The company subsequently installed two additional units, one at corporate headquarters in Milford and another at Hitchiner S.A. de C.V. in Santiago, Tianguistenco, Mexico. "The system sees daily use for customer conferences, as well as staff, production and engineering meetings between facilities," says Gregory Babich, vice president and General Manager of the Ferrous Division. "Our people have face to face interaction with customers and each other at a fraction of the time and money cost of travel. In some ways it is better than meeting in person, because the participants have immediate access to the resources at their home site."

PictureTel equipment includes a remote-controlled camera and a 27" monitor. The camera features pan, tilt, and zoom capability, controllable from either the near- or far-end. Hitchiner has added document cameras and VCRs at all locations. The document camera provides for close ups of charts, graphs and three-dimensional objects such as castings. Small details that are nearly imperceptible to the naked eye can be blown up to fill the entire monitor. The VCR can be used to play back tapes or record a meeting. Other video sources can also be added to the system.

The system operates on ISDN telephone lines and is internationally compatible. The preferred compression algorithm for the PictureTel system is SG3, however they can also communicate in H.320, a standard which most videoconferencing systems, including desktop units, conform.