Well I finally have started at the new position in the new company.

I love it and I am already saddled with many responsibilities. It is so nice to be appreciated and not have to fight an uphill culture shift.

That being said and the reason for my post in this topic area, is that I have been tasked with determining if we need a third party software for document control or if we can control it in house. We are a heavily involved technology firm with lots of R & D. I know what my capabilities are and what I can do to manage the project, my question is this;

Does anyone have experience with any software for document control and if so, experiences, good or bad and any brand names, contact info would be great. I do not even know what is out there, but in an effort to complete my due dilligence, I want to make sure I am seeing both sides of the picture

Thanks

Well I finally have started at the new position in the new company.

I love it and I am already saddled with many responsibilities. It is so nice to be appreciated and not have to fight an uphill culture shift.

That being said and the reason for my post in this topic area, is that I have been tasked with determining if we need a third party software for document control or if we can control it in house. We are a heavily involved technology firm with lots of R & D. I know what my capabilities are and what I can do to manage the project, my question is this;

Does anyone have experience with any software for document control and if so, experiences, good or bad and any brand names, contact info would be great. I do not even know what is out there, but in an effort to complete my due dilligence, I want to make sure I am seeing both sides of the picture

Thanks
A topic near and dear to my heart!
I've written on this topic several times - here's a copy of something I wrote on the ASQ Forum on 9-3-2004:I know lots about "electronic document management" (EDM) software.

I need a lot more information about the scope of your operation to make a meaningful suggestion.

Make sure you know and understand the difference between "document sharing" and "document management."

Here's a brief summary to start you off:

Document Management Software

Background:
An organization wants to improve efficiency of document management by “grafting” a program over current legacy files and all newly-created files which will provide the following minimum benefits:

a) Ease of Search & Retrieval (on different fields/characteristics)

b) Ensure only the most recent revision is available on standard Search menu

c) Automate the procedure of notifying pertinent parties a document is ready for redlining

d) Maintain an audit trail for the status of documents (released or waiting for checking/approval [and by whom])

e) Allow “full preview” of documents without opening native programs – i.e. AutoCAD documents can be viewed without latest revision of AutoCAD being resident on user’s computer.

f) Permit “group printing” of documents, regardless of native file format.

g) Maintain up to 30 security levels on any document, determining whether user has authority to create, modify, redline, view, print, copy, etc.

How do they work?
The primary feature of Document Control Software is a relational database which manipulates very small files called “metatags”, which relate to certain attributes of documents. Basic attributes are file name, revision level, author, topic, key words, type of file format, etc. which are used for field headings in the database.

By querying the database, a user retrieves a “menu” of documents which meet the search criteria. Self-contained viewing software permits a user to view and print documents, regardless of the native file format. The views can be scrolled, zoomed, and cropped (i.e. user can print an enlarged detail of a document.)

Users who have redline authority can markup documents without invoking the native file program (the redlines are saved as “overlays” in separate files without changing the original document.)

Users who have checking/approval/redline authority can be automatically notified via email when a document is ready for their review. The program will track when and whether the review is completed and maintain an audit trail for “real time” status reports on any or all documents in the review process.

By keying on the attribute “Revision level”, the program can ensure only the most recent, authorized revision is available to most users, reserving authority to view “superseded” documents to special categories of users.

An important consideration in grafting legacy documents into the new system is choosing fields pertinent to the organization. Many documents, like autocad and word documents have features which provide automatic tags (create date, author, department, etc.) [click on "properties" under File in a Word document to get an idea of already available fields.]

The problem is most users write documents which still show "valued customer" as the author because they have never explored the Properties feature.

An expense to consider is going back into each legacy document and adding the meta tags which allow for sorting and retrieval.

