Cement Engineering Company (PRODOK)

Based on a research of Siemens Business Services company in the course of "paper" document flow about 30% of time of the working groups are spent on search and approval of documents, and 6% of documents are lost forever.

The project organizations – an indicative example of these trends. Projects are kept in parallel, and everyone contains the large volume of documentation, generally in paper form. In spite of the fact that almost all companies use programs of automated design, in Russia only printing versions of the project documentation have still legal force. In the companies impressive archives of paper and electronic documents, their copies and versions are saved. Quick search of standard solutions, making changes, joint work over the project and approval become the problem which is taking away time.

By experience of the leading project organizations for problem solving ideally it is necessary to carry out two tasks: creation of electronic storage of documents (EDMS system) and internal standardization. And if earlier the second task laid down on the organization, then modern workflow systems for the project companies help to create automatically the uniform standard of the enterprise according to all requirements (GOST, etc.). Implementation of EDMS allows to increase labor productivity by 20-25%. On expert evaluations of consultants performance of the project company at implementation of EDMS for the first 2 months of work shows to assessment growth to 40%.

The main question of any implementation - the cost of the software plus consulting services. According to CNews company in 2009 the cost of a system averaged 35%, and implementation services – 40% of the total cost of the project (against 36% in 2008). In a situation of economy of the budget consulting becomes the first article under reduction that often leads to return by the beginning of market development of EDMS – purchase of the standard boxed solutions which are not adapted to a scope.

However suppliers of leaders in the Russian market specialized by EDMS for the project companies flexibly react to market changes and already today there were new offers which allow to save up to 50% of the budget not only on implementation services (about 20% of project cost), but also on the cost of the product without loss of quality.

Example – an electronic document management system of PRODOC, development of PSS company (www.pss.spb, ru). This EDMS was created especially for the organizations which are engaged in construction design according to requirements of SPDS therefore requires the minimum setup at implementation. PRODOC exists in the market since 2003 and is already used in such companies as: Petroinzhiniring, Remarque, Proyektvodstroy and others.

System developers suggest not to save costs, and to optimize them. First, it is possible due to gradation of set of licenses. The licenses PRODOC are separated on employee categories: for secretaries, registrars for designers, for the management. Thus, exact determination of functionality allows to make investments in the most necessary. The second aspect of economy – independent implementation. The main difference from standard boxes: not the product, and process of its implementation is simplified, installation is simplified, instructions and all necessary basic processes are standardized. The means which were earlier spent for consulting can are considerably saved.

One of the first companies which tested the new scheme and in 3 months successfully equipped 100% of jobs of the PRODOC system - "Cement Engineering Company" (CEC). The main activity of the company - upgrade and modernization of the operating productions, design of the new plants of the industry of construction materials and also control over production and delivery of the capital and ancillary technology equipment.

Responsible for the EDMS project Dmitry Burtsev in "the Cement Engineering Company" told about progress and difficulties of implementation of PRODOC.

• Dmitry, why the company decided to implement EDMS?

CEC LLC is the company aimed at successful project implementation, the construction materials closely connected with development of the industry in Russia. At the moment the company consists of 4 territorially spaced branches. These are services of process design, design of the PCS and engineering and design developments. With respect thereto the task of the organization of project management in real time with a possibility of control of management of projects in remote branches was set.

In this case it means how a possibility of operational work in the system of all employees, and uniform base of documents. Employees have an opportunity to see what was done by their predecessors, to analyze why they did it quite so and what is done by other functional divisions. GIPAM convenient instruments of control of documents, the issued tasks, trackings shared state of projects are provided.

• What main criteria when choosing a system were?

Criteria of prevalence of the platform and opportunity if necessary to finish software "under themselves" became the main.

• Why decided to implement?

As it was already told, CEC LLC we have a distributed organization and head office to be to Magnitogorsk. Our specialists had no work experience in the Lotus environment. And it was necessary to accompany a system rather well it to know from within. System implementation by own efforts allowed us to deal not only with the PRODOC system, but also to configure and implement a mail system.

• Whether there were concerns at implementation? What?

It at me not the first implementation project therefore I at implementation had a concern only one – as far as will be interested the management of the company in operational work in a system. But my concerns were vain, the management perfectly coped with the task. This factor very strongly helps to stimulate all staff of the company to work in EDMS.

• How did implementation process take place? What is the time project implementation borrowed?

I decided to begin the project in our branch to St. Petersburg as this branch was at that time most ready to implementation of EDMS and in this city there are system developers of PRODOC.

