Union Square Software Secures First Contract In Manufacturing Sector

Online, April 7, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Centrax Limited have selected Workspace ix from leading knowledge management software supplier Union Square for 200 users, in an order worth £150,000. Workspace will centralise project information, automate standard procedures, aid collaboration and increase efficiency in project working.

Centrax are manufacturers of lower carbon power generating equipment. From their head office and manufacturing plant in Newton Abbott Centrax export equipment throughout Europe, North Africa, Russia and India. Clients include, Rolls-Royce, TNK-BP, Heineken, Ford and Glaxo Smith Kline, order values range from £2-30m and last year turnover was £100m.

Significant growth at Centrax has highlighted the deficiencies in their existing systems which have struggled to meet the flexibility and efficiency demanded of a global business. Centrax's systems have grown organically with each department largely catering for their own needs with bespoke development in Lotus Notes. As a result systems are fragmented with a lack of process flow and project focus. Another issue recognised by Divisional Director Guy West was a loss of control brought about by the growth in electronic communications. "Previously communication with the client would pass through a project engineer who would collate all correspondence in a hard copy folder. With the advent of email, documents reside in individuals' inboxes, resulting in islands of information. Capturing this information and gaining a view of all the documentation on a large scale project has proved to be very difficult. This, combined with growth in the company, means we need to manage data in a more efficient way and facilitate collaboration and re-use of knowledge."

Engineering Manager Julie Hawkings and IT Manager Graeme Gillard led the search for a company wide solution. A few systems were reviewed but Workspace offered the best fit for the business, meeting 90% of the business requirements. Julie comments on the decision to select Workspace: "We were looking for a system that would provide an interface for us to interact electronically with customers, suppliers and partners; Workspace could deliver this and much more." Guy was impressed with the document search capability, "Workspace finds any document, no matter how old in seconds. With the large number and complexity of projects and significant volumes of legacy data at Centrax this was a key feature." Functionality for Email Management was also extremely important, Guy comments. "Workspace offers a simple solution for filing emails by integrating with Outlook and requires minimal effort from the user."

Centrax have started the consultation process and will be live with Workspace by July. Graeme comments, "We have full confidence in the Union Square team and have been impressed with their professional approach. We are looking forward to getting started on Workspace and delivering unified information to our employees."