Until the iPad came along, the office workers and the plant workers at Industrial Mold & Machine had little means of communicating effectively, resulting in a culture gap at the Twinsburg, Ohio manufacturing company. Email sent from the office suites to a few PCs on the shop floor just didn't cut it, reports Tom Kaneshige at CIO magazine.

When the iPad was released, the company's knowledge and information manager, Larry Housel, decided to issue one to each of the  37 employees, including top executives, support staff, engineers and workers on the shop floor.

"We saw the iPad as a way to pull everybody in," Housel said. "We've got people who don't have a computer at home. Some wouldn't know what to do with a computer if I put one in front of them."

The iPad's touch screen and app icons make it more user-friendly than a PC, Housel said. What's more, its 10-inch screen allows users to pull up the company's social network, called Socialtext, which contains internal blogs, Wiki workspaces and collaboration tools.  

For the iPad roll-out to really succeed, however, software vendors will have to support the device. While some are quick to create native iPad apps that leverage the device's unique features, others are being more tentative. Housel said vendors need to be encouraged to commit resources to developing for the device.

For more:
- see Tom Kaneshige's article at CIO

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