Requirements, Objectives, and Standards in Document Management
Modern document management enables your organization to operate more efficiently. This article explains the requirements that document management systems must fulfill.
What a Good Document Management System Can Deliver
Digital document management helps increase efficiency within your organization. What objectives can be achieved with a document management system? Which requirements must it meet, and which standards need to be considered to ensure that documents are managed and archived in a legally compliant manner?
Digital Document Management Makes Your Organization More Efficient
In a digital document management system (DMS, all documents generated within your organization are stored and archived in a central location. This is even required by various standards, laws, and regulations. This approach enables fast access to information and ensures that no documents are lost. Modern document management therefore supports the achievement of several key objectives:
Increased Productivity
A modern document management system enables employees to access all relevant documents at any time. Valuable working time is no longer wasted searching for documents in physical archives. Instead, employees can focus on their core tasks, increasing both work efficiency and overall productivity within the organization.
Improved Quality Management
Digital document management helps prevent errors in day-to-day operations. For example, if an employee is unsure about how to operate a machine, the requirements of a task, or compliance with a specific standard, the DMS provides quick access to the relevant documents that address these questions.
In addition, the use of a DMS ensures that all documents are always available in their latest version. This eliminates the risk of employees working with outdated or inconsistent documents, which could otherwise lead to errors. As a result, document management also significantly supports quality assurance.
More Efficient Team Collaboration
The most innovative ideas and best solutions often emerge through teamwork. A DMS facilitates collaboration, for example by enabling the joint editing of documents. Whether it is an operating instruction, a manual, or the CAD design of a new component, automatic version control ensures that it is always transparent who made which changes and how each individual contributed to the project.
In addition, the commenting function allows employees to add notes and remarks to documents without altering their content. This ensures that valuable knowledge is not only shared directly but also stored within the DMS and remains accessible at any time.
Reduced Costs
Digital document management reduces costs within your organization in several ways. On the one hand, higher work quality results in fewer errors that could otherwise lead to avoidable additional costs. On the other hand, employees no longer need to print important documents to have them readily available. This lowers printing costs while also reducing paper consumption and your company’s CO2 footprint. In addition, space requirements decrease as filing cabinets and paper archives are no longer needed.
Greater Legal Certainty
The use of a document management system provides greater legal certainty within your organization. As a rule, DMS software is designed to automatically comply with GoBD requirements and DIN standards in digital document management. For example, tax-relevant documents are always managed and archived in a way that meets all statutory requirements regarding data security, procedural documentation, and compliance.
In some industries, the use of a DMS is mandatory even beyond the scope of tax regulations. For instance, Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards require document management in the production of food and feed, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics in order to demonstrate and ensure a high level of product quality.
Free Quick Check of Your Plant Documentation:
With our quick check, we help you gain an initial assessment in just 5 minutes—free of charge and with no obligation.
Requirements for Document Management Software
Arbeiten mehrere Personen an einem Projekt und greifen dabei auf dieselben Dokumente zu, kann das schnell im Chaos enden: Ein Mitarbeiter lädt sich zum Beispiel eine CAD-Datei auf seinen Computer herunter, nimmt daran Veränderungen vor und stellt anschließend die neue Version in das Firmennetzwerk ein. Zur gleichen Zeit hat aber bereits ein Kollege Änderungen an derselben Datei vorgenommen. Nun liegen zwei Versionen des ursprünglichen CAD-Dokuments mit verschiedenen Änderungen vor, welche manuell nachverfolgt und zusammengeführt werden müssen.
Solche Probleme gehören beim digitalen Dokumentenmanagement dank automatischer Versionierung der Vergangenheit an. Jedes Dokument wird im DMS mit einer fortlaufenden Versionsnummer versehen, aus der eindeutig hervorgeht, welche Version des Dokuments die aktuelle ist und welcher Mitarbeiter daran welche Änderungen vorgenommen hat. In vielen DMS wird außerdem der Zugriff auf Dokumente, die sich derzeit in Bearbeitung befinden, für andere Mitarbeiter gesperrt. Erst, wenn die Bearbeitung beendet ist, kann ein anderer Mitarbeiter eigene Änderungen am Dokument vornehmen. Es gibt somit zu keinem Zeitpunkt mehr widersprüchliche Versionen desselben Dokuments.
