September 2007 - Equinox Engineering Ltd. has adopted SMART Board technology to facilitate AutoCAD drawing reviews and presentations. The unveiling of the SMART Board to Equinox clients was to a visiting delegation from the Kuwait National Petroleum Corporation (KNPC) in September at Equinox. During a week-long drawing review with the Kuwaiti clients, to review progress on the Mina Abdullah Refinery De-hazing project, the new Equinox SMART Board was used extensively to review IFA AutoCAD drawings.

“The SMART Board technology has made a dramatic effect on the productivity of our meetings,” said Sunny Sharma, Vice President of Equinox Engineering. “We can project the AutoCAD files for group viewing on the 5’ x 5’ screen, and do our mark-ups on screen. This is a huge saving of time, without printing numerous hard copies to be marked up with felt pen. Our mark-ups are made, on screen, visible to everyone and saved to an electronic file.”

The earlier iteration of the SMART Board was the “white board” – a fixture within many Calgary and Canadian boardrooms. SMART board technology is relatively new, yet has the capability to provide effective and interactive meetings. Once the SMART board is activated, the system readily integrates with AutoCAD, Microsoft Office and Adobe and is suitable for video conferencing. Equinox’s SMART board, 5 feet by 5 feet in dimension, is located in their 3rd floor board room and boasts rear projection facilities. This type of projection allows the presenter to face the audience, touch the board, without casting shadows on the screen (front projection systems have the distinct disadvantage of shadows/distortions being created by the person in front of the projector).

By adopting this new technology, Equinox has noted the following:

• Client meetings, such as HAZOPs and Drawing Reviews are streamlined, with an interactive environment promoted
• Facilitators can easily present information on drawings, immediately access changes and modifications,
• Mark-ups and other information is instantaneously captured; but more importantly, the audience can visibly see the changes as they are incorporated into the document
• multiple presenters can use the SMART board
• International clients, multiple offices, or offices that are geographically segregated can be integrated and linked using this technology
• Meeting non-attendees can access SMART board presentations via their personal computers, they can also hear the conversations occurring (similar to video or tele-conferencing in different rooms, but with the same data set)
• Note pad software – similar to using a blackboard but with immediate links to the software.  This is an exceptional tool for brainstorming, creating proposals, client presentations, and interacting with EASE technology (via internet explorer).