HAVI Logistics is a global company with locations throughout Asia, North America and Europe. In Asia, they have been providing the highest international standards in logistic services since 1981. As one of the world’s leading logistics supplier, they have been a one-stop-shop for their customers who needed solutions for the entire supply chain.
We developed the HAVI Logistics’ Intranet System to be accessed concurrently by multiple users across the globe; it is a central portal for the HR team, as well as for Management to share news and important announcements. Every user logs on to the HAVI Intranet at the start of their work day and information, documents and files accessed from the Intranet system will have an impact on their work processes, actions and deliverables. This Intranet system is envisaged and designed to be ecosystem of the HAVI Organization and to facilitate the use of Knowledge Management in the future.
Based on Requirements Gathering sessions we conducted for the knowledge champions, as well top management, we identified two main requirements. Firstly, the system had to have superior search capabilities; HAVI has a wealth of information available to system users. Secondly the content had to be filterable such that it would not be overwhelming for the users; thus only content relevant to the specific user was displayed.
The HAVI Intranet System was developed using Microsoft Sharepoint Enterprise Content Management System, and its user interface was designed with an “Internet” look and feel. To address the concern of the relevant content as well as to reduce the information overload. Usability engineering was a crucial component for HAVI Intranet. Designing the homepage to be aesthetically appealing and user friendly was one of the priorities top management had of the system in order to obtain user acceptance and buy-in.
User Identification and authentication was used to filter content specific to a particular user. Thus if a user is from Malaysia, this user will only see the news, events and other Malaysia related information compared to a user from Singapore who would see Singapore related information.
To facilitate accurate and complete content searchability, content was tagged with metadata, strategic keyword placement was used and information was structured according to the content correlation (users’ browsing patterns). The intranet system was integrated with their Authentication Server so the users could also search for people in the organization and obtain relevant information about the staff.
The system was customized to allow staff their own profile page which could be updated as and when necessary.
As the Intranet is an evolving ecosystem, and as more users update their profile page and share their work experience and acquired knowledge which accumulates in the system, the collective knowledge of the organization keeps growing and evolving. New tools are needed to further assist users in searching for relevant and useful content. HAVI has plans to implement collaboration tools, COPs and other human interactive mediums in the future.