Document Versioning
When multiple people work on a project and access the same documents, this can quickly lead to confusion: for example, one employee downloads a CAD file to their computer, makes changes, and then uploads the new version to the company network. At the same time, however, a colleague may already have made changes to the same file. As a result, two different versions of the original CAD document exist, which then have to be manually tracked and merged.
With digital document management, such issues are a thing of the past thanks to automatic versioning. Each document in the DMS is assigned a sequential version number that clearly indicates which version is the current one and which employee made which changes. Many DMS solutions also lock documents that are currently being edited, preventing other users from accessing them at the same time. Only once editing is complete can another employee make changes. This ensures that conflicting versions of the same document never exist at any point.
Audit-Proof Archiving
In a DMS, older versions of a document are not automatically deleted. Instead, when a new version is created, previous versions are transferred to the system’s digital archive. This archiving makes it possible to access earlier versions of important documents at any time—for example, to review the exact wording of an older operating instruction. If a change has been made to a document by mistake and needs to be reversed, this can also be done easily using the archived versions.
At the same time, the archive of a document management system is audit-proof. This means that archived versions of a document can no longer be modified. This is particularly important when handling tax-relevant documents, as legislators require that all documents remain available at all times, for example in the event of a tax audit. A DMS should therefore be designed to comply with the relevant GoBD requirements for document management and to meet the applicable DIN standards.
Keyword Tagging and Full-Text Search
To ensure that a document can be retrieved at any time, it must be searchable via the DMS search function. This is most easily achieved through indexing or keyword tagging within the document management system. When a document is stored in the DMS, keywords corresponding to its content are assigned. For example, a machine manual may be tagged with the machine name and identification number, the manufacturer, and the keyword “manual.” To access this manual later, it is sufficient to filter documents in the DMS using one of these keywords. Many DMS solutions are capable of automatically assigning meaningful keywords. In addition, users can manually add specific keywords as needed.
Another way to locate a specific document is full-text search. In this case, the document management software searches the complete text of all documents for the entered search term. This makes it possible to find terms that are not available as keywords.
Converting Analog Documents to Digital Format
When a document management system is introduced in an organization for the first time, many documents are typically still available in analog form, for example as paper printouts. To store and archive these documents in the DMS as well, they must first be digitized. This is done by scanning the respective documents, after which they initially exist as image files. Text elements within these scans can be captured and processed by the system using OCR software (OCR: Optical Character Recognition). For example, a scanned letter can be identified as an invoice from a partner company and, once tagged with the appropriate keywords, stored in the DMS. The captured text can also be searched using the DMS full-text search.
It is particularly advantageous if document management software also supports the digitization of technical drawings. In this case as well, OCR technology is used to recognize text elements—such as labels or annotations within drawings—and make them available for keyword tagging or full-text search within the DMS.
The Checklist for Document Management Systems
If you are planning to make your organization more efficient and productive through digital document management, you should consider several key aspects when selecting a DMS. To identify the right document management system, first assess your specific requirements:
-
Which departments should work with the DMS?
If the DMS is to be used across the entire organization, a more versatile system is required than if you only plan to digitize accounting processes. Depending on the requirements placed on the DMS, different document management solutions may be suitable. -
What technical requirements do you have?
Can your organization’s IT department manage the DMS, or should this task be handled by the vendor? Should the DMS also be usable on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets? And are documents allowed to be stored in the cloud, or is storage on company-owned servers required? Your answers to these questions will determine which type of document management software is suitable for your organization. -
Which laws, regulations, and standards are relevant to your organization with regard to your target markets—and therefore to both production and administration?
A commercial DMS can be tailored precisely to your organization’s needs. This allows you to continuously meet the requirements of your specific target markets and comply with all applicable regulations. In this way, you can easily achieve the necessary certifications and build a high level of trust with your customers.
Once you have identified a DMS that meets your expectations, you should then verify whether it fulfills the requirements for effective document management outlined above. A DMS is only suitable for use within your organization if it automatically versions documents, archives previous versions in an audit-proof manner, and allows all documents to be retrieved at any time via keyword or full-text search. The same applies to the ability to digitize analog documents in order to incorporate the entire document inventory into the DMS. To facilitate digitization and integration, the DMS should also provide interfaces to the software systems already in use—for example, a DATEV API, a CRM interface, or connections to CAD applications.
Menger Group offers a document management system that is precisely tailored to the needs of industrial and power generation companies. Thanks to numerous interfaces to CAD systems and databases, mobile availability, and flexible customization—while taking into account all relevant standards and regulations—it meets even complex DMS requirements. Contact us.