CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
6 October 2004
Implementation Investments
U.S. Office of Naval Research Implements Open Text's Livelink Software Suite Solution from Formark and Open Text Provides Collaboration, Document Management
Open TextT Corporation said that the U.S. Office of Naval Research has adopted the company's Livelink software to improve collaboration and to better manage documents and data for the organization's research projects. The solution was developed by Open Text and partner Formark® Ltd., the leading supplier of guided collaboration applications for Livelink.
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the United States Navy and Marine Corps through schools, universities, government laboratories, and nonprofit and for-profit organizations. It provides technical advice to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy and works with industry to improve technology-manufacturing processes.
At any given time there may be dozens of active research programs underway, with each project requiring close collaboration between ONR staff, the Navy and Marines, and research organizations. ONR must also manage the large volumes of detailed research documents and data that are created with each project. The agency adopted Livelink to provide document control, reduce the handling of physical documents, and improve cycle time.
Formark's applications automate the submission of research proposals via the Web to ONR, so that they can be processed and managed in Livelink. Once a proposal is accepted, Formark's solution then creates a secure collaborative workspace in Livelink for the research initiative. The research team and others outside of ONR who have an interest in the project are directed to a self-registration Web page where they apply to participate in the research collaboration. The page triggers a workflow that presents researchers' requests to the ONR project administrator. Once approved, e-mails are automatically sent out containing information on how to access the site. The collaborative workspace makes it easy for researchers to work together online, providing Livelink task lists, threaded discussions, news channels and access to a wider range of similar research information in ONR's Livelink system.
"The ONR application is an excellent example of an organization increasing the value of their Livelink investment," said Bob Richards, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Formark. "By making it easy for outside users to use Livelink-based applications without any prior experience or training, Formark Outside greatly expands the number of business processes that can be addressed with Livelink."
"ONR is like many defense and government organizations wrestling with complex, yet critical processes and large volumes of information," said Bill Forquer, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Open Text. "Livelink is the perfect platform for unifying information and complex processes, while allowing the people involved in these processes to collaborate in real time, no matter where they are. Working with partners such as Formark, we can easily create applications that meet very specialized needs."
Open Text/Formark solutions will be among the broad range of capabilities Open Text will present at its upcoming annual user conference LinkUp Phoenix 2004, being held this year in Phoenix, Arizona, November 15-18. For more information, go to: http://www.opentext.com/linkup/ .
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