The CAFÉ consortium is structured around a number of main companies, which act as prime focal points. Each offers a complementary set of engineering capabilities to the project. These companies have a common need for advanced system-family technology. This technology has been researched by these companies in successful European cooperation projects the most relevant are CAFÉ, ESAPS, ARES and PRAISE. This experience has to be transferred to industrial practice. In the CAFÉ project, these companies act as regional centres of excellence. Several universities and other companies are associated with each prime contractor forming a regional cluster.

Each regional cluster acts as a network using the special knowledge of each partner. The CAFÉ project is based on "industry as a laboratory" concept and regional clusters provide universities an access to this laboratory. Regional clusters also form the basis for locally disseminating the results of this project.

ESI (European Software Institute) has a special role in the project as a means for distributing the experience to other European companies.