Confronted with the need to better manage complex collaborative tasks, one company turned to a robust web-based project management platform.
Efficient collaboration is no easy task for any business. But it can be extremely difficult to achieve within a manufacturing enterprise, where a wealth of data, information, and business processes need to be shared among a great number of different departments.
Geneva, Ill.-based Fona International Inc., a leading flavor developer and applied food science company, recently discovered it was having trouble effectively managing complex organizational projects and tasks. It identified a need for a product homepage of sorts that would allow for scientists who make flavors to upload critical documents and build a definitive knowledge base regarding certain relevant topics. The company tried out a simple 37signals Basecamp for a few months, but it simply didn’t fit their needs.
“We identified that people really liked that kind of web-based project management platform,” said Steve Brewer, Director of IT, Fona. “So then we began looking at much more robust platforms.”
After considering its size (200 employees) and the needs of its workers, Fona identified a few key characteristics it was looking for in a project management platform:
- Ease of use
- Quick and fairly inexpensive implementation
- Easy to manage
Microsoft SharePoint and open-source platform Drupal were among the platforms Fona considered during its search for the proper solution. However, the company eventually selected Socialtext, an enterprise social networking platform. Socialtext hosts Fona’s platform, so there is no need for the company to have hardware on site. Furthermore, Socialtext didn’t require any real IT support during its two-week implementation process.
“We decided to find a highly-functional system that didn’t require a lot of customization, and that’s easy to use,” said Brewer.
The company launched Socialtext in a phased approach and trained a number of employees it deemed likely to be early adopters of the platform.
“I would say that within our company there are definitely groups where collaboration is more a part of their everyday job,” said Brewer. “If they are managing a lot of projects, Socialtext is the place where they manage their projects.”
According to Brewer, Socialtext has proven to be an effective tool for those employees that work in a laboratory setting, in the human resources department, as well as the corporate marketing department. He added that one immediate benefit the company saw was a noticeable reduction in the number of emails sent between employees.
“I think that the dominant modes of communication in business these days are documents and email,” said Brewer. “And I think that it is difficult to get people to change. What you really need to do is find the right type of processes, and the right grouping of processes, a more collaborative solution. I think when you find the right project to work on; usually the feedback I get is ‘Wow, this is a lot better than email.’”
According to Michael Idinopulos, Vice-President off Customer Success, Socialtext, his company’s solution provides the following benefits for manufacturing enterprises.
“Within a manufacturing context, there are lots of information, tools, and access to things that people need, especially on the operations side,” said Idinopulos. “We can return the intranet to that vision that everyone always wanted it to have. It’s the one place where you can access everything. We can make the intranet a place where work actually happens, or where work gets done together.”
Creating a collaborative, innovative and efficient workplace is a common goal among manufacturing companies in the post-recession era, and Idinopulos says Socialtext is working to make that goal a cost-effective and realistic for manufacturers.
“Manufacturers are becoming less concerned about churning out widgets and more focused on being creative, smart, thoughtful, and innovative about what they’re producing and how they’re producing it,” he said. “That means being able to identify bottlenecks, process inefficiencies, things that are slowing them down. That’s where a tool like SocialText comes in.”