Welcome to FoCul

We are a specialist consultancy providing collaboration solutions to Engineering and Manufacturing organisations.

Our key strength is our knowledge of these organisations - from Manufacturing right through to HR and Sales.

Our team is a mixed group of Professional Engineers and IT developers. This combination of skills and knowledge allows us to develop solutions that work really well in your environment with your people.

IBM Advanced Business Partner

IBM Advanced Business Partner Certificate

Apologies for the web site outage 

Apologies for the web site outage today. We moved our server to EC2 so that we could get some real life experience of that environment before recommending it to customers.
An administration error on our part brought the site down. You can read more here

PX to implement the Management of Change module at the Sellafield CHP plant 

FoCul is pleased to announce that PX Limited have purchased the new web browser release of the Management of Change for Process Safety module of the Delivery Toolkit Suite for the Fellside CHP plant at Sellafield.

The Fellside CHP facility provides process steam to the Sellafield reprocessing facility and generates 188MW of electrical power onto the National Grid. The plant is operated and maintained by px who employ and manage the operations and maintenance teams.

This new browser based is based on the new Lotus XPages technology from IBM and is scheduled for delivery in Q3. You can see the weekly ( more robust ) and daily ( more recent but less robust) builds as they develop.

A brochure for the MOC module can be found here and further materials will be added to the Delivery Toolkit Wiki as we develop them.

FoCul will be Presenting at the IBM Power of Business Applications Conference 

FoCul will be presenting at the IBM Power of Business Applications conference on the 16th June at IBM Bedfont Lakes.

Image:FoCul will be Presenting at the IBM Power of Business Applications Conference

The presentation will focus on our  ABB Global Consulting case study showing how we have used Notes to develop a business solution which not only adds significant business value but also has a solid future as Notes moves forward.

FoCul adds Management of Change for Process Safety to the Delivery Toolkit Suite 

FoCul has added a Management of Change for Process Safety ( MOC ) module to the FoCul Delivery Toolkit Suite. This browser based system is currently under development and will be deployed to manage change at a large UK CHP power plant in Q3.

The MOC application will significantly improve the efficiency and control with which changes can be managed. In developing the application we have incorporated many of the ideas in the Guidelines for the Management of Change for Process Safety from the Centre For Chemical Process Safety CCPS.

The FoCul Delivery Toolkit Suite is FoCul's suite of shrink wrapped solutions. Each module has been developed from extensive experience gained on real projects and is available on a licensed or monthly subscription basis.

FoCul moves to the Amazon Elastic Cloud 

FoCul has become one of the first organisations to move Lotus Notes / Domino servers into the Amazon Elastic Cloud.

Image:FoCul moves to the Amazon Elastic Cloud

The web site that you are looking at now is hosted in the "Amazon Elastic Cloud" ( known as EC2 ) in Ireland. Moving the servers to the elastic cloud allows us to quickly deploy new servers or upscale existing servers. It also reduces costs and improves our disaster recovery capabilities. The EC2 cloud will also provide a good platform for our Xpage virtual appliance based solutions.

If you would like to look as deploying your own Domino servers to EC2 then Sean Cull of FoCul has written an article based on our own experiences. If you would like support in looking at moving your servers to the cloud ( Amazon or otherwise ) we would be very happy to help.

FoCul publishes the FoCul Delivery Toolkit Wiki 

The FoCul Delivery Toolkit is our suite of "off the shelf" products. These are typically applications which we have been asked to develop several times by different customers and where we felt that it would be useful to develop a product which incorporated all of the best practice from those projects.

The applications are highly configurable so that they can be tailored to meet different business requirements. If we cannot meet the specific business requirements then these applications also provide a good foundation for us to build upon.

The Delivery Toolkit products are available to buy outright or to rent on a monthly basis. We are also able to provide the applications as a service ( software as a service - SAAS ) as either Lotus Notes or web based applications.

The purpose behind the use of a Wiki ( as opposed to a brochure site ) is to make it easier for both existing and potential customers to see what is available. Our approach to working with our customers is very hands on and collaborative. We feel that as the content in the Wiki grows it will become a rich resource that both users and potential customers can refer to and also help improve.

The Wiki software itself is the popular OpenNTF Xpages Wiki which is both free and open source. Xpages is a revolutionary new technology incorporated into Notes / Domino 8.5 which makes it much easier to web enable new and existing Lotus Notes applications.