I hope this helps - there are many consultants like me who would come in and give your organization background on choosing the best brand for your organization. Caution is "Are they truly independent or do they have bias toward one brand?"-Wes Bucey, Quality Manager
I didn't add in that post that most software programs have web versions, too. In point of fact, the documents "could" be located either on one server or scattered among hundreds or even thousands of hard drives or servers as long as they were connected or accessible via password over a network, a virtual private network, or the internet.

Somewhere else, I wroteWhy not take the entire QMS system paperless? Is your company a public company? Will you ultimately want to include Sarbannes in your thinking?

It appears the toughest part is that you want to go back and include all your legacy data (FAI) as well.

Google "electronic document management" to see some other thoughts on this topic. I hesitate to recommend ANY product by brand name, because the competitive nature of the business is that one company can be hopelessly obsolete in a month or two and another can have a great breakthrough in the same period. Regulatory laws change quickly - a user's current and projected situation in that regard are important factors. Current quantity of documents and projected number of authors and changes are a major factor. Collaboration with suppliers and customers is another big factor.


If push comes to shove and the project is interesting enough, considering talking to me about it as a case study for the book I seem to be endlessly working on:
Wes Bucey offers service as "Strategy Advisor" - Seeking Case Studies for Book (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9117&highlight=electronic+document+management)

I hesitate to throw in a quick and perhaps not fully thought thru comment after
you have seen such a well detailed brief by Wes... but, after hesitating, here
goes.

One of my favorite clients put up a portion of their document control recently using the base Microsoft server software.

Their goal was much less ambitious than the full set of considerations Wes outlines. Specifically, they wanted:

- to use their network for document display/distribution

- as a replacement for a system that involved multiple office and shop
floor binders, with copies of the QS-9000/ and now TS 16949 required
procedures, work instructions, and job specific documents

- to minimize implementation cost

They built the whole thing using the inhouse web server capability on Microsoft
small business server. I forget the name of the specific module from
SBS they used. The documents themselves are in their native formats -
Word, Excel, PDF, etc., although all write locked.

Their systems leader put the whole thing up relatively quickly... i.e. spare
time over a few months.

It looks great and has been effective for them.

It helps that (a) they had already made a commitment to make their computer network widely available to all employees and (b) had put the
network comms and PC's in place. (b) their work force is well trained and
relatively tech savvy, including their shop people. The company is a stamper and tool builder with 3 locations.

They chose not to get elaborate for their document routing/approval. They use their email system to circulate documents for review and then do a final email as approval.

It's worked well for them. If your're interested in pursuing further let me know and perhaps I can get you in touch with them.

Best regards,

Brad Pritts
consultant

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Well I finally have started at the new position in the new company.

I love it and I am already saddled with many responsibilities. It is so nice to be appreciated and not have to fight an uphill culture shift.Good on you Geek :agree1: Congratulations and good luck..

/Claes

Take a look at Microsoft Sharepoint. It does MUCH more than document management, but is very easy to set up and use (if you have the right server environment). Our documentation is stored on a central server in Europe, but the search interface is not that good. We have many different divisions, locations, etc. and it makes finding what applies to you difficult at times. I set up a Sharepoint list in a few hours that links to our most common, critical documents, has one click filtering based on your function (project managers only look at documents they would use). You can also store documents on the server itself. It will also do automatic revision control, saving every previous version of a file.

Just do a search on the MS website for SharePoint and you should find a good overview.

I believe what you are looking for is a PDM (Product Document Management) or PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) system. I have researched and used several systems. I even wrote my own way back when nothing was available of the shelf.

The best system for you will depend on your application and required interfaces. A good resource for information and selection criteria determination is the Association of Configuration and Data Managers (ACDM) at ACDM.org

That being said and the reason for my post in this topic area, is that I have been tasked with determining if we need a third party software for document control or if we can control it in house. We are a heavily involved technology firm with lots of R & D.

One option you might want to investigate.

Does your Engineering group use a CAD software program, i.e. SolidWorks, SolidEdge, Pro-E? Many of these have a doc control upgrade available.

