Projects often involve multiple development groups in different locations and time zones. Collaboration and coordination are complex to manage. In-person meetings may be impractical, and time differences often make telephone conferences difficult to schedule. And resource libraries are difficult to synchronize between teams, often resulting in increased QA expenditures and slower time to market. The Intranet Solution I ntranets give engineering departments the technology they need for workgroup communication and collaboration, document and resource control and project management.
Engineers can share files easily through the network.
Newsgroups, e-mail, chat, groupware and multimedia technologies facilitate communication and collaboration. Corporate Intranets also provide a means of centralizing, consolidating, publishing and updating project information that changes frequently. The engineering department benefits from a dramatic reduction in paper as well as more effective version control. Management can consolidate information that resides on a variety of sources so the engineering staff can take full advantage of the corporate knowledgebase in real time. Engineering Applications Application Advantages Project conferences Conduct project update meetings, design reviews, brainstorming and problem-solving sessions online.