Engineering collaboration tools selection for the Woods Equipment Company

Abstract

With Corporate America's consolidating efforts of bringing together organizations through takeovers, mergers and buyouts, more and more corporations are investing in ways to share information between different locations. Headquartered in Rockford, Illinois, the Woods Equipment Company is comprised of divisions in nine separate locations. The problem of this study is to select engineering collaboration tools for the Woods Equipment Company to increase cooperative exchange of resources, information and ideas among a team of colleagues focused on engineering projects. This research is directed towards helping Woods search through the maze of collaboration tools available in the market today and make the best possible selection for its needs. A variety of collaboration tools have been considered ranging from telecommunication, email, group ware, data conferencing, application sharing, video conferencing and shared 3D virtual reality.