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Over the last several years, one of the DoT (Department of Transportation) Administrations has made significant strides in deploying information technologies (IT) to improve both its management and program processes. Although the use of IT has helped the administration to become more effective and efficient, the methods that have been employed for paper processing and storage have stayed fairly constant and traditionally manual.

The business processes at the administration are extensive and in some cases require a significant amount of paper capture and generation. Furthermore, because of the organizational and geographic makeup of the administration, it is not uncommon for the same document to be stored in several locations. The manual handling of documents as they move through the business processes, the storing of these documents manually, the storage of a document in several locations, and the effort required to find and retrieve a document when needed all create a significant amount of overhead in both personnel and facility costs.

This environment is inefficient and results in the inability of finding a document as it is being processed and the potential of misplacing or losing a document during its distribution and storage. In an attempt to overcome these problems, some offices have implemented fairly rudimentary electronic solutions to address portions of the document management problem with some success. However, it becomes obvious that the agency-wide need for access to the information stored and the problems that evolve with the proliferation of various solutions dictate an enterprise solution.

Instead of developing the application internally, the DoT Administration executed a thorough evaluation process of selecting a COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) solution with the latest technologies for managing the flow of information that has traditionally required hand-carried internal mail and the use of external couriers.

The solution emphasizes the capture of documents at their source of creation, and an open library that enables personnel to view records and documents from a central electronic repository. This significantly reduces the need for paper reproduction. It also provides an electronic alternative to moving documents through a review and approval process, thereby negating the need for hardcopy reproduction, and also negating the need for paper based routing slips, internal mailings, and the use of external courier services.

The DoT Administration is implementing the EDMS project based on the COTS solution. The implementation of EDMS is country wide to all division offices in every State. The implementation includes: architecting the solution, overseeing the installation and setup of the architecture, planning and managing the entire implementation effort, and training the end user as well as the technical staff.

Expected benefits of EDMS are: electronically storing paper documents, timely access to all documents within seconds of input, saving the government in operating labor hours, storage and postal costs.

For more information about LABBLEE’s proven approach to implement electronic document information systems, contact us at: EDMS@labblee.com.