At the first stage the Microsoft Windows 2003 server was deployed, the last are set at that time updates. The trace deployed the Lotus Domino server, necessary users of a system are created, templates of databases are copied and databases of a system are created: "Card file of projects", Document templates, "Reference book by employees", Magazine, Tasks. Settings for necessary databases were registered, users are brought to the reference book by employees from the address directory Lotus, templates of projects with setup of access rights by default are created. The first stage Central Election Commission LLC branch in St. Petersburg took two weeks on time.

After this short preparation the first project in which there are all necessary sections according to legislatively approved structure of the project and already configured access rights for users on necessary sections was created. Further regulations of work with EDMS PRODOC, instructions of GIPA (Registrar) and users were written.

• Tell how there passed the stage of transfer of a system to Magnitogorsk?

It was just the second stage which consisted of deployment of the server and transfer of the PRODOC system to Magnitogorsk. A mail system based on Lotus Domino was in parallel unrolled on the server. The Lotus system allowed to integrate our 4 divisions, deleted territorially from each other, in a single mail network. This stage generally took about a month on time. Labor costs on transfer and reconfiguration of PRODOC made about 1 week. After this stage the server in St. Petersburg ceased to function.

At present the third stage begins. In Central Election Commission LLC branch of Togliatti at the beginning of March repair of new office then user training will be made comes to an end and the PRODOC system with access to the server of CEC LLC in Magnitogorsk is unrolled. Here 25 jobs will be unrolled.

• Whether the additional hardware or the software was required?

The PRODOC system allows to receive reports on the project progress with unloading in Excel, or in HTML, but for more flexible management by the project the program provides double-sided data exchange with Microsoft Project. Rather convenient visual representation set us thinking of acquisition of the license Microsoft Project.

• What difficulties faced at implementation and how they were solved?

As I implemented the PRODOC system by own efforts and earlier had communication with Lotus only as the main complexity I had a user in null information on a funtsionirovaniye of the Lotus Domino environment. It was necessary to read quickly several books and to experiment in the environment of Lotus Domino. But thanks to the help of specialists of PSS company and carefully developed installation instruction and the PRODOC setup I coped with all problems for rather short term. At present PSS company writes exhaustive instructions which will help to avoid a set of problems arisen at this implementation.

• How did employees react to implementation of a new system?

The opinion that a system not the worker, we saw similar in other organizations was initial reaction of employees and there does not work, etc. But further, having worked as some time in a system, they changed the opinion. First of all users and the management see result of a collective labor who and on what document works in what implementation phase to be the project.

In fact for users the labor input did not increase at all, even on the contrary, it became more convenient to keep track of relevance of documents. For example, the user opens the drawing for editing from the PRODOC system, works with it, and saves its standard transaction of preserving from the program back in PRODOC. For users this ordinary transaction allows them to work on the necessary document from different places, editing always the relevant document, and the mechanism of support of versions allows to create necessary quantity of options. Other users or heads in the presence of the necessary rights can open the same last current version of the document for viewing. By the way, the user (author) himself or GIP can delegate necessary powers for viewing or editing the document to other users.

For users of PRODOC it is a system where it is possible to find all necessary data for design in one place: technical specifications on design, initial data for design, correspondence, drawings of suppliers, tasks for development of adjacent sections of the project. The built-in system of search quickly allows to find the necessary drawing.

From the point of view of the management a system allows to group the project in one place together with technical specifications, initial data for design, correspondence, tasks for development of adjacent parts of the project. Besides, the head can unload easily the project entirely on a disk a one click of the button, defend the project from unauthorized access and thus save the intellectual property of the company. At any time it is possible to learn who and on what documents works or what is the time the employee worked on creation of the document since the beginning of receiving a task before its end, to learn in what stage of work is the project and what is the time remained before planned date of its termination. A system allows to understand which of contractors is responsible for the specific section of the project.

• How learning process of employees was organized?

At first employees studied regulations of works in the PRODOC system. Separately with each user, the head and GIPOM training behind its workplace with explanation of all questions was provided. Then in each branch the responsible person for the technical and methodological assistance to users was trained and appointed.

• What minuses of a system are noted by users?

There are no frank minuses. The PRODOC system is completely efficient. All small defects quickly are eliminated with developers routinely. We cooperate with PSS company about 5 months since the beginning an implementation project. We really see that the PRODOC system develops. We are interested in development of a system directly as we are users of EDMS. If our users are able to execute daily transactions with the smallest labor costs, then we will only benefit from it.