ECM Briefs

Enterprise content management isn’t only an issue for corporations – it’s also a huge concern for government agencies including the military. The 46th Test Wing (TW) at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida is the premier test and evaluation center for Air Force air-delivered weapons, navigation/guidance systems, and Command and Control (C2) systems. A key administrative requirement for the 46th TW is to produce a Test Directive document that ensures that regulatory compliance, safety, environmental, and technical requirements are being met.

In the past, Test Directives were produced on paper and manually routed for review, approval, signature and distribution. Tracking and oversight required multiple phone calls to determine where the document was in the process. The cost of producing, sending, tracking and maintaining these paper documents was high and there was no clear document control system.

How did the 46th TW solve the problem? In cooperation with the base’s multimedia center, a low-cost, (17 cents per page), high-speed scanning business office was established that also provided a full-text searchable image of the documents. These documents were archived in Livelink ECM. A hyperlink to the documents is provided to a distribution list via email. With two clicks of the mouse, the document is displayed on the requestor’s monitor. This method does not burden the email system with large attachments. One electronic copy is maintained in Livelink ECM and viewable by all.

Over a six-month period, the 46th Test Wing realized a cost savings of $30,578 by eliminating the distribution of paper copies and saved an estimated 1,657 work hours that were previously used to make paper copies, package them for distribution, route them, and collect the package on the other end and file it. You can learn more about this implementation here.