Much is made about handling the plethora of documents that have to do with real estate, finances, or health. But many other industries face their own pains with documentation, especially high-tech or manufacturing design. Not only do these entities need to handle multiple pieces of information, but they, too, are regulated like the financial and healthcare industries. HVVi Semiconductors, a start-up in the semiconductor space, has felt this pain and turned to a hosted document solution.
HVVi was formed three years ago, based on a new product its founders invented. The product, which is out in beta form to HVVi's customers, is the latest innovation in the industry in a decade. Therefore, it requires a lot of paper to test, prove, and become certified. "When designing a new product, you deal with drawings, specs, test data, engineering forms, patent data, etc.," says George Penney, IT manager at HVVi. "It was a huge amount of documents to keep up with." Because most of the documents HVVi works with are electronic, the company didn't face the problem of handling paper. However, it was burdened with challenges accessing electronic documents: Files were stored on proprietary computers or even off-site when HVVi worked with partners (i.e. university research labs). "If we wanted to use a file for a project, we had to sit and think, 'who might have that?' and then track the person down," says Penney. "The files could be e-mailed, but there was a security risk to do that, given that most files contained intellectual property (IP)." In the instance of a university research lab HVVi worked with, the university would send files over on a physical ZIP drive.
The company needed to share its documents within and outside the enterprise, so it began looking for a content management and collaboration solution.
Source: Integrated Solutions, http://www.integratedsolutionsmag.com