Case Study: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution achieves centralized document control and streamlined engineering workflows for the Alvin upgrade with Synergis Software (Adept)

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution - Customer Case Study

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), operator of the U.S. Navy‑owned Alvin submersible, faced a major document control challenge as a funded overhaul of Alvin drove a surge in engineering drawings, manuals and change requests. Their files were scattered across individual PCs and a basic file server with no secure vault, limited access control, or tight CAD integration with Autodesk Inventor, so WHOI evaluated and selected Adept document management from Synergis Software to meet the upgrade’s collaboration and security needs.

Synergis Software implemented Adept in under a week, integrating with Autodesk Inventor and deploying check‑in/check‑out, role‑based access, simple workflows and ECR tracking; the system scaled quickly as engineering staff grew. The result: centralized, secure storage and controlled transmittal of native CAD files and PDFs, seamless collaboration across teams, and measurable scale—Adept now manages over 18,000 Alvin‑related documents—delivering improved productivity and “peace of mind” for WHOI operations.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Rick Chandler

Submersible Operations Administrator