perspectives

The 5 Stages in the Evolution of Document Management

The more clearly we understand a problem, the better chance we have to solve it. We can determine the type of document management solution a firm requires by examining the different stages in the Evolution of Document Management where it may find itself. An Engineering Enterprise™ (or any company with a fundamental Engineering department) will be in one of the following stages:

Stage 1  —	Document management is manual; NO formal Engineering Document Management (EDM) system exists.
Stage 2  —	An EDM system (homebrew or commercial) exists. This solution sits in isolation within Engineering. If an ECM solution exists on the Office side, ECM and EDM operate as disparate systems.
Stage 3  —	An EDM system exists and the organization commits to improving the collaboration between people in other departments and other enterprise systems. If the EDM solution has not been purposefully built for collaboration (particularly with other systems such as ERP/MRP) risk and inefficiency occur.
Stage 4  —	An EDM system exists with a defined corporate document management strategy in the implementation or operational phase. Since this standard will be an ECM system, conflict with the Engineering department, management and IT will ensue.
Stage 5  —	Engineering and corporate document management systems are adequately unified.

Let's examine each of the different stages in the Evolution of Document Management in more detail to better understand how company strategies are evolving.

Stage 1

If you manually manage your documents with systems of files, folders and emails, you are a Stage 1 company. Your company has the most potential to experience the dramatic benefits of an EDM solution. EDM solutions' ability to cut costs and reduce risk in a Stage 1 organization is based on two factors:

1. Eliminating common documentation problems (or 'Breakdowns') that cost the company money & time (example: ordering materials based on the wrong revision of a document)
2. Automating manual processes

Stage 2

Stage 2 organizations have an EDM system and are currently receiving the benefits it can provide. While we believe our KinnosaONE product family has many advantages in a modern business environment, we would not claim these benefits would so outweigh your existing commercial system that we could make a solid ROI case to replace it. If you have a 'homebrew' EDM solution, however, a ROI case may be worth investigating.

If you are considering an expansion to your seat count, we would also recommend you examine the issues discussed in Stage 3 before making an additional investment in your current EDM solution.

Korrigo – 'Enterprise Ready' for Stage 1 & 2 Customers

First Trace offers a family of Engineering Document Management products called KinnosaONE for firms in all five stages of this evolution. Our Korrigo product is designed to meet the document management needs of the customer who is still focused exclusively in the Engineering department. Korrigo uses a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and application add-ins to integrate document management functionality into the interface of major CAD tools AutoCAD, SolidWorks, and Microstation as well as desktop applications like the Microsoft Office Suite, and OpenOffice. Korrigo is also the first and only EDM solution that is interoperable with AutoCAD LT.

Korrigo is focused on automating manual processes of the Stage 1 organization. It is aggressively priced, designed to ease the Shift into EDM for the Stage 1 enterprise. Korrigo uses the same open repository standard employed by ALL KinnosaONE products. This ensures you will never be faced with data migrations as you move to more advanced KinnosaONE products.

The purchase of a Korrigo system leaves all necessary doors open for the future, without the immediate expense of the typical enterprise-level systems. All user experience with Korrigo is directly applicable to other KinnosaONE products, limiting the need for additional training. Korrigo allows you to be 'Enterprise Ready'. It is a solid investment in your document management future.

Stage 3

As an organization becomes more sophisticated, there is an increase in collaboration requirements, between different people and systems in other company departments. This is the beginning of the road to Stage 5: an unified system or group of systems. The concept of basic document management now becomes more complex. The issues below become critical to even the possibility of a solution:
If your organization is doing Double Entry into both your EDM system and your ERP / MRP solution(s), then you already understand the problem that: Most EDM solutions were NEVER built to 'play nice' with other systems. When BOTH systems require that they be the 'System of Record' for all documents, solving the problem is very difficult.

A corporate standard being considered may be the perfect solution for the overall corporation, but will likely NOT meet the needs of engineering any more than Word can act as a CAD system.

Unfortunately, corporate management is often uninformed about the possible consequences of forcing a generic solution into engineering. As a result, it is not uncommon for the engineering division to do all they can to run 'under the radar' of the corporate document management strategy for as long as possible. These engineering groups clearly understand the consequences of breaking the release cycle within the company. Since most engineering documentation solutions have a workgroup mentality and an isolated architecture, there is little possibility of the engineering solution migrating upward into the greater corporation.

Stage 4

There are currently only a small number of companies in this Stage and almost all of them are larger organizations. There is often a serious Gap between Engineering and the rest of the organization. The essence of this problem is typically a lack of understanding of the Engineering process by upper management and the IT department. This is particularly true when it comes to the requirements for document management.

As with the previous category, engineering will likely avoid being brought into the corporate standard as long as possible. If the company has wisely chosen NOT to force engineering into the corporate standard then a solution must be found to unify the proprietary data across the enterprise.

An alternative to the forced approach is to integrate data across the enterprise through a connector that translates data from one side of the organization to the other. These 'hard-wired' integrations can work well, but are initially very costly and leave the company in the position of rebuilding the connector when changes are made to repositories on either side of the integration.

If you are in Stage 4, a solution may be difficult. Solving the problem has often become as much a political issue within the Enterprise as a technical one. First Trace does have a solution. As we suggested in the Stage 3 discussion, our product architecture was designed from the first line of code to solve these problems. So if you find yourself mired in Stage 4, give us a call, we can offer you options.

Stage 5

What does the Stage 5 organization look like? We suggest it has the following characteristics:

1. All departments can easily collaborate on necessary information between employees.
2. All key systems (EDM, ECM, ERP, MRP, PLM, SharePoint based systems, etc) maintain enough interoperability that the overall integrity of information is maintained.
3. There is NO confusion about which solution is the System of Record for any piece of documentation.
4. Each user, based on their needs, have the appropriate interface to information and their role within workflows to effectively do their job, and at an appropriate price.

Kinnosa for Stage 2, 3, 4 & 5 Customers

Kinnosa is the first product on the market purposefully designed to 'break down the wall' between Engineering and the Office sides of an enterprise, between both people and systems. Its support for many standard data transport protocols and Web services, along with its Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), give it the ability to unify disparate systems on both the Engineering and Office sides of the organization. Kinnosa is the ONLY product on the market with this level of flexibility.

As a true enterprise-level product, it is highly configurable. Where older architectures provide ONLY custom programming services for modifying their product, Kinnosa can simply be re-configured to meet your needs. Kinnosa includes Kinnosa Workflow to provide the necessary enterprise-level collaboration.

In Stage 2, Kinnosa may replace a homebrew system. If the customer sees Stage 3 in their future, Kinnosa may replace an existing EDM solution in preparation for the future.

If you are already in Stage 3, Kinnosa can provide the level of interoperability necessary between systems that puts your organization on the road to a Stage 5 solution.

While solving a Stage 4 situation is very difficult, Kinnosa can provide the necessary 'glue' to put systems together into a Stage 5 solution.

For all these reasons and more, Kinnosa is what we refer to as 'Enterprise-Compatible'.