The history of the introduction of EDMS in one enterprise
The profile of the enterprise is the production of pharmaceuticals, the design, construction and equipment of medical facilities. Distributed structure: head office and production - in Moscow, a branch in St. Petersburg. 150 employees.
Prior to the implementation of the project, the enterprise was a classic example of an enterprise with traditional processes for post-Soviet clerical work - running around with papers on cabinets, sheets for resolutions and approvals, and therefore, the irresponsibility of the performers. For a long time there was talk in the leadership that the current system of approval of documents is imperfect: often in the process of approval documents were lost, individual sheets of already agreed documents were changed right before signing, and it was impossible to find the guilty. Orders for documents were also issued in the old fashioned way: the secretary, receiving the incoming document by e-mail, printed it out on a printer and made a note in the registration journal, then attached a leaflet for the resolution to the document, carried it to the director, and he put the resolution on the document with the appointment of the executor.
With such a system of issuing instructions, there could be no control over their execution. Files sent to the responsible executives by mail flew nowhere, and the phrase "I didn’t receive anything" sounded more and more often. I had to spend time proving that the files were still sent. One of the solutions to the problem is to manually monitor the progress of each order, but for this you need to have a staff of clerks, controllers, but it was not expected. Such a “system” created an unlimited lack of control and irresponsibility of local performers. However, the matter did not move.
In December 2015, I voiced the idea to the management: if we do not start work on transition to the modern level of enterprise management immediately, we run the risk of lagging behind competitors who have already begun to actively switch to modern technologies for managing their business. Moreover, the necessary regulatory framework in the country has existed for a long time. To make a decision on the implementation of the system, there were not enough real numbers, and I sat down to the calculations.
On the one hand, it was necessary to understand how much the enterprise loses under the current management mechanisms, and on the other hand, to estimate the cost of labor costs while increasing management efficiency. In the evaluation, I took the processes that I planned to automate, the monthly load (the number of operations per process), and the average salary of the employees who take part in these processes. It turned out that on the existing procedure for the approval of contracts, the company lost 2,000,000 rubles annually, 850,000 rubles on the processes of incoming, outgoing and internal correspondence, 350,000 on the procedures for finding the necessary information. We did not spend anything on the control of executive discipline, because did not lead him. And it had detrimental consequences for business, but detrimental consequences - failure to meet deadlines for fulfillment of obligations to fulfill contracts, penalties,
Taking into account potential labor costs for the control of executive discipline, an economic paradox was obtained: in order to save money by increasing management efficiency, we would need to increase labor costs by at least 4.5 million rubles annually. My figures showed the obvious: in the future, it was more profitable for the company to switch to an electronic document management system, namely: to automate work with the organizational and administrative documents of the enterprise, to automate the work of agreeing on contract documents, to improve the mechanisms for issuing and monitoring the execution of orders of the head.
EDS is not chosen for one year, but with a prospect of at least five years, so at this stage I had to find a technological solution that would fit into the budget of the enterprise; It was the development of a well-known software manufacturer on the market; the manufacturer had partners for implementation. In addition, - choose a reliable contractor, prepare and defend the project before management; enter into a contract.
I began to study the systems market: I ordered presentations, consulted with IT specialists, and compared. My requirements for the platform were: the ability to administer and maintain it by the enterprise after implementation, building up the platform’s functionality as needed, a certain cost of software and licenses, and a domestic manufacturer. In all respects, the Russian-made Docsvision platform came up. It remained as soon as possible to determine the final implementation budget and find a reliable provider of services for the development and delivery of the configuration we needed.
In order to accurately determine the project budget and avoid financial overruns in the future, I analyzed the initial data: questioned the structural units and determined the types of documents that were supposed to be automated in the project, described internal processes, and clarified the number of users of the system. Based on these data, I requested commercial offers from a dozen Docsvision partners. When evaluating the proposals, I drew attention to the supplier’s availability of a boxed solution that could be configured to our requirements in the shortest possible time. After a series of interviews with potential suppliers, an adequate project budget was formed.
I submitted the project budget to management. So, the final cost of the project (taking into account the services of the contractor, the necessary hardware and software) amounted to 3 million, which in the future allowed the company to save labor costs to increase work efficiency of 4.5 million rubles annually. In April 2016, I successfully defended the project budget before management and entered into an implementation contract.
