Customer Case Study : Asea Brown Boveri (ABB
Network Computing in a Distributed Engineering Environment

Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), a world leader in electrical engineering products, facilities and services, is a decentralized, globally distributed, matrix managed company. Information technology plays the central role in maintaining contact between and among more than 1000 companies worldwide.

ABB has deployed leading edge IT solutions for logistics and supply chain management, product development and project execution management. This includes the use of Java over the internet to provide interactive access to our partners, customers, and suppliers.

The company now faces some important decisions in delivering state-of-the-art engineering applications that support a collaborative approach to decision making based on interactive simulation based design and analysis. This involves some demanding requirements such as the need to share 3D graphics derived from multi-disciplinary engineering applications, PDM information and complex documents over a distributed network.

In addition, there is a great advantage to centralizing information storage, application management and delivery. Naturally, increased flexibility and reduced cost are important considerations and drivers.

Dr. Grossmann, CIO for ABB Germany, will discuss the requirements for both client server platforms in this application area and how the company is working with suppliers to decide o the best and most appropriate solution.