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August 2000
Collaborating via Intranet
By Dan Bolita
Business-to-consumer e-commerce may grab all the headlines, but it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to harnessing Web technology. Intranet collaboration is the behind-the-scenes giant helping businesses to improve services, inform product development efforts and speed time to market.
Web collaboration can fit many purposes. FedEx is bringing its air operations documentation online to improve access to information and data accuracy. Consumer electronics giant RadioShack is rolling out intranet-based store operations manuals to keep in step with fast-moving competitors. Partner airlines Swissair and Sabena are collaborating on product development and management decisions via an intranet.
FedEx Supports Air Operations
FedEx is so well known for its reliable service, efficient online customer support and successful e-commerce initiatives that it's easy to forget the vast infrastructure of this shipping giant, which is based in Memphis, Tennessee. The company's fleet of more than 650 aircraft, for example, is kept aloft with the support of the air operations division, which authors and approves all flight operations manuals, minimum equipment lists and other crucial technical documents.
As part of a document management initiative undertaken by FedEx's maintenance unit, the air operations division has automated the preparation, approval and Web publication of its documents. The move has improved accuracy through rigorous tracking of changes and revisions, has cut printing costs, and has reduced barriers to access, allowing authors to collaborate and pilots to retrieve the latest information through the company intranet.
Before initiating the project, the air operations division authored documents using Adobe PageMaker on Mac computers. Now authoring is done on PCs using FrameMaker+SGML, also from Adobe, San Jose, CA. Throughout its life cycle, a document is indexed and managed through a document management system from Documentum, Pleasanton, CA. The system allows collaborators to check out documents via the WAN or intranet, revise and track changes, route them through an approval cycle, and post approved publications in Adobe's portable document format (PDF) for printing and broad access online.
"Change is always difficult . . . but everyone sees the advantages of this type of system," says Grover Trask, a technical aircraft advisor with FedEx. "We want to track every change and who made it. We want to reduce printing costs and we want to make it easier to find information."
Wherever possible, authoring teams reuse data supplied by aircraft and parts manufacturers, keeping production costs down and improving accuracy.
"This is also a safety issue," Trask says. "If the manufacturer has something incorrect in its data, we can point that out, and it can be revised for the entire industry. For our part, we make fewer typo-type errors."
Education was a major challenge, says Trask. Air operations learned to schedule training time with users as they were ready to work with the document management system. This immediately reinforced training with real-world management and publishing tasks.
"First we had to transition from PageMaker to FrameMaker+SGML, but users liked it once they got into it and discovered the automations," Trask says. "Next we had to learn how to load data into the document management system. Then we had to learn how to build and use workflow and all of the features of the document management system. PDF has been the simplest thing to implement. We used to give hundreds of Pagemaker files to the printer. Now we give them one PDF."
In addition to the print and online versions of documentation, FedEx is installing computers aboard its aircraft to provide in-flight data and document access through a system called Gatelink.
Access to live data provides pilots information on weather and scheduling, says Trask. "In the future, we plan to start building smart checklists that are electronically delivered to flight crews," he says
With few exceptions, Trask says that documents on the flight deck will soon be authored in FrameMaker+SGML, managed on the intranet through the document management system, and published for printing and online distribution in PDF.
Web Recharges RadioShack
Consumer electronics giant RadioShack, Ft. Worth, TX, is using an intranet-based system called RadioShack Online to deliver real-time information and updates to its more than 7,000 stores. Though the system is still in testing, it has already given its beta sites a boost.
Historically, information distribution across the retail chain involved mailing binders to individual RadioShack stores worldwide. The company's Store Operating Manual alone contains more than 700 pages and requires a minimum of six months to consolidate. Printing and shipping costs for this document exceeded $150,000, limiting the company to only one annual update, despite almost constant changes in content. When other documents, such as the company directory and product repair manuals, were factored in, annual costs to support field personnel exceeded $350,000.
"Dealing with hard copy documents makes it nearly impossible for us to provide the most current data, and it is extremely difficult for store personnel to find the information they need by thumbing through a huge binder," says Matt Burns, manager of store communication for RadioShack. "We need efficiency that paper-based processing simply cannot provide."
To migrate to electronic collaboration and publishing, RadioShack is working with an integrated document management system from FileNet, Costa Mesa, CA. Content is brought to the Web via FileNet's Panagon Web Publisher module and by StoryServer, an HTML publishing tool from Vignette, Redwood City, CA.
"The greatest challenge we faced was integrating FileNet with Vignette," says Ross Hood, application manager for RadioShack's document administration. "We were dealing with things that had never been done before. [FileNet's] Professional Services unit was the glue that held the project together."
RadioShack is phasing in its use of RadioShack Online. Approximately 100 stores in the Dallas/Ft. Worth market are currently connected, with plans to connect the remaining stores in the United States by the fall.
The online system has given the test stores better access to real-time updates and faster response time to customer inquiries, and has improved employees' ability to use corporate information in daily operations. On the corporate side, the primary benefit has been faster, more accurate updates, as well as reduced cycle times and costs associated with generating and shipping hard-copy documentation.
RadioShack plans to expand the system to its human resources and legal departments.
"There's really no limit to how we can leverage this technology to improve our communications and processes," says Bob Putnam, director of RadioShack communications. "We should be able to realize a complete return on investment from the initial phases of the project by the end of next year."
Airline Partners Meet Online
The airline management partnership between Swissair and Sabena airlines is building a collaborative intranet solution for its product development and management division. The partners justified the deployment by reasoning that the quality of products and services is dependent upon the quality of information and communications among employees.
"Product development employees spent as much as 80 percent of their time finding and distributing product and project information," says Annemarie Fraefel McLaren, product development manager at Swissair/Sabena. "We wanted fast, end-user-driven information publishing on an intranet."
Swissair chose Livelink document management software from OpenText, Waterloo, Ontario. Fraefel McLaren says the biggest advantage is that the company no longer has to publish content to the Web - a task formerly handled by Webmasters with little time to spare.
"In the past, information was centrally stored on servers and was not accessible to all employees," she says. "In addition, proper search tools were missing. This resulted in a tremendous loss of information and wasted time. Livelink enables our employees to quickly find and publish information, create virtual teams and collaborate, without needing any help from a Webmaster. This improves efficiency and supports us in meeting our customers' requirements faster."
Fraefel McLaren expects the streamlined processes to allow Swissair to supply customers with top-quality products sooner.
Contributing editor Dan Bolita, danboli@midcoast.com, is also editor of Today, the journal of the Association for Work Process Improvement, in Boston.
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