technical eligibility This formal check concerns the technical eligibility of the request and is in place to ensure that the services being delivered by the AgrifoodTEF meet the target objectives of the project. More specifically the AFT OC must ensure that the solutions proposed by the AgrifoodTEF Customers have indeed a valid target for their AI related components or indeed fall into the category of Robotics. Either (or both) of these conditions must be verified to get the go-ahead together with ensuring that such solutions meant to exploit validation services have been created for the agrifood sector. 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 8 Horizontal logo 2.2. State-Aid and administrative eligibility Besides falling into the right category for technical eligibility, Service Request Descriptions must also fulfil administrative eligibility. This is a process that depends on the nature of the co-funding, which in principle might differ amongst different node and satellite Countries when it comes to the related obligations imposed by it. The minimal conditions to satisfy at European level are: - To be officially recognized as a SME - To have State Aid availability - To fulfil local regulations for the granting of State Aid The lead partner bears responsibility for validating the State Aid obligations listed above according to the national regulations on the matter. This step is needed to ensure there is capacity to support the delivery of the service through State Aid. 2.3. Eligibility extension – Financial capacity Catalogue services will have a nominal price indication , which will be based on the expected use of facilities resources and manpower engagement. Eligible customers can use State Aid to partially pay for the full service price, provided that they have finances to cover for the remainder. Alternatively, they can pay the full price if State Aid is not to be used. Worth mentioning that the AgrifoodTEF “service delivery through State Aid” will progressively leave place to more business oriented types of relationships between AgrifoodTEF and its customers. At the start of the agrifoodTEF project it will be possible for nodes and satellites to deliver services with a maximum 100% discount, leveraging State Aid mechanism within the stated rules of onboarding. As the project execution progresses, it is expected the discount will be progressively reduced, implying that the AgrifoodTEF customers will have to pay themselves part or whole of the service price for an amount which is then to be excluded from the State-Aid accounting. With the technical eligibility being the same as before the administrative eligibility checks here are more related to the suitability of the offer and the willingness to pay from the customer perspective. 3. Service Feasibility Process for Customer Onboarding With the eligibility checks being resolved, at this point the emphasis will shift to the preparation of the Service Agreement which directly engages the Lead Partner and the AgrifoodTEF Customer in a negotiation phase that concludes with the settlement of the final service agreement. This is the phase where an assessment of needed resources and final service price are to be made by the Lead Partner to ensure the onboarding procedure can be concluded. 3.1. AgrifoodTEF Service customization We mentioned before a situation where the identified Catalogue Service needs some adjustments to better meet customers’ expectations and / or a situation where a deeper assessment of intended service objectives require additional Partners engagement. This is allowed within the onboarding process with the only attention to be paid to the need of updating the Public Catalogue of Services if any of those adjustments during the negotiation phase bring different flavour to the description of the service to be used which was selected in the first instance. 101100622/agrifoodTEF D4.1 – Selection procedure and Onboarding criteria for AgrifoodTEF customers June 30th, 2023 9 Horizontal logo Figure 3 - Service list and catalogue revisions At this point the service execution can start according to the stated deliverables in the Service Agreement. From that moment onwards the project is included in the due diligence monitoring pipeline until delivery. 4. Documentation 4.1. Onboarding specific documents and forms A summary of the documents and processes listed above can be seen in the figure below, coupling input documents to expected validations and timelines