Here is a link to decent forum on CAD systems

http://www.cadchat.com/

Easy to use boards...like the Cove!!

Good luck on your new assignment!

See this is why I love the Cove.

You post a question and instantly 100's of experienced experts deluge you with information. I love you guys!!!!!! :thanx: :thanx: :thanx:

I will investigate all those options and thanks to Carol for the PM with all the related links within the Cove.

I will keep you posted

FYI here are some links to PLM systems I've been looking into:

Agile - www.agile.com/plm/index.asp

Omnify - www.omnifysoft.com/solutions/index.htm

MatrixOne - www.matrixone.com

SmartTeam - www.smarteam.com/homepage.asp

PDMXpert - www.pdxpert-plm.com/Home.aspx

Wes,

Up to 30 levels of security? I'm stumped after about 6. Do you have a list handy?

ddunn,

I've looked at several of those in the past, and one former employer was rolling out Agile right after I left the company. Everyone I looked at was in the 6-7 figure range for a medium sized company. Are there any systems that are geared (and priced) toward the small to medium sized business market?

Wes,

Up to 30 levels of security? I'm stumped after about 6. Do you have a list handy?

ddunn,

I've looked at several of those in the past, and one former employer was rolling out Agile right after I left the company. Everyone I looked at was in the 6-7 figure range for a medium sized company. Are there any systems that are geared (and priced) toward the small to medium sized business market?
Actually 30 is a conservative number - think individuals, customers, suppliers, departments, engineers who can write to some documents but not others, etc. Theoretically, every individual in an organization could have different privileges if an administrator wanted and needed to make the effort.

Most of the software pricing is on a "seat" basis - after a base price, larger companies pay more than small companies. Very large companies may pay less per seat, but they still pay more than a small company. The very best EDM (electronic document management) software allows an organization to integrate ALL documents in an organization, not just a small subset like quality records. The program I used in my machining business allowed us to press one key and create up to 25 separate documents related to a product shipment. Here's just some of them:

copy of the in-process inspection data which was collected directly into the computer
invoice,
shipping labels
email notice of shipment with UPS tracking number
recalculate inventory of finished goods
send an order for more raw material to fill the JIT pipeline
certificate of conformance
update chart showing available machine time for capacity to schedule other orders
update work records of employees who initialed the electronic traveler
present a calculation of actual production time versus planned production time and flag disparities (good or bad) for management review
issued notice to bankers to credit accounts receivable financing for in-transit shipment
update all accounts payable and receivable related to shipment
create an omnibus report of ALL shipments to date, showing aging, receipts
maintain all records and documents created according to access privileges for ready retrieval by any authorized personnel.
When we had an incoming order, the software would

create the traveler, including print of the product and production notes and control plan
check to assure sufficient raw material was on hand or on order
schedule machine time
schedule personnel
assure availability of inspection instrumentation listed on the control plan by checking against inventory to see whether on hand, under repair, under calibration or recertification.
assure sufficient supply of consumable tool bits listed on the control plan were in inventory
keep track of work in process as each station would check the order out on its computer station.
Our system kept track of all customer-supplied documents including, but not limited to engineeering drawings, purchase orders, correspondence, etc. including Configuration management to deliver only the pertinent version number to match an order (sometimes we had to make pieces to older versions for repairs.)

I don't see how I could have done all that with less than 5 full-time clerks if I had to file and create documents without the software. As it was, I spent less than 20 per cent of my time per year populating the database or retrieving and reviewing records and reports. Our shipping clerk pressed the key to generate all the stuff at shipment. Our shop foreman pressed the key to generate the traveler, etc. Some weeks I never had to open the program.

In any regard, the software allows you to do without the platoon of file clerks and file rooms filled with file cabinets that were a fact of life up through the 1950s and even into the 70s and 80s for some slow-to-adapt organizations.

