Dow Selects Synergis Adept Document Management to Support Operational Excellence through Efficiency, Reduced Risk and Safety

QUAKERTOWN, PA, Wednesday, May 11, 2016—Synergis Software, the creators of Synergis Adept document management announced today that The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) has implemented the Adept solution to enhance both the operational and detailed engineering design components of its business.

Dow has a large Six Sigma adoption and prides itself on operational excellence. Dow recognizes the efficiency and safety implications of standard operating procedures. “Dow personnel emphasize consistent work process execution across all sites around the world,” explains Gregg Schuler, Product Manager for Data Integration and Engineering Document Management for Dow.

“We have a sizable investment in written best practices for process design, project execution and plant operation that provide a significant and sustainable competitive advantage for Dow,” he adds.

Challenge with Legacy Document Management Systems
Dow recognized that its engineering document management systems were could no longer support a high level of process excellence. “Our document management initiative started because a Six Sigma project identified gaps and problems with our storage of as-built documents,” recalls Mr. Schuler. “We had usability issues, constrained access, and limited ability to collaborate across sites; and inefficiencies because we could not always quickly find the right document versions.”

“We had a large variety of different document management systems at the time, and all of them had some usability or supportability issue,” added Barbara Migl, CAE Technology Leader for Dow. “Some of the solutions were no longer being supported, and some sites just used file shares.”

Dow Partners with Synergis Software
As a result of a detailed evaluation process, Dow chose Adept from Synergis Software because it:
• met their critical criteria
• is fast to install and implement
• is a simple solution that was easy for users to adopt without significant training
• is easy to tailor to unique needs of different sites without requiring custom coding

“Synergis helped kick-start our team with initial configuration and training services, and from there, we did the site specific implementations all ourselves,” notes Mr. Schuler. “Having Synergis involved up front accelerated the overall implementation.”

Initial Adoption Wins Supporters
Dow’s initial plan was to use Adept to only manage as-built plant documents. But Dow’s Engineering Group needed immediate document management support for a large capital project. The project personnel discovered that meeting customer reporting requirements via their standard Windows file-share storage methods would have been problematic. “They came to us and said, ‘Can you do something to set up a document management repository for our project?’ and in about six weeks from start to finish we had something in place,” recalls Mr. Schuler. Adept proved to be fast to implement and easy to adopt. “I think it was a big surprise to people how quickly we could deploy something to solve their problems, and we did it all ourselves,” he adds.

About Dow
Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from material, polymer, chemical and biological science to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2015, Dow had annual sales of nearly $49 billion and employed approximately 49,500 people worldwide. The Company's more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 179 sites in 35 countries across the globe. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

About Synergis Software
Synergis Software is the developer of Adept engineering document management solutions. A pioneer in the document management industry, Synergis Software provides operational and business value that addresses the needs of companies who want to simplify and streamline their engineering and collaboration processes as well as control and secure the flow of engineering information throughout the enterprise, including global sites, vendors and customers. The company offers specialty data migration and integration services that enable companies with complex data systems to achieve faster access to critical data, improved product/project development cycles, and better decision-making.

A complete case study on Dow can be found at www.SynergisSoftware.com. For immediate questions on software and services, call 800.836.5440/215.302.3000.