Modernministerstvo of environmental management and ecology of the Republic of Bashkortostan (ELAR SAPERION)

The project was executed within implementation of the regional target program "Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Bashkortostan (for 2004-2010 and the Period till 2015)". A project objective was increase in employee performance of the Bashkir republican geological fund of the Ministry of environmental management and ecology when rendering public service on providing access to materials of fund to citizens and the organizations.

Customer

The ministry of environmental management and ecology of the Republic of Bashkortostan (further - the Ministry) is the republican executive authority exercising within the competence control, regulation, control and supervision in the following fields of public administration:

• management of a subsoil of fund;
• use and protection of water fund;
• the organization and functioning of especially protected natural territories of republican value;
• protection of lands;
• state environmental assessment
• etc.

Justification of the project

Strict requirements by the time of providing public services and execution of the corresponding administrative procedures dictate need of increase in efficiency of accomplishment by the staff of the Ministry of the job responsibilities. It can be reached thanks to improvement of documentary providing.

In the Ministry prior to the beginning of the project the "Electronic Archive of Geological Information" software and hardware complex (further – PTK EA) developed on a specialized software platform of electronic archive SAPERION was used in the conditions of trial operation. Tests of a complex in the conditions of trial operation confirmed reliability of the equipment (scanners, robotic optical libraries) and efficiency of use of the software. The ministry made decisions:

• * to finish PTK EA on the offers formulated during trial operation;
• * to transfer to an electronic form and to fill PTK EA with the following archive documents (for the period 1930-2010): geological reports and the inventory of underground waters provided by registration forms of boreholes on water;
• * to carry out acceptance tests;
• * to put PTK EA into commercial operation.

Structure of the performed works

During trial operation of PTK EA offers on upgrade of the software for the purpose of improvement of ergonomic and functional characteristics were formulated. On the basis of the conducted examination of an automation object proposals of staff of the Ministry in the form of the private technical specifications (PTS) were formalized.

Before carrying out software customizations the decision to carry out updating of the SAPERION platform to version 6.0 with preserving of the configuration which was available in the Ministry was made. On the updated platform according to requirements of ChTZ old were finished and new user forms are created (search, a card of documents) that provided both improvement of ergonomics of the interface, and improvement of all functionality of a software package. There was an ability to manage from PTK EA new advanced external devices: scanners and robotic optical libraries.

Staff of ELAR corporation made setup of the scanning equipment which is available in the Ministry that provided management of scanning directly from a software package of electronic archive with automatic preserving of the received images in electronic storage. The PTK EA technology component which is responsible for data storage underwent reconfiguration. The component was configured for a possibility of preserving of the database with documents on the optical disks which are placed in robotic optical libraries. In the project progress in the Ministry the information resource with electronic images of archive documents (930 geological reports and the inventory of underground waters) was created. The complexity of this stage was that it was necessary to transfer to an electronic form the large volume of various documents in very short time. Documents included raznoformatny, old sheets. A part of documents had bilateral filling. The special complexity for scanning was represented by large-format geological maps of the area (~ 40,000 sheets). Despite all difficulties, specialists of ELAR corporation managed qualitatively and in the set terms to fulfill the undertaken obligations.

Effect of project implementation

Optimization of providing public services

Project implementation allowed to accelerate process of providing public services thanks to improvement of documentary providing staff of the Ministry at accomplishment of job responsibilities. PTK EA provided employees with convenient and quick access to documents.

Implementation of PTK EA expelled the idle times connected with waiting of physical delivery of the document (including from archive) and impossibility of simultaneous operation of several employees with the only paper carrier.

The translation of documents in an electronic form was provided by fulfillment of requirements of regulations in the field of subsurface use about providing documents to applicants as in paper form, and in electronic (The order of Federal Agency for Subsoil Management of July 28, 2011 N 846).

Thanks to setup of control of the scanning equipment directly from PTK EA labor costs of employees are reduced by scanning and placement of documents in EA.

Improvement of working conditions

At accomplishment of the state functions in the Ministry online access to documents which, are generally stored in paper form is necessary. The working space of the employee by force becomes the place of operational storage of tens of kilograms of paper pages among which at the same time in use there are no more than three-four documents.

Creation of an information resource with electronic images of documents allowed to reduce work of employees with paper documents and to clear away a working space from paper.

The risk of wear, damage and loss of documents is reduced

Creation of electronic archive with images of documents allowed to reduce need of staff of the Ministry for access to paper carriers. Documents became more rare to be taken from archive, respectively – to wear out less. In case of irrevocable loss of some document in electronic form its copy will remain.

Implementation of software for storage of a DB of documents on optical mediums in robotic libraries provided prolongation of the guaranteed storage lives of data, in comparison with data storage on magnetic carriers.

Development perspectives

The ministry is interested in accumulation of volume of electronic storage due to equipping by advanced optical libraries for use as a part of PTK EA and throughout works on digitization of paper documents and replenishment of electronic archive.