Infoworld 100
Beloit Corp. University Baptist Medical Center Sikorsky Aircraft Ace Parking Management The Wharton School Tennessee Valley Authority Charles Schwab Empire District Electric Co. MTV Networks Oppenheimer Funds The InfoWorld 100 By Kathy Lou Schultz In the fifth annual InfoWorld 100, we look at how IT leaders are using technology in an innovative fashion to solve today's toughest business problems. Rather than defining where we thought innovation was taking place, we went to you, our readers, to tell us. We took nominations via telephone, e-mail, and a dedicated Web site. We received many excellent entries in areas we anticipated: year-2000 fixes, remote- access solutions, and Web-based projects, including business-to- business Internet-commerce sites, and sophisticated intranet architectures. We also heard about projects we couldn't have imagined, such as Sikorsky Aircraft's real-time, engineering-functional helicopter model (No. 3), and MTV's streamlined video-procurement system (No. 9). An InfoWorld editorial review team chose the 1998 InfoWorld 100 winners from 300 entries. The team selected winners based on the complexity of the business problem and solution, as well as the business benefits of the project. The entries show examples of courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable problems, creativity on a shoestring budget, and effective uses of cutting-edge technologies. We begin the three-part InfoWorld 100 series this week. Next week we'll round out the top 10 winners with full-page case studies on each of these interesting innovators. The following issue, Oct. 12, will include descriptions of the rest of the winning projects a list of amazing diversity and depth along with more case studies of top companies. If you think you should be included in the 1999 InfoWorld 100, we hope to hear from you. We will accept entries from October 1998 to May 1999. THE BIG WINNERS. Beloit Corp., a giant in the design and manufacturing of pulping and paper-making equipment, takes the No. 1 spot this year with a highly complex bids and proposals system. The system cut in half the company's normal 30-day period for generating proposals for manufacturing paper-making machines machines typically the length of one-and-one-half football fields. Proving that advances in technology directly affect the health of society, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is in the No. 2 spot with its use of handheld terminals to input and access patient data, which has helped improve patient care. The InfoWorld 100 exemplafies that creativity occurs across industries: This year's top 10 includes representatives from the manufacturing, health-care, aerospace, service, education, government, and finance, utility, and entertainment sectors. In addition, showing that deregulation may beget innovation, two utility companies, Tennessee Valley Authoraty (No. 6) and Empire District Electric (No. 8), are in this year's top 10. JAVA JUBILEE. Java, cited in last year's InfoWorld 100 as a trend that failed to materialize, makes an impressive showing this year, breaking into the top 10 in Empire District Electric's 100-percent-Java-based customer-information system. Charles Schwab (No. 7) deployed their extranet using the Java Development Kit and Java virtual machine. In addition, a Java-enabled Web browser has helped streamline the procurement system at the Georgia Institute of Technology Microelectronics Research Center (No. 20). Overall, the Web is big. Extranets are everywhere, from Schwab's top 10 solution to provide up-to-the-minute data to its fund managers to a joint project by the U.S. Navy and Boeing to support the T-45 training jet (No. 11). Our No. 29 entry, Workrite Ergonomic Accessories, has joined the growing trend of business-to-business I-commerce sites with its new, custom Web-based catalogs that can be added to a customer's intranet. And as for intranets, they are gaining sophistacation, as exemplified by the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (No. 5). With an increasing number of business transactions taking place via the Internet, security concerns are becoming parimount. Oppenheimer Funds (No. 10) found a solution that has prevented the company from losing money because of security breaches. Web-based applications are replacing traditional databases in industries such as insurance, where Producers Lloyds Insurance (No. 19) has armed its agents with an Internet application that allows them to keep up with the rapidly fluctiating rates of crop insurance. In education, where needs are high and budgets are low, IT professionals are using Web technologies to get the most out of each education dollar. In Walden, Colo., students at the rural North Park School District (No. 24) now can take courses such as advanced mathematics with the help of videoconferencing. GO, TEAM! There's a lot of talk in the enterprise these days about teamwork. Among our top 10 winners, the essential nature of teamwork is mentioned again and again as a key component of a project's success. In addition, many of our top innovators stress the importance of getting users involved in the development side of a project, a factor that has eased implementation in a number of cases. Jeff Milhone, project manager for the bids and proposals system at Beloit, points to his cross-departmental team of more than 50 people from aplication engineers to customer-service representatives along with a constant focus on the project's business objectives, as key components of his successful project implementation. At Beloit, the spirit of teamwork has extended to outside consultants who worked along with Milhone's in-house players. At Empire District Electric, Ron Yust says one of the most important elements to his success was recruiting a team made up of developers and end-users. Everyone on the team played a role in decision making, which led to widespread user acceptance as well as unexpectedly innovative design decisions. Fred Brown, IS staff specialist and project manager for the Computerized Patient Records project at the Baptist Medical Center, even found that his user-involvement approach smoothed the financial road for his project. According to Brown, once the technical solution was identified, cost was not an obstacle because user buy-in and the strenth of the determined need drove decision making. "User acceptance was astounding," Brown says. "When we heard the horror stories from others, user acceptance was horrendous. We wanted to make sure we had no such risks; that's why we went into all the pilots and demos." [...]... because of the 29 0,000 lines of non-year -20 00compliant source code mentioned in the first paragraph, take a look next week at Ace Parking Mangement (No 4) Folks there are still alive to tell about it They're the people who increasd your company's sales from $100 million to $500 million without adding any new customer-service represenatives They stared down 29 0,000 lines of non-year -20 00compliant source... new customer-service represenatives They stared down 29 0,000 lines of non-year -20 00compliant source code and came out on top They cut your proposalproduction time from 10 days to three hours They're the most inovative IT professionals in the enterprise today They're the InfoWorld 100 . Schwab Empire District Electric Co. MTV Networks Oppenheimer Funds The InfoWorld 100 By Kathy Lou Schultz In the fifth annual InfoWorld 100, we look at how IT leaders are using technology in an. (No. 3), and MTV's streamlined video-procurement system (No. 9). An InfoWorld editorial review team chose the 1998 InfoWorld 100 winners from 300 entries. The team selected winners based. a shoestring budget, and effective uses of cutting-edge technologies. We begin the three-part InfoWorld 100 series this week. Next week we'll round out the top 10 winners with full-page