Company Overview
In 1885, James Trane, a Norwegian immigrant steamfitter and plumber, opened his own store in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. By 1916, Trane controlled a large part of the manufacturing heating products market. In 1925, however, Trane’s creation of the convection radiator along with new a new sales strategy, launched the company into a rapid period of growth.
Since 1925, both creative thinking and aggressive strategies enabled Trane to become one of the world’s largest manufacturers and suppliers of central air-conditioning, heating, and ventilating comfort systems for residential, commercial, and industrial spaces. With manufacturing centers and markets in not only the United States, but also in China, Brazil, France, and Egypt, Trane currently responds to the needs of a global community.
Opportunity
At first, Trane Commercial dedicated 14 newsletters to the dissemination of news and information within its organization. Not surprisingly, fragmented sources and the plodding pace of output became issues of concern with the growing employee demand for timely and efficient news and information.
Solution
Some of Swipht’s early experience in web applications was gained as Rapidigm consultants. A particularly noteable project was the Trane News Exchange that Jeff, Brian and Ewan all worked on. The ability to quickly and efficiently reach employees was realized in the concept of an intranet community. An intranet community would allow Trane associates to manage information and news sources from one locus of control. Because Rapidigm had successfully redesigned and launched Trane’s new corporate website, Rapidigm was a natural choice for implementing the Trane community intranet.
Results
Rapidigm successfully collaborated with Trane to create a dynamic, interactive community intranet. The process initially focused on defining objectives and then refining an inviting and intuitive web interface. This interface nicely integrated into the already existing Plumtree company portal. The complete solution package encompassed feature stories, strategy header, breaking news and a powerful content management. Editors were selected to specifically manage and publish specific articles. Two particularly useful and flexible features were the abilities to transfer articles from MS Word and input direct HTML. Ultimately, Trane received a solution that provided rapid development and delivery along with a perfectly timed launch of their intranet, the Trane Exchange community.
Technologies
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