MatrixOne Inc. on Monday unveiled a new application designed to create collaborative virtual workspaces for global project teams operating in private and public marketplaces.
Team Central is designed to support dynamic project teams by providing flexible secure mechanisms to support their exchange of information and by managing their structure in real-time.
It allows project teams to be quickly assembled, each member's responsibilities and access rights to be assigned, and the project's supporting information to be effectively managed and shared among members, said Barry Foster, business development manager at MatrixOne.
The Team Central solution is designed for enterprises that are moving to include suppliers much earlier in the product development cycle than ever before to increase efficiency, Foster said. Today, many suppliers are brought in only at the very end of the product development lifecycle or during execution of the product.
"[By this time] there have been many decisions made regarding the product which are locked in stone," Foster said. "The opportunity for savings is limited at that point."
To achieve bottom-line savings by bringing suppliers and partners into the product lifecycle earlier, Team Central is designed to define project teams, create team threaded discussions, route information among team members, and allow members to view various documents and tasks. It builds upon the integration and business process capabilities of the eMatrix collaboration platform and MatrixOne's Value Chain Portfolio.
B-to-b marketplace e2open announced last month that it had partnered with MatrixOne and Ariba Inc. to incorporate MatrixOne's portfolio of collaboration products to offer to its members in the global electronics industry.
MatrixOne's customers include General Electric Corp., John Deere, Procter & Gamble Co., Nokia Corp., Toshiba Corp., Philips Electronics NV, Siemens AG, Alcatel SA, JDS Uniphase Corp., and Honda Motor Co Ltd.