1. “Horses for Courses”
One could write a letter with Microsoft Excel or calculate a table with Microsoft Word, but both are designed for particular purposes. The same is true for systems that were designed for engineering information management from the ground up, verses systems that are designed for simple office document management. The best in class tools should be used for each requirement.
Research shows that for every author of engineering content there are can be as many as 20 consumers. However, few of these consumers are users of engineering-design and CAD-drafting tools. Many spend much of their working day using other tools to access other file types in a different information management environment.
This is why ProjectWise has been designed to compliment, rather than compete with, other information and document management systems not designed specifically for engineering content management. ProjectWise can be configured, through the use of “connectors”, to be integrated with the corporate EDMS to provide engineering content in the formats most valuable to the users of that system. This is different from third party add-ons to EDMS systems in that the engineering group can leverage the full capability of an engineering content management system, yet the system can be integrated through the use of a connector. Benefits of this approach are:
- The connector approach makes upgrading either the EDMS or ProjectWise much easier
- Through server side processes, complex content can be automatically distilled down to a single document that the EDMS is able to manage
- Engineering content can be rendered and pushed into the EDMS in a format (such as PDF) that is accessible to the users of that system
- This approach allows EDMS systems that are used for document control or records management LINK TO SOMETHING ABOUT eB to be used to manage information pushed to them from the engineering system, automatically, at appropriate milestones