The beauty of commercial software versus "do-it-yourself" (not that hard to "do-it-yourself" for small organizations) is there is usually a continuity of updates and documentation for users, something often neglected in a "do-it-yourself" system.

Other users suggest improvements and commercial houses usually follow up and all other users benefit.

Reinventing the wheel for ensuring security of data is just plain inefficient when commercial houses have worked out with many more solutions than just one or two guys alone have time to think up and still do other work.

Think of buying commercial software as ultimate outsourcing of "busy work" while you attend to core competencies concerning quality.

Would you recreate a word processing program from scratch? Why make the effort with electronic document management software?

From my point of view, anything that lets me be a quality guy instead of a programming wonk is worthwhile. Certainly, most of the software costs less than the annual salary of the highest paid quality guy in the organization.

Caveat Number 1:
The most difficult part of implementing ANY of the electronic document management software (commercial or in-house) is dealing with legacy documents (documents created BEFORE the software was purchased or designed in-house.)

Caveat Number 2:
There is an absolute difference between "document sharing" and "document management." If you don't recognize the difference, ASK!

Actually 30 is a conservative number - think individuals, customers, suppliers, departments, engineers who can write to some documents but not others, etc. Theoretically, every individual in an organization could have different privileges if an administrator wanted and needed to make the effort.


OK, I gotcha now. I was thinking you meant levels as far as basic database or file system permissions, e.g. read, write, modify, delete, administer, etc. What you're describing is often called role-based security. And, I agree that the software should be configurable to allow custom role/permission settings.

BTW, I've been reading some of your past posts on document control, document management, and configuration management. Good stuff!

Wes,

I am trying to figure out how to teach others about the difference between document managment and document control. Knowing you are the resident expert; any advice? I am trying to put together a power point so I can educate all the project team members. I know what I am trying to say and I know what the difference is, I am just having a hard time explaining to the VP of Sales (who has a hard time with anything that does not end with "cocktails" or "golf") :lol:

The legacy documents may or may not be a problem as with most of the ones I have seen in the past few days have a "drag and drop" feature and one even offers a Optical Character Scan Recognition Scan that allows paper to be scanned in and then it creates a file with keywords, author, file date, revision level etc. from that scan for ease in searches later.

In your opinion would an intranet be a less burdensome task for retrieval or is the internet just as user friendly? Our CEO is very security conscience as he has been the victom of corporate espionage in the past.

I think that my company and our search for the perfect document control system may be excellent fodder for your book, so I will keep you posted along the way.

Thanks ddunn for all the links, I will check them out as well.

Wes,

I am trying to figure out how to teach others about the difference between document managment and document control. Knowing you are the resident expert; any advice? I am trying to put together a power point so I can educate all the project team members. I know what I am trying to say and I know what the difference is, I am just having a hard time explaining to the VP of Sales (who has a hard time with anything that does not end with "cocktails" or "golf") :lol:

The legacy documents may or may not be a problem as with most of the ones I have seen in the past few days have a "drag and drop" feature and one even offers a Optical Character Scan Recognition Scan that allows paper to be scanned in and then it creates a file with keywords, author, file date, revision level etc. from that scan for ease in searches later.

In your opinion would an intranet be a less burdensome task for retrieval or is the internet just as user friendly? Our CEO is very security conscience as he has been the victom of corporate espionage in the past.

I think that my company and our search for the perfect document control system may be excellent fodder for your book, so I will keep you posted along the way.

Thanks ddunn for all the links, I will check them out as well.
How many employees are we talking about?

How many of those employees are "authors" of documents?

How many of those employees actually have anything to do with deciding whether a document needs to be "controlled"?

Those two categories of employees are the only ones who NEED to understand the nuance between controlled and managed.

If the person or persons in charge of deciding what documents are controlled do their job correctly, the effort and concept can be transparent to the other members of the organization.

Here's a poor analogy:
All drivers need to know how to drive their vehicle.
However, all drivers do not need to understand exactly how the engine works beyond turning the key in the ignition and shifting into "Drive."

