terranets bw GmbH

“The time savings are enormous”

Six years ago, the network operator terranets bw transferred its organization manuals and corporate guidelines into a BlueSpice MediaWiki. This saves the company valuable time.

It is not easy to quantify the advantages of a MediaWiki in concrete terms. “But we have saved many hours and weeks over the last six years,” says Alexander Menges when asked about it. Menges is the technical admin of terrapedia, the company’s own MediaWiki, which the network operator terranets bw introduced in 2013 in order to bundle its organization manuals and company guidelines in a transparent and clear manner.

Impulse came from the management

“Previously, there were around 80 extensive individual documents, which were created on the basis of MS Word, then converted into PDF files and uploaded to the intranet”. With every change, the same procedure was necessary again and again. According to Menges, this was a “huge effort”. Both the creation and the later search in the files that were not linked to each other.

In the summer of 2012, the management finally gave the impulse to look for an alternative, a web-based platform. The BlueSpice MediaWiki of Hallo Welt! was discovered relatively early. “This is a software company with a certain size, but you still know the people personally and are perceived as a customer”, says Menges.

Industry

Energy, Water, Environment

Market

Network operator and service provider

Headquarters

Stuttgart, Germany

Employees

unknown

Product

Goal

Optimization of organizational handbooks and corporate guidelines

Use case

Website

Phone

+49 (0) 711 7812-0

Portrait

We are known for efficient and environmentally friendly transport of gas in Baden-Württemberg and to neighbouring countries. With our 2,000 km long pipeline network, we link the region with the European energy infrastructure and provide energy around the clock. Your secure gas supply is our top priority.

Our gas transport pipelines and facilities are controlled and monitored via a high-quality fibre optic network. Our customers also benefit from this extremely secure high-speed network with excellent broadband performance. With our products and services, you as a customer are in the focus. We are there for you on site, exactly where you need us. Our experience of over 50 years speaks for itself.

Anyone can edit

terranets bw GmbH, headquartered in Stuttgart, is the transport network operator for gas in Baden-Württemberg, which ensures non-discriminatory transport with its approximately 2000 kilometre long transmission network. The company also offers an equally comprehensive telecommunications and communications network. Currently, more than two thirds of all towns and municipalities in Baden-Württemberg as well as parts of Switzerland, Vorarlberg and the Principality of Liechtenstein are connected to this network. Customers include network operators, public utilities and industrial companies.

On the company’s own knowledge platform terrapedia, corporate guidelines and organisational manuals of the various management systems have been available in a transparent and clearly arranged form for each of the approximately 250 employees since 2013. “The status, validity or responsibility can be displayed for all documents, thus creating the basis for systematically checking or updating them as required”.

“Anyone can edit directly and the latest version is immediately available to everyone throughout the company – after prior review by the responsible specialist editor”, explains Menges. The same applies to the corporate guidelines available in the BlueSpice MediaWiki. Using the powerful search function, everything can be found easily at any time. “The time saving is enormous. Other platforms are much more complex.

Terranets bw operates various management systems according to ISO standards. Among others, an information security management system according to ISO/IEC 27001 and an HSSE management system according to ISO/IEC standards 14001 and 50001 as well as BS OHSAS 18001 for health protection, occupational safety and environmental protection. Within the framework of external monitoring by the various certification bodies, the BlueSpice Media Wiki terrapedia has also proven its worth, because the necessary rules including the associated forms are generally accessible and the traceability of changes due to the revision has more than convinced the auditors.

Picture: Screenshot of the terrapedia wiki

Getting to know the wiki mentality

“It was particularly challenging,” Menges said, “to familiarize users with the wiki mentality. The knowledge platform terrapedia is filled by different users, every employee can edit contributions – this is a big difference to the previous organisation. And the editor also works differently from MS Word.

In order to familiarise users with terrapedia, user training courses were held at terranets bw at the start of the new knowledge platform in cooperation with Hallo Welt GmbH! “You’ll never really be finished.”

Audits via the MediaWiki

Currently terranets bw is updating to BlueSpice3. Menges also expects a great added value from an increased use of the Semantic Wiki, e.g. for the internal control system. “In the past, it used to be necessary to create elaborate Excel tables for this purpose, but now the workflow can be traced at any time using the individual signatures without the need for an external application”. There’s still some potential in there. But already in the first five years after its introduction it became clear: “The use of the knowledge platform is much more efficient for the employees of terranets bw due to the transparency, the overview and the traceability of the processing”. (sa)

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