The Client

Ciena Corporation designs and manufactures multiplexing systems for long distance fiber optic telecommunications networks. These solutions enables carriers to increase a single fiber's capacity by up to 16 times, up to 40GB/s from 2.5 GB/s. In plain English, 40 billion bits per second can handle 600,000 phone conversations, or 1.4 million Internet connections using 28.8-kilobit modems. Alternatively, such a capacity can distribute 4,000 different full-motion video streams, or 200,000 high-quality audio feeds to those who want to sample CDs. CIENA is based in Linthicum, Maryland, near the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. CIENA's main competitor is Lucent Technologies. The company's year 2000 valuation was in excess of $4 billion.

The Business Challenge

Ciena partnered with McFadyen Solutions to construct a Document Access Management System (DAMS). Goals of DAMS included expediting the document storage, retrieval, and automation of a Document Change Notice process. Another aspect involved integration to an existing Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) system. In addition, NovaWeb 1.02 and NovaSearch 6.3.1 were installed and tested. Furthermore, an integration with Spicer Imagenation would allow for redlining of drawings and BOMs.

The Return on Investment

The goals of the project were successfully achieved on time and on budget. Since graduation from the pilot phase, 250 users actively work on the DAM system. The DAM system accelerates tasks such as retrieving and viewing a document; and completing DCN submissions.

The Technology

• NovaWeb 1.02
• NovaSearch 6.3
• Spicer Imagenation