As a representative of the customer, I had to establish communication between the interested departments and the contractor, together with the contractor, thoroughly analyze and formalize the current business processes to be automated. In order to automate business processes taking into account our requirements, it was necessary to expand all the routes for document movement, approve document templates, determine the policy of access to information and other small but important details. This is what we did with the contractor for a month. And by mid-May 2016, the design project of our system was ready. Development began, which was completed by the end of June 2016. After accepting the configuration and eliminating the identified shortcomings, everything was ready to launch the system in trial operation.
In July 2016, I organized group training for 100 users of the system. My team and I planned to launch wide functionality in one fell swoop, so the purpose of the training was to train personnel only in basic concepts and skills so that users would learn all other system capabilities during operation. Another condition for the training was to conduct it as quickly as possible so that users who were trained in the first groups (5-7 people each) did not have time to lose knowledge by the time the system was put into operation. To this end, I united the groups according to the age principle: the younger users were the first to receive training, then the older and retired people. Thus, the older generations did not have time to lose the acquired skills by the time the system was launched.
When the system was put into trial operation, we encountered a problem that I had foreseen: individual users wanted to work as before, tried to bring papers out of print out for approval, etc. I was ready for this. In order to dispel all doubts from those who disagree and avoid sabotage, I prepared in advance all the necessary internal regulations that legalize new and abolish the old order. In addition, he had preliminary explanatory conversations with the management and conveyed the idea that the success of the trial operation will depend, among other things, on the firm position “from above”, and most importantly on their active work in the system. So we managed to create conditions under which users had no choice but to adopt new rules.
As expected, as a result of trial operation, the contractor and I identified a number of omissions and promptly adjusted the system configuration.
In September 2016, the system was put into commercial operation. During the project, work with organizational and administrative documentation, tender-contractual work, and control of executive discipline were automated. The following results were achieved: the remote structural divisions of the enterprise were combined into a single information space with the central office, the degree of interaction of the enterprise divisions in the process of approval of documents was increased (the timing of approval of documents was reduced by 6 times, the processing time of incoming documents and the issuance of instructions for them - 10 times) , the possibility of loss and change of documents in the process of their approval and signing is 100% excluded, the security of access to information is improved,
Based on the results of implementation and the first three months of the system’s functioning, the management set a new task - to expand the system’s functionality and automate the work of the sales department.
About me: Head of the general department, responsibilities include managing the unit, including supporting and developing documentation support for management at the enterprise.
As it was
Prior to the implementation of the project, the enterprise was a classic example of an enterprise with traditional processes for post-Soviet clerical work - running around with papers on cabinets, sheets for resolutions and approvals, and therefore, the irresponsibility of the performers. For a long time there was talk in the leadership that the current system of approval of documents is imperfect: often in the process of approval documents were lost, individual sheets of already agreed documents were changed right before signing, and it was impossible to find the guilty. Orders for documents were also issued in the old fashioned way: the secretary, receiving the incoming document by e-mail, printed it out on a printer and made a note in the registration journal, then attached a leaflet for the resolution to the document, carried it to the director, and he put the resolution on the document with the appointment of the executor.
With such a system of issuing instructions, there could be no control over their execution. Files sent to the responsible executives by mail flew nowhere, and the phrase "I didn’t receive anything" sounded more and more often. I had to spend time proving that the files were still sent. One of the solutions to the problem is to manually monitor the progress of each order, but for this you need to have a staff of clerks, controllers, but it was not expected. Such a “system” created an unlimited lack of control and irresponsibility of local performers. However, the matter did not move.
In December 2015, I voiced the idea to the management: if we do not start work on transition to the modern level of enterprise management immediately, we run the risk of lagging behind competitors who have already begun to actively switch to modern technologies for managing their business. Moreover, the necessary regulatory framework in the country has existed for a long time. To make a decision on the implementation of the system, there were not enough real numbers, and I sat down to the calculations.
On the one hand, it was necessary to understand how much the enterprise loses under the current management mechanisms, and on the other hand, to estimate the cost of labor costs while increasing management efficiency. In the evaluation, I took the processes that I planned to automate, the monthly load (the number of operations per process), and the average salary of the employees who take part in these processes. It turned out that on the existing procedure for the approval of contracts, the company lost 2,000,000 rubles annually, 850,000 rubles on the processes of incoming, outgoing and internal correspondence, 350,000 on the procedures for finding the necessary information. We did not spend anything on the control of executive discipline, because did not lead him. And it had detrimental consequences for business, but detrimental consequences - failure to meet deadlines for fulfillment of obligations to fulfill contracts, penalties,
Taking into account potential labor costs for the control of executive discipline, an economic paradox was obtained: in order to save money by increasing management efficiency, we would need to increase labor costs by at least 4.5 million rubles annually. My figures showed the obvious: in the future, it was more profitable for the company to switch to an electronic document management system, namely: to automate work with the organizational and administrative documents of the enterprise, to automate the work of agreeing on contract documents, to improve the mechanisms for issuing and monitoring the execution of orders of the head.
