It is incredibly common for Engineers, Metallurgists, and Managers to have their own pet spreadsheets that they put countless hours of time and effort into building. The widespread use of these sorts of spreadsheets results in excessive time wastage and duplication of work, in the following ways:

• Lack of Visibility: Spreadsheets are most often kept to an individual’s personal storage drive, and get emailed around when requested, or never shared at all.
  
  
• Knowledge Lost: When a spreadsheet owner leaves the company, the knowledge stored in these spreadsheets is often lost.
  
  
• Version Control: As spreadsheets are sent around different versions arise, each holding different and often outdated data.
  
  
• Duplication of Work: The lack of visibility often results in the same work occurring more than once, as employees aren’t aware of the existence of each-others spreadsheets.

The Optimum Platform solves these problems by offering spreadsheet replacement through the Data Portal module. Spreadsheets can be stored in the Optimum Software, where they can be viewed and edited simultaneously by multiple users. In this way spreadsheets are no longer maintained by a single person, and the knowledge contained within is never lost to the company or department. Access control can be placed on these Optimum-hosted spreadsheets, allowing access to everyone, or a specific group of people, i.e. the maintenance department, managers, superintendents, etc.

• Increase data visibility across your company.
  
  
• Guarantee that only one version of the truth exists regarding spreadsheets.
  
  
• Ensure knowledge is not lost among emails or employees leaving.
  
  
• Have access control over spreadsheets.
  
  

• Ensure manual data is only ever entered once.