Challenge: Multi-organization collaboration

In recent years, the demand for photovoltaic cells and modules has grown rapidly as reported in several market analysis e.g. by iSuppli. In combination with shorter design cycles, increasing collaboration between organizations, high specification requirements and increased competition, the need for a more efficient development approach supported by appropiate software tools arises.

Because of the different application areas, the variety of technologies (crystaline, CI(G)S, etc.) and the considerable number of small and medium companies, a cooperative distributed development approach is not uncommon in the photovoltaics industry. The development of cell concepts and manufacturing steps for PV products are interdependent (i.e. manufacturing processes are generally cell and application specific). This implies a high demand for a central collaboration platform supporting the multi-site multi-organization development projects.

Solution:

The central collaboration and information management platform XperiDesk is an excellent starting point for an integrated suite of tools supporting distributed development. With its built in IPR management functions as well as its versioning and audit compliant management scheme it can build the nucleus for integrating further PV development tools and gives all development partners the selective protected access required. This is enabled by its tight, user and group level access control on a per item level, giving full control over the permission (e.g. read, update, delete) a user or group has. Together with its open interfaces and export/import capabilities XperiDesk optimally supports the major obstacle area concerned with developing PV cells and theirs manufacturing processes in a distributed multi-organization fashion.