Choice of platform and service provider, project protection
EDS is not chosen for one year, but with a prospect of at least five years, so at this stage I had to find a technological solution that would fit into the budget of the enterprise; It was the development of a well-known software manufacturer on the market; the manufacturer had partners for implementation. In addition, - choose a reliable contractor, prepare and defend the project before management; enter into a contract.
I began to study the systems market: I ordered presentations, consulted with IT specialists, and compared. My requirements for the platform were: the ability to administer and maintain it by the enterprise after implementation, building up the platform’s functionality as needed, a certain cost of software and licenses, and a domestic manufacturer. In all respects, the Russian-made Docsvision platform came up. It remained as soon as possible to determine the final implementation budget and find a reliable provider of services for the development and delivery of the configuration we needed.
In order to accurately determine the project budget and avoid financial overruns in the future, I analyzed the initial data: questioned the structural units and determined the types of documents that were supposed to be automated in the project, described internal processes, and clarified the number of users of the system. Based on these data, I requested commercial offers from a dozen Docsvision partners. When evaluating the proposals, I drew attention to the supplier’s availability of a boxed solution that could be configured to our requirements in the shortest possible time. After a series of interviews with potential suppliers, an adequate project budget was formed.
I submitted the project budget to management. So, the final cost of the project (taking into account the services of the contractor, the necessary hardware and software) amounted to 3 million, which in the future allowed the company to save labor costs to increase work efficiency of 4.5 million rubles annually. In April 2016, I successfully defended the project budget before management and entered into an implementation contract.
Preparation for implementation
As a representative of the customer, I had to establish communication between the interested departments and the contractor, together with the contractor, thoroughly analyze and formalize the current business processes to be automated. In order to automate business processes taking into account our requirements, it was necessary to expand all the routes for document movement, approve document templates, determine the policy of access to information and other small but important details. This is what we did with the contractor for a month. And by mid-May 2016, the design project of our system was ready. Development began, which was completed by the end of June 2016. After accepting the configuration and eliminating the identified shortcomings, everything was ready to launch the system in trial operation.
In July 2016, I organized group training for 100 users of the system. My team and I planned to launch wide functionality in one fell swoop, so the purpose of the training was to train personnel only in basic concepts and skills so that users would learn all other system capabilities during operation. Another condition for the training was to conduct it as quickly as possible so that users who were trained in the first groups (5-7 people each) did not have time to lose knowledge by the time the system was put into operation. To this end, I united the groups according to the age principle: the younger users were the first to receive training, then the older and retired people. Thus, the older generations did not have time to lose the acquired skills by the time the system was launched.
Trial operation
When the system was put into trial operation, we encountered a problem that I had foreseen: individual users wanted to work as before, tried to bring papers out of print out for approval, etc. I was ready for this. In order to dispel all doubts from those who disagree and avoid sabotage, I prepared in advance all the necessary internal regulations that legalize new and abolish the old order. In addition, he had preliminary explanatory conversations with the management and conveyed the idea that the success of the trial operation will depend, among other things, on the firm position “from above”, and most importantly on their active work in the system. So we managed to create conditions under which users had no choice but to adopt new rules.
As expected, as a result of trial operation, the contractor and I identified a number of omissions and promptly adjusted the system configuration.
results
In September 2016, the system was put into commercial operation. During the project, work with organizational and administrative documentation, tender-contractual work, and control of executive discipline were automated. The following results were achieved: the remote structural divisions of the enterprise were combined into a single information space with the central office, the degree of interaction of the enterprise divisions in the process of approval of documents was increased (the timing of approval of documents was reduced by 6 times, the processing time of incoming documents and the issuance of instructions for them - 10 times) , the possibility of loss and change of documents in the process of their approval and signing is 100% excluded, the security of access to information is improved,
Based on the results of implementation and the first three months of the system’s functioning, the management set a new task - to expand the system’s functionality and automate the work of the sales department.
About me: Head of the general department, responsibilities include managing the unit, including supporting and developing documentation support for management at the enterprise.