Intermec Knowledgebase
Situation
The Intermec Strategic Programs and Government Group prepared proposals in response to large commercial and government bids. These proposals normally required a tremendous amount of research. They often took weeks or months to prepare. Many of these proposals contained information that could be reused or adapted to other proposals.
Action(s)
Proposal information was extracted, organized, and linked. information was organized by topics and updated as new proposals were created. The knowledgebase expanded as new information was included in subsequent proposals. Sections included competitive data, product information and configurations, general proposal boilerplate, etc.
At first co-workers were reluctant to use the system. To introduce the staff to the system a “recipe” section was included. Co-workers submitted recipes and these were categorized and added. New users were intrigued and began browsing through recipes. Browsing the recipe section made them familiar with the system and they began using the “real” data. Soon the staff was using the entire system for proposals. This resulted in proposals that were more accurate and took much less time to create.
Outcome
The Government Group produced proposals more quickly because of the stored and categorized data. Proposals no longer had to be created from scratch. Information from prior proposals could easily be found, updated, and added to the new proposal. The group produced more consistent and more complete proposals in less time.
Benefits
The system saved a tremendous amount of time during proposal preparation. Better proposals were created in about 20% to 50% less time than before. Standardized proposal templates also gave the proposal a more consistent format.