Background The IOM (The Institute of Operations Management) is the professional body for persons invloved in Production Management, Supply Chain Management and Operations Management.
The website is a huge data source for its members, holding news articles, event details, case studies a huge archive of Journal Articles. Each quarter a Journal is published by the IOM, thus the website needs to be updated often. The industry is always changing therefore it is vital to be always up to date.
The Brief The IOM wanted a website which is flexible and will allow any authorised member of staff to update areas in real time. There is such a vast archive of information that navigation and the ability to allow clients to find the information that they are looking for is vital. The site is membership based and it was important to segregate selected areas to prevent non-members from accessing them. The large amount of information posed a logistical problem for staff as various sections were maintained by different outside companies, and were attempted to be brought together in once place. All these needed to be combined to ensure that all sections could be updated in one place, and also cut down administration charges from the other hosting companies.
The Results The IOM was in April 2006. The website incorporates all of the facilities that were previously dotted about various other places, and allow updating by IOM staff and not third parties. The membership process is now an online application and payement, ensuring that administrative work and renewals can be handled automatically. The vast archives of information have been ported to the new website and are all available for searching. Although the site navigation posed a difficulty, the menus and navigation are content managed, which allows new information to be added and accessed immediately.
The website administration system has saved a considerable amount of time and money in administative costs, and the database stores all registration details. The database system holds information which is easily searchable, therefore making it easy to find out details about any member.
Visit the site: http://www.iomnet.org.uk/.
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