Finnish Visit Boosts Business on Teesside
Two Teesside-based SME companies, both suppliers to the region’s process industry, have forged a technology business deal thanks to a visit from a Finnish IT specialist.
Darlington-based Mintronics, run by local businessman John Minto, are resellers of an electronic document management system known as M-Files. M-Files enables users to control documents and quality processes and to make sure scheduled tasks take place on time.
Following a workshop in December, Mintronics has signed a software license deal with the Stockton safety and training firm Cognition Media, who have chosen M-Files as a solution to managing their files whilst increasing efficiency and bringing cost-savings to their operations.
When Mintronics attended an industry conference last year in Barcelona, they were introduced to Mika Salonoja, Senior Product Manager at M-Files in Finland, and expert in regulatory compliant content management, document management and quality management solutions. On hearing about the concentration of process industry and pharmaceutical companies located in the North East of England, Mika decided to visit Darlington, and delivered a workshop at the Mintronics office back in December, which was attended by Cognition Media’s MD, Alan Bassett.
Delighted that the workshop brought about a partnership between the two local businesses, Mika commented: “It seems Mintronics is very well connected to this North East cluster, and they have a strong industry-meets-IT background. The sheer existence of the region’s cluster is a great asset in itself, and rarely seen in other countries. It was great to talk to and get instant feedback from so many companies during a relatively short visit.”
John added: “Cognition Media were one of 25 companies to attend the December workshop, and we are grateful to Mika and M-Files for helping to host this worthwhile event, particularly as it demonstrated to Teesside companies how they can make real cost savings and efficiency improvements during these tough economic times. We look forward to more companies benefiting from our next scheduled event on 9th February in Darlington.”
Cognition Media has won a significant contract from one of the largest global oil companies to upgrade and deliver a more ‘user’-focussed solution for their process training documents both on and offshore. The project includes the development of process specific system descriptions; ‘on the job’ training workbooks and a complete task assessment process to validate their knowledge out in the field.
Alan commented, “After I saw ‘M-files’ in operation I could instantly see the benefits in managing not only our documents and media assets but the entire document flow process internally and during the review process with the client, where all revisions and comments can be tracked/recorded. The documents are also backed up to the Cloud so we can be assured that everybody is always working from the latest revision, which from experience can be extremely difficult to manage. We look forward to using ‘M’-files and sharing the benefits with our clients and associates.”
