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Document Management Systems
Recent industry
estimates indicate that it costs about $2 a year per document to maintain the
library of drawings, specifications, indexes and software required to support a
modern production facility. This cost does not include the cost of time
wasted searching for missing documents or the cost of engineering time to field
verify information that has been documented and then lost in the mountain of
paper we call a filing system.
The $2 per drawing also does not include the cost
of lost production when the technician can't find the documentation needed to
correct a problem at 2:00 in the morning. The
cost also does not include the cost of accidents caused by missing or incorrect
documentation of safety interlocks or critical equipment specifications. OSHA
now requires that all process safety information be maintained in an auditable
form. When all the costs are considered, the need
for an efficient document management system becomes obvious.
The need may be obvious, but the difficulties
associated with implementing a new system are enormous. Electronic filing
systems have been with us for years, but their application to document
management has been slowed in the past by several factors.
The huge amounts of disk space required to store
the documents were only available on expensive hardware platforms. The
existing documents were in a variety of different formats ranging from hard copy
only to proprietary formats dictated by the variety of software design packages
utilized. Even where systems were implemented, user's were frustrated by
the fact that access to the information was limited because of the high cost of
workstations required to retrieve information. This leads to individual user's
maintaining their own hard copy of documents in the field. Invariably the
paper copies were marked-up, but the changes to the electronic files lagged
behind by months or years. Since the electronic versions were outdated,
users were less likely to rely on them. The result has
been expensive systems that are under-utilized.
A modern document management system must have
several features to be successful. It must provide easy access to the user
where he needs it.
This means that information is available in each engineer's office, the
maintenance shop, the control rooms and key equipment rooms located throughout
the facility.
The system should provide access to documents
through the application software required to modify the document for easy
changes by authorized personnel. It should also provide a means of
simplified access to users who only want to view the documents and don't need to
learn how to use complicated design software. The retrieval process should use menus or
icons to guide the user through the selections required to retrieve a document.
The system should include a security feature, to
ensure that only authorized personnel are allowed to make changes to documents. The security should allow subdividing the
documents into as many categories as required to grant change authorization to
different individuals or groups. This will allow distributing the
responsibility for document updates, while ensuring that no unauthorized
changes can be made. The system should
also provide a means of identifying when a file was last changed and by whom.
The cost to install and convert existing documents
to such a system could easily exceed $1,000,000. Fortunately, many plants have 80% of the
system already installed! The key
is to design a system that will utilize existing personal computers (PC's) as
work stations to retrieve the information, Local Area Networks (LAN's) to distribute
the information and PC based file servers for cost effective storage of the
documents.
The following is an outline of the tasks required to determine
the feasibility of installing a document management system :
- Conduct
an audit of existing systems to determine additional hardware requirements.
- Review existing document formats and
quantities to determine software requirements and file server capacity requirements.
- Prepare
a document management system feasibility report that includes:
- System Description
- System Overview Diagram
- List of document types
- List of additional hardware required
- List of additional software required
- Cost estimate
The following is an outline of the tasks required to complete
the detailed system design and installation:
- Prepare specifications for new equipment.
- Prepare
installation drawings for new equipment.
- Supervise installation of new equipment
- Install file server software
- Install workstation application software (and
network drivers if required)
- Build directory structures and assign group
authorities
- Sort
and load document files on file server
- Add users to server
- Provide
system training
Click here for SEACON's solution to document
management.
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