OTHER COMPANIES--such as Dow Chemical, Eastman Chemical, and Ticona--have collaborative tools among their e-business initiatives. For example, Eastman has created at least 10 interactive technical wizards that take user input and then calculate answers--such as on rheology, estimated molding costs, or recommendations on inhibitors or copromoters. It also offers virtual work spaces for customer, supplier, and partner collaborations.

In the communications area, Dow provides NetMeeting capabilities so that employees can share information and conduct work sessions wherever their location. Externally, Dow sets up face-to-face communications with customers through videoconferencing. In June 2001, the company unveiled DowNET, a single global network using voice, video, and data technology, so that employees can communicate as well as access files and other services anywhere, anytime.

In October 2000, Dow even joined up with Internet incubator Campsix and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) to create iVenturi. The venture was to deliver integrated, Web-based project management tools and business services to accelerate new product development. However, only six months later, after failing to raise enough financing, the partners sold the venture's assets to other technology providers. Soon after, Campsix itself folded.

Ticona, the technical polymers business of Celanese, uses technology provider Conferos' Product Sync software for project management and online collaboration. It brings together capabilities the company had previously offered in information content, document sharing, design visualization, Web conferencing, and seminars. To use the functionality, a Ticona representative must assign a customer to a project and authorize logging in.

Although Ticona says there are real, immediate, and significant benefits in reducing errors, time, and costs associated with product development, challenges still arise. Some are a lack of standards on data and drawings, competing software architectures, questions about who manages and owns the data, integration among company systems, security concerns, and the need to nurture adoption. In addition, software tools only augment, and do not replace, relationships, the company says, since it is people, not machines, who collaborate.

Using software tools that span business areas or functions is challenging from a process point of view, O'Marah says. Although manufacturing, R&D, and marketing might all play roles in new product development, often no single area has the influence to get a software application installed and used widely. "There's often no one person who cuts across all the functions well enough to be able to drive it as an end-to-end process," he points out.

Rhodia has given Guillaume Pfefer exactly this task as the company's e-collaboration manager. The company wants to leverage its existing innovation process for new product development and use the Internet to accelerate its efforts. Eventually, it will adapt the technology being put in place to manage projects with customers and external partners.

"The initiative includes the idea of the extended enterprise," Pfefer explains. "We want better collaboration both internally and externally. We want technology to address communication, information storage and sharing, and working together." Existing backroom systems and business processes must be aligned to make a new tool successful, he cautions, while employees and partners must get training.

"Clearly, the main challenge is change management," Pfefer points out. "It's not a big deal to find a solution from a technology standpoint, but you are changing the day-to-day life and working behavior of everybody within the entire organization." Rhodia wanted to standardize on fairly easy-to-use or "intuitive" technology, he adds, "so we could implement it very quickly and have employees stay focused on their core jobs."

Rhodia has been an early user of Microsoft's enterprise project management solution that includes its Project product and SharePoint portal. Using the software, 5,000 "chemical innovators" at Rhodia's 150 global sites will be able to transfer chemical formulas, best practices, and processes, Pfefer says. He expects the system to help businesses respond faster to customer requests and tap into the appropriate resources when needed.

Rhodia has already seen some benefit in reducing its time to market. The company recently transferred technology between a site in France and one in the U.S. in about 10 weeks, Pfefer says, versus the more typical nine to 12 months. Despite time differences, the collaborators exchanged information through a central repository and could view and be current on tasks, deadlines, issues, and the project's overall status.

Software used in managing the product development process is commonly shorthanded as PLM--for product life-cycle management. Ideally, it starts with incorporating the product idea and then encompasses development, material supply, manufacturing, packaging, inspection, legal or regulatory compliance, service and support, and even delivery.

SAP, which provides ERP software used by many major chemical firms, has made a significant push into the broad PLM market within the last year or two. So has EDS, which came into it largely through acquisitions. IBM, which owns Lotus Development, has also entered this market and has a partnership with SAP for PLM applications. Meanwhile, smaller specialist companies, such as Formation Systems and Sequencia, have been targeting the process industries.

Formation Systems offers a modular PLM application called Optiva. Its chemical industry customers include GE Plastics, Akzo Nobel, and paint producers RPM and Valspar. The program captures the work of project teams, tracking versions of shared documents, and storing all experimental and test results, formulas, and raw material characteristics, says Rory Granros, director of product marketing. Data handling, searching, and analytics are other key capabilities.

Reducing time to market is a driver for users, Granros says, but so too are reducing costs and increasing effectiveness in managing product portfolios and hundreds of formulas that must often be changed to meet customer demands.

"Another big issue is rationalizing the sourcing of materials without affecting quality," he explains. After completing a merger, for example, chemical producers will want to standardize on their raw materials and suppliers.

"We help companies evaluate the ability to make substitutions because Optiva can tell which raw materials are used in which formulas," Granros continues. "And it can indicate whether there are substitutable raw materials or whether they are restricted by customer or by market." The system also is integrated with R&D to avoid having researchers reintroduce materials in formulas when they have been rationalized out of the supply chain.

Similarly, PLM applications can help reduce errors. "We take out the ambiguity," says Michael Saucier, founder and chief technology officer of Sequencia, which OSIsoft acquired in June. The company's PLM application is called processPoint.

"We make sure that everybody on the product development team--whether they are inside R&D or in marketing or in sales or in the field--knows when it's their turn to do work and what they should be working on," Saucier explains. "And we eliminate confusion around the specifications by providing a single back-end database that all the participants use."

