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International firm selects service for daily conferences between employees and customers.

In the race to develp the next generation of power train technologies, which hold the prospect of reducing fuel consumption and exhaust emission levels for new vehicles of all types, BorgWarner’s fast-moving organization relies on collaboration tools and an IP VPN network to help drive communication and accelerate the decision-making process.

“We operate manufacturing and technical facilities in 43 locations in 14 countries, including sites in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America,” says Paul Barry, director of information technology and network systems for BorgWarner. “Most of our sites are located in small towns, which means our engineers need to travel great distances for meetings with counterparts in other cities. With videoconferencing, we’ve improved our productivity as a result of real-time collaboration.”

Originally, however, BorgWarner employees placing point-to-point international videoconference calls did not have a cost-effective option for high-quality, operator-initiated calls. As a result, these point-to-point users were faced with a “self-service” user experience, plus costly ISDN charges for video transport.

The company decided to employ a videoconferencing service from Global Crossing to improve the experience and productivity of users. In addition to using Global Crossing’s iVideoconferencing service, BorgWarner project teams around the world routinely use Global Crossing’s Ready-Access audio-conferencing services for customer and supplier interactions.

By using BorgWarner’s existing ISDN network, the iVideoconferencing solution backhauls the international portion of the video call over Global Crossing’s secure IP backbone, which, according to Barry, delivers better reliability and lower costs compared with traditional ISDN connections. With iVideoconferencing, Global Crossing operators take care of setting up the call, so the meeting chairperson simply walks into a conference room and starts the meeting.

The videoconferencing service lets BorgWarner leverage its existing ISDN infrastructure and gain the benefits of an end-to-end IP videoconference without any incremental investment. Also, with Global Crossing’s Interactive Web Reservation tool, customers can manage their meetings, obtain invoices, order services, interact with customer service and receive trouble tickets by e-mail–all through a single, direct-access, Web-based portal.

“We were particularly impressed by how easy it is to have a video meeting,” explains Barry. “The nature of our global business means that we conduct a lot of international meetings, so cost was a huge factor in our decision. We project that Global Crossing’s service will save us between 50 to 70% on our international point-to-point and multipoint videoconference calls compared to what we paid previously for ISDN.”

Videoconferencing has proved instrumental, Barry says, in enabling BorgWarner business groups and project teams to collaborate. The company’s design, research and development, and calibration and power train testing groups connect daily. These operated-assisted videoconferences are also used as a communications vehicle by BorgWarner’s central service functions, such as finance and information technology.

Financial controllers at each of its 43 plants, for example, routinely meet by videoconference and share Excel spreadsheets. Employees around the world can meet virtually with colleagues, suppliers and customers to determine a course of action and move quickly from product concept to solution. Engineering teams hold weekly videoconferencing calls with their counterparts and customers to discuss data, blueprints, computer-aided diagrams and models.

“Timely communication allows our engineers to make decisions quicker and roll out new products, giving the company an edge on the competition,” says Barry. “By switching to the videoconferencing service, the quality of service and reliability of the calls has helped our sites stay connected and kept our meetings on course.”

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