element14, Premier Farnell’s online community for design engineers, today announced the launch of The Drawer, an innovative content storage tool for users to capture and collect information as they navigate through the element14 community. The Drawer functionality also extends to the Knode on element14, enabling design engineers to collect and save technical information, parts data and content references from the entire community. This will help to speed up design research and pull together comprehensive solutions to hardware and software design challenges.

The recent independent study conducted by element14 and Technology Forecasters, Inc. (TFI) to determine critical "pain points" for global electronics engineers during the four stages of design – concept, design, prototyping, and pre-production - revealed several design challenges, including increasing time pressures, incomplete or inaccurate information from relevant sources, and difficulty comparing options and alternatives. Many respondents cited a lack of consolidated online tools and databases hinder their ability to make accurate comparisons. This is where The Drawer can be used to store information when engineers are researching a design, or when they are comparing alternative technology solutions.

The functionality of The Drawer is ubiquitous across the whole community, enabling users to find and store information, such as datasheets, and application notes in the Knode on element14.  Other benefits include storage of relevant articles from the news site as well as the ability to bookmark and save discussions from relevant Groups on element14, with the available data easily shareable with colleagues. This is not just restricted to word documents, or PDFs , but also includes software code, design files, video content and products for purchase. The collected data is saved online under the user’s account name and is accessible for viewing on future visits to element14.

“The Drawer is a significant step up to the innovative features of the element14 community and the Knode,” said Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Community and eProcurement, Premier Farnell. “This is a bespoke content storage tool that supports multiple file formats and data types. With the launch of The Drawer we have redefined the degree of solutions needed by our customers, by empowering them with the ability to compare and contrast competition technologies, improving productivity and making their lives easier by a simple online access to their aggregated information.”

A video introduction to The Drawer is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuIKeFKmbiE

Na snímku: Konstruktéři nyní mohou sbírat a schraňovat informace v Zásuvce v průběhu procházení komunitou element14 a Knode na element14

About element14

Launched in June 2009, element14 is the first, innovative information portal and eCommunity specifically built for electronic design engineers. It provides product data, design tools and technology information, whilst incorporating Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate communication, interaction, collaboration and information sharing between colleagues around the world. Users can consult experts, discover trends, post blogs, articles and comments in this world-wide forum.

Since its launch element14 has surpassed all of the targets set, has garnered overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers and suppliers alike, and is now attracting more than 24,000 visitors a week with new user profiles created each day.

element14 is an innovative offering from Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), FTSE 250, a leader in multi-channel distribution and specialty services for electronic design engineers throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. It has a stocked range of 450,000+ products, and access to 4,000,000 more items from 3,500 top manufacturers. The company has group sales of £990.8m and over 4,100 employees globally.

For more information visit: www.element14.com.