Although Sequencia initially targeted fine and specialty chemicals producers, that sector cut back drastically on spending. For example, Eastman Chemical had been a leading backer of the company and reportedly is still interested in its software, but went through a period of trying to sell then ultimately keeping its fine chemicals operations. Celanese, which conducted a successful processPoint pilot program in one of its specialties businesses, did not do a major rollout reportedly because of budget constraints.

Richman Chemical, an independent broker for chemical sourcing and contract manufacturing services, has been using processPoint for almost two years. Dozens of chemical and drug firms and approximately 100 contract manufacturers interact through its collaboration portal. Richman has completed more projects in less time--achieving 20 to 50% improvements in efficiency--by better managing the movement of new products into production across multiple suppliers.

The pharmaceutical sector offers good opportunities for growth, Saucier notes, and the company lists several major companies among its clients. PLM solutions can link R&D, process science, clinical development, and production, along with marketing and sales, which he says typically have separate IT departments in drug firms.

The product data management component of processPoint also meets drug producers' significant need for creating "audit trails" for regulatory compliance. For example, of particular concern is the Food & Drug Administration's regulation 21 CFR Part 11, which covers electronic records. Formation Systems says Optiva offers a controlled environment for record maintenance as well.

Security is another overwhelming concern, says Andrew Mahon, senior director of product marketing at software developer Groove Networks. However, valuing convenience over security, many people resort to using e-mail anyway, he warns.

"There are organizations that don't work on the same network or don't have the same security apparatus that need to share information," Mahon explains. "They have means of doing that--the Internet or e-mail--but it's not secure. The problem can be solved by either making it secure or making it fast. Groove comes at that problem from both sides."

The company produces desktop collaborative software called Groove Workspace that costs just $50 to $100 per user. It allows users to communicate across company firewalls through secure, encrypted, and portable connections, instead of having to set up more elaborate IT processes such as extranets or virtual private networks.

"Having an application that's on the desktop where people actually have control over it and where they don't have to go through an intermediary like IT or a Web services provider is what end users warm to," Mahon says.

WHEREAS project team messages and file transfers can quickly overwhelm mailboxes, Groove Workspace creates a common work space for discussions, presentations, files, scheduling, status reports, and other project management elements. It also allows for document version control of shared files and defining user privileges.

An important aspect of collaborative software is that it interfaces well with common desktop software, and even better if it works with programs used specifically in drug R&D. Groove Workspace has an "e-mail on ramp" that can move "discussions" originating in Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes e-mail into a shared work space. It then organizes the discussion threads and any documents in folders. Similarly, Microsoft Project files can be moved into the work space for all team members to see and use.

Groove was founded in 1997 by Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes. In late 2001, Microsoft invested $51 million and owns a 19% interest in the company. In March, Groove set up an alliance with Documentum, which provides enterprise content management software used widely in the drug industry to manage documents and information. Groove Workspace now has a connector to reach information stored in Documentum repositories.

GlaxoSmithKline has become a major customer of Groove, signing up for 10,000 user licenses. The company conducted pilot tests, with as many as 30 users on a team, early in the development of Groove Workspace. It then provided opinions on improvements and new features that were incorporated in version 2.0 of the software, which shipped in April.

"We are trying to get people to collaborate more and more using computers, rather than jumping on planes," says Philip Connolly, GlaxoSmithKline's vice president for IT communications. "Like any other big, research-based pharmaceutical company, we have so many outside alliances and connections, and it makes life a lot easier if we can get information to them quickly, without being worried about security."

According to Forrester Research, Groove has also sold 250 licenses to Johnson & Johnson for use in R&D and 100 to Pfizer for internal IT customer relations. Forrester also reports, after talking with the company in mid-July, that Glaxo had deployed 200 copies. Now Glaxo is making the program available as a standard team platform, Connolly says, and to external partners who need it.

Similarly, Aventis has standardized on software for collaborative work spaces from eRoom Technology. Created in 1996 as Instinctive Technology, the company released its first eRoom workplace product in 1997 and launched version 6 in February. J&J has 2,500 eRoom installations and Pfizer has 1,000; both companies intend to use eRoom for internal situations and Groove externally, Forrester reports.

Aventis has integrated eRoom technology into its drug discovery process up to and including preclinical trials. Like Groove and the PLM products, the software interfaces with document management systems and desktop tools while also affording accessibility, scalability, and flexibility in defining or customizing team work spaces. Team leaders and executives can view the entire scope of a drug development project for tracking progress and decision making.

"We believe that many of tomorrow's innovations are likely to be the result of globally integrated development efforts, where team members are gathered for their expertise without regard to physical location," said Peter Loupos, Aventis vice president for drug innovation and approval information solutions, when signing on with eRoom this summer.

The trend toward more outsourcing as well as greater reliance on external parties--whether in research, contract services, manufacturing, or clinical development--is driving the use of online tools to integrate and efficiently run decentralized collaborative networks, drug firms say. Even internally in research, companies want to bring together multidisciplinary teams. These tools also allow collaborative experiences to be captured and archived, not only for legal or regulatory reasons, but as learning experiences in the product development process.

"Product developers without electronic systems have to capture their work as they do it," AMR's O'Marah explains. "They have to stop what they are doing and write the information down. That's time-consuming and slows your speed to market.

"It also prevents creative or highly trained researchers from being able to use their brains on solving chemistry problems and puts them instead into data administration roles," he continues. "It's a waste of highly paid brainpower."

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Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society