Similarly,
All document users need to know how to retrieve, read, and understand the document. They do not need to know how to draw or write to use the document, nor do they have to know anything about obsolete documents if the only ones available for their retrieval are current (configuration management manages the controlled documents to assure archived, obsolete copies are not available for general circulation and possible misuse.)

The point is: Does the document control system assure the most recent, approved version is the only one available for ordinary retrieval (security levels again)?

Depending on the software, there are a variety of ways to deal with legacy documents.

Essentially, ALL documents are managed. Usually, controlled documents meet one of several criteria (partial list):

customer's document which affects order (quantity, price, design)
in-house documents which determine product or service to be delivered (includes designs, control plans, inspection plans and records)
financial documents
personnel records (privacy)
supplier's documents which control product or service ordered or expected (may include machinery instruction and repair manuals)
purchase orders (includes designs, etc.) for raw materials or components incorporated in outgoing product
"Control" really means two things

control WHO may create, approve, modify, read, print, copy
(records are controlled to the extent of who may create, read, copy, print - records are not "modified" because they represent the history of an activity.)
control and manage obsolete and current versions to assure against using obsolete document to perform current activity
"Manage" is just good file keeping and retrieval (includes review for retention)

ddunn,
I've looked at several of those in the past, and one former employer was rolling out Agile right after I left the company. Everyone I looked at was in the 6-7 figure range for a medium sized company. Are there any systems that are geared (and priced) toward the small to medium sized business market?

PDXpert is the new kid on the block. I don't know if it is out of the bata stage yet, but it is going to be reasonably priced, simple to install and easy to use. Target customer is the small to medium sized business.

I love the car analogy. I will use that one. Thanks

I appreciate all your guys help

Thanks

Now let me try to answer some of your questions:

No. of employees - 57 total (5 on the implementation team)
VP of Sales, Corp. Controller, Director of IT, VP of Operations and me

Authors - 2 - 3 in manufacturing, 2 - 3 in Engineering, 2 - 3 in Operations
2 - 3 in Tech Support, 2 - 3 in Sales, 1 - 2 in Finance
So in total about 17 folks (that seems like a lot when I break it out like that)

This is still in it's infancy and I think these are great questions we need to ask ourselves in our planning meeting. Thanks for the input and direction

Now let me try to answer some of your questions:

No. of employees - 57 total (5 on the implementation team)
VP of Sales, Corp. Controller, Director of IT, VP of Operations and me

Authors - 2 - 3 in manufacturing, 2 - 3 in Engineering, 2 - 3 in Operations
2 - 3 in Tech Support, 2 - 3 in Sales, 1 - 2 in Finance
So in total about 17 folks (that seems like a lot when I break it out like that)

This is still in it's infancy and I think these are great questions we need to ask ourselves in our planning meeting. Thanks for the input and direction
Just to discuss economics briefly:
If you buy a software product based on "seats" - essentially you only need one seat for each department, not for each author and each reader, plus ONE seat for "Administrator" (which can be shared by an entire IT department OR Quality Department OR both.)

Given the speed at which the internet has spread, I think it would be short-sighted to ignore a system that could be used on mutiple clients across the world, including traveling sales and engineering or installation folk at home, at customer, or in a car or hotel room or job site.

Our company uses Q-Pulse
http://www.gaelquality.com/site/0_home/
available in the U.S. from
http://www.qualityamerica.com/

It includes document control, allows the integration of paper and electronic documents and persons just logged into document module and viewing docs do not count against user seats. Very reasonable for small to medium sized companies.

here is a post I put up[ about the system we use (AND IT IS FREE). We have recently upgraded it (FOR FREE) and it has been in use since 2003

http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=6418

I have also written a user guide and an administrators guide

http://elsmar.com/Forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1620

http://elsmar.com/Forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1621

It is very easy to use and is safe to place on an intranet as ours is.