Document Imaging - RDX

Find, control, and optimize information within Construction Management

Business workflows that involve complex document tracking are well supported by robust document imaging systems.  Documents often originate at geographically dispersed locations and are handled by multiple people from disparate workgroups at the same time. Document imaging systems’ missions are to support these complex workflows.

A great example is in the construction industry where routing of documents can be a complex process involving multiple parties handling the same document at the same time.  Some systems allow routing of paper and non-paper documents both in parallel and serially to designated users and at the same time capturing these documents in the imaging system and indexing them for later retrieval. Following the flow in the construction industry purchasing cycle this is a typical workflow.  As part of the project planning phase, construction planners provide project material and equipment requests to the purchasing department. There, the purchasing agents issue requests for quotes (RFQ) to the various supply vendors.  Vendors will submit bids and the planners and the purchasing agents will review and approve bids. Purchase orders (PO) are then cut by the purchasing department to the vendors who have won the bids. The PO is reviewed by the planners. Then the PO is placed with the suppliers. The materials are received from the suppliers at the construction site accompanied by a receiving document. The site supervisor will inspect the received goods and match the goods and receiving document against the PO. POs can be designated fulfilled, a partial shipment or rejected shipment. The suppliers may issue partial invoices to the construction company or complete invoices depending on terms of the contract. The planning and purchasing team will need to match the invoice and receiving documents to the PO and review for accuracy and completeness. The invoice will be either approved for payment, partial payment, or rejected, and the PO will be updated accordingly.  Once approved the accounts payable department will process for payment.

There are many links in the supply chain, many approvals and many areas that can fall victim to error if documents are not scanned in and electronically managed throughout the process.

There are four key constituents in this process and they all handle the documents multiple times, retrieve, review and approve them. They are:

• The planner managing the project

• The purchasing department placing the order

• The site manager at the construction site

• The accounts payable department

RDX Solution:

Sophisticated document management systems are required that can capture, route, access, and retrieve all construction documents in parallel or serially either in the office or remotely throughout this multi-phased process. The systems must also meet construction and building regulatory compliance requirements and government building and inspection codes. And these systems manage volumes of scanned images and electronic data.  

Purchasing the right system hardware is a key part in this document imaging process. These systems require servers, workstations, scanners, and ruggedized storage that can share data among many users. To meet regulatory compliance documents must be protected from alteration, reliably retained, archived, and easily recovered for any business or regulatory compliance issues.

Within the storage component, document imaging was once the hotbed for optical storage because of its WORM (Write once, Read many) capabilities, but today the optical storage market is declining due to other technologies surpassing it in reliability, capacity, performance, density and cost effectiveness— all of which are strengths of RDX removable disk technology.

RDX removable disk technology with WORM enabled software satisfies all the essential requirements of the document imaging industry and more. Customers can meet compliance requirements and storage as in the past using internal disks and optical drives, but now can benefit from RDX removable disk technology’s portability, ruggedness, and scalability for backup, restore, archive and disaster recovery capabilities.

RDX

• Automates compliance for the most rigorous business rules whether driven by corporate governance policies or regulatory compliance requirements, using WORM software on top of RDX.

• Supports Image retention and additionally backup, recovery, archive and disaster recovery

• Scalability — RDX cartridges range from 16GB to 1TB which is the equivalent of 72 four-drawer filing cabinets to 1152 four-drawer filing cabinets.

• Direct attach of RDX docks to remote PCs enables site supervisors to scan and manage receipt of materials on site

• Portability & ruggedness — site supervisors can send the cartridges via FedEx,  or other transportation, back to the home office for use by planning, purchasing and accounting

• Duplication - Easily create multiple copies for backup or archive

• Discovery — random access ensures quick accurate discovery for regulatory compliance or legal issues