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Fisher Controls International |
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Fisher Controls International In 1880 William Fisher invented the Type 1 constant pressure pump governor in Marshalltown, Iowa. The rest, as they say in the process control industry, is history. Today, Fisher Controls International is the world’s leading supplier of process control valves and related instrumentation. A process control valve is simply the device which manufacturers use to regulate the flow of fluid, gas or steam in a pipe. Fisher Controls valves can be found in oil rigs, power plants, paper mills and chemical factories. The company employs over 2,000 technical experts in nearly 200 locations around the world. How do you make sure those 2,000 technical experts have access to crucial data around the clock and around the globe? For Fisher Controls, one answer is Inmagic’s DB/Text® WebPublisher. World Wide Reach "DB/Text WebPublisher has made it possible for us to share information with an entire organization on a worldwide basis," says Mark Heindselman, the company’s manager of the knowledge network and information services. "We chose DB/Text WebPublisher for two reasons, "said Heindselman, who will be marking his 20th year at Fisher Controls in February, 2000. "First, it was pretty straightforward to build your own databases and, secondly, we needed a full text engine. "Frankly, it only took us a day or two to get up and running with the basic applications. We had a couple of hours of help from MIS here and there, but the main thing they did was to find a place for us on the network. "DB/TextWorks® gave us the power and precision of a database with the speed and flexibility of a full text retrieval system, giving us the best of both worlds." Currently, Fisher Controls has 25 Inmagic DB/TextWorks databases, and seven of them are web-enabled. Heindselman says the number of web-enabled databases continues to grow: "Creating new applications has become an on-going process for us." Easy To Use "People find DB/Text WebPublisher quite useful," he said. "The lab report people now expect it to be available. When I show people how easy it is to use, they are pleasantly surprised. As a result, we don’t spend a lot of money on training, and it gets up and running quickly" Fisher Controls’ web-based applications include:
Global Project Pursuit The Global Project Pursuit application is the company’s most acclaimed web-enabled application. It is utilized by the sales force to track capital projects with a value of at least $300 million. It gives the sales force the ability to track bids and ongoing projects in a variety of ways. For instance, they can compare projects by industry, cost or geography. It allows the sales force to provide timely and well-researched bids for new business. "Before we had DB/Text WebPublisher it was pretty unwieldy," says Heindselman. "If sales wanted to share information, they had to swap spreadsheets! "Originally, we were going to put Global Project Pursuit on another system. But the development time would have been six to nine months. With WebPublisher, it took 30 days, and we saved money because we avoided buying client software." Materials Safety Data DB/Text WebPublisher also helps Fisher Controls employees work safely in potentially hazardous environments. The Materials Safety Database provides a full text description of the safety issues relating to fluids that flow in all company-manufactured valves. "It’s really useful for all our plants and service centers," says Heindselman. "If, for instance, you type in the word ammonia, and submit a query, you will find a particular valve was used with ammonia at a particular plant. "Obviously, that kind of information can prevent a lot of safety-related problems." Easy To Appreciate Fisher Controls’ information management needs have come along way since 1888, when the company, then known as The Fisher Governor Company, incorporated with a total of $30,000. At the time, employees ran belt-powered machines to the light of tallow candles for $13 a week. And the first product catalog was hand-written. Whoever wrote that first catalog would have really appreciated DB/Text
WebPublisher. After all, it’s easy to implement, easy to use, and, best
of all, it doesn’t cause writer’s cramp
Inmagic software | Crew-Noble services | Training Dates Crew-Noble Information Services Revised: 03/19/04 |