The cost of document control - Electronic vs. Paper

[Wes Bucey]

G'Day Alf,
I agree with everything that Roxane, Michele and Graeme have said. We even went as far as using the cost of printing and added up every sheet of paper over a three month period.
Anyway...we finally adopted an electronic system a few years ago and it has been working well. It used to take anything up to eight hours to approve, print, sign and issue a new document (especially if you had to issue 22 copies of a full review of the Quality manual). Now it may take about an hour...BIG savings. So much so that I lost my secretary early this year.

By the way, why does your boss now want you to calculate these figures? It is usually done before you buy an electronic system.

GregB

My colleagues here have given much wonderful advice.

I often rail at reinventing the wheel or any kind of duplication of effort. It is one of the reasons I am such an ardent supporter of electronic Document Management Systems (DMS). For me, the feature which a DMS does for almost free while practically impossible to maintain in a hard copy system is AUDIT TRAIL. (the feature that lets you know exactly where a nascent document is in the approval process as well as who has accessed, printed, or modified a document)

what I'd love to have to reinforce this, is a reference to a formal study (published article would be fantastic) that has some kind of statistical result of the cost base for paper doc control.

I have a hunch most of the software companies selling DMS may have white papers or other studies which will give you sufficient ammo to satisfy your boss without doing the study for your particular organization. If it doesn't satisfy your boss, you will at least have a blueprint of the cost centers to consider and a methodology for your own study. Try Documentum first.

 

[Al the Elf]

Still chasing the heart of the question !

Folks - thanks for all the comments on the various aspects that go to make up a good doc control system and some indication of the types of savings that can be made.

We've been using electronic doc control for 5+ years now, so as someone steeped in the hassle of paper vs electronic, I'm well aware that it's soooo much better. My problem today is that "Look at all these benefits" or "Trust me, it's cheaper to operate" isn't a sufficient response to the big cheeses.

Wes - thanks for the hint about the "white papers", that may well prove fruitful as long as I can disassociate it from a software supplier.

By the way, why does your boss now want you to calculate these figures? It is usually done before you buy an electronic system.

GregB - the company I work for is splitting itself up, we currently run one doc control system for three business groups and it appears as a corporate overhead cost; the powers that be are trying to see it split up into different bits. So I'm actually providing them with two bits of info : a) the cost to demerge our electronic doc control; and b) a robust statement as to how what we have is a good idea in cost/benefit terms. The latter bit is a problem in that the Top manager involved here is from HR who studiously avoids controlled documentation. He's the sort that is only convinced by hard edged financial cases that stand up to detailed scrutiny.

Incidentally, I still have the financial case from the original project sanction, but I know that every one of us could blow holes through it.

For example : Using the system we've saved admin for 12 staff for about 25% of their time at around £20K (supported cost)/annum.

Questions : Could we have achieved the same result by employing cheaper people ? Did we actually remove 3 staff from the organisation (and thus realise the gain) or did they just start doing something else ? If we'd encouraged them to work harder could the 12 people have done the same work in 10% of their time. And so on, and so on.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Folks - thanks for all the comments on the various aspects that go to make up a good doc control system and some indication of the types of savings that can be made.

We've been using electronic doc control for 5+ years now, so as someone steeped in the hassle of paper vs electronic, I'm well aware that it's soooo much better. My problem today is that "Look at all these benefits" or "Trust me, it's cheaper to operate" isn't a sufficient response to the big cheeses.

Here is a graphic from Documentum that's been in my files for several years which should give you a pretty good idea of where to develop your "cost centers" if you were to duplicate the document control process by hard copy rather than electronic.

Consider storage alone: file cases, floor space, HVAC, lighting,
Then creation of filing adjuncts: cross indexes (indices?), file labels, folders, drawer labels, updating and maintaining them.

 

[Al the Elf]

After much searching I did finally turn something up that's associated with the costs of doc control (although the article is more about positioning a case of outsourcing than specifically about the merits of doc control).

http://a1852.g.akamaitech.net/f/1852/2996/24h/cache.xerox.com/downloads/gbr/en/i/idc_Survey.pdf

In the light of the comments we have in this thread, it's no real surprise that the majority of the 996 companies who responded to the survey were unable to put a cost on the activity of document control !

I'm still on the hunt, if anybody else spots some hard numbers - particularly comparative data on costs of electronic vs paper...

Cheers, Al.

 

[RoxaneB]

Here's a thought....

How about you factor in the time you've spent trying to find costs for this???

 

[Al the Elf]

Marginal time of course !

How about you factor in the time you've spent trying to find costs for this???

Don't get me started...

I've ended up managing to show that our system is no better or worse on cost than other similar sized orgs in Europe. I've then backed this up with testimony from various senior managers that they are satisfied and the costs of extrication (which they have no actual hard numbers for !) from the system we already run would be prohibitive to their part of the empire. I'm going to try flying that with the head honcho...

Should be fun !

Cheers, Al.

 

[gpainter]

We tried to get it electronic at the old place that I worked at. They could not see spending the money even though there were several benefits. However I have toured several companies that are electronic at each work station and it is great and simple.

 

[DDaenen1]

i have tried over the years to go as electronic as possible and i have to say even succeeded in doing so. I have very few paperwork in my part of the management management system. My latest development is that i have started requesting what i call e-PPAP from our supply base for new programs. Meaning i do not want to receive one single sheet of paper from them anymore. Everything electronic, and for the full submission, all content burned on a CD with the 19 folders of the PPAP included. I am to present this to my suppliers for a new program tomorrow and i am really curious for their response and reactions.

 

[The Taz!]

Ya know. . . I would think that having the latest up-to-greatest information/document, available as soon as a change is implemented, would be enough to secure the issue. . . Ethernet is better than sneaker-net any day.

 

[Bill Ryan - 2007]

i have tried over the years to go as electronic as possible and i have to say even succeeded in doing so. I have very few paperwork in my part of the management management system. My latest development is that i have started requesting what i call e-PPAP from our supply base for new programs. Meaning i do not want to receive one single sheet of paper from them anymore. Everything electronic, and for the full submission, all content burned on a CD with the 19 folders of the PPAP included. I am to present this to my suppliers for a new program tomorrow and i am really curious for their response and reactions.

I have no "hard" cost data either but I'd like to comment on DDaenen1's post. I am our "PPAP coordinator" for all replacement tooling and as a supplier, I love my customers asking for "e-submissions". It doesn't make sense to me have a submission of 500+ pages in duplicate (one set for the submission and one set for our retention). I have rid us of the "retention copy" by putting everything on our network in ".pdf" format. Right now only two of our customers have the "e-submission" requirement by uploading documents to their websites. For all other customers, I have been asking if emailing the submission docs would be acceptable. More and more often they are agreeing to that. We save on paper, toner, postage, folders, etc. - all impact the bottom line (may not be a Home Run, but every little bit helps!!)

Bill