Case Study

Document Management for Engineering Company Presents Complex Challenges

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by Greg Rapport

In most companies, it is easy to demonstrate the value of ViewWise Document Management software from Computhink. However, engineering companies are different from most companies. In fact, ViewWise was the choice over a dozen competitors, just to earn the chance to solve the extremely complex document management needs of WesTech Engineering, Inc.

The Company

WesTech Engineering supplies processing equipment for water, wastewater, and industrial applications.  From screening and headworks to tertiary treatment, from petrochemical process to water reclamation and drinking water, from small communities to large cities and factories, WesTech offers custom processing solutions for efficient solids-liquid separation.

In its 36-year history, WesTech, an employee-owned company, has grown to become one of the major suppliers in the process equipment industry. Thousands of WesTech equipment installations are working around the clock in the United States and all over the world.

To become a leader in the development of customized process equipment, WesTech’s extraordinary designers combine process efficiency, quality manufacturing, energy savings, and long-lasting performance into their standard operating procedure. WesTech designers have hands-on experience from plant sites around the world.  They work with customers to solve specific challenges and, like most companies that have a reputation for excellence and growth; they had way too much paper.

What Makes an Engineering Company’s Paper Different?


Paper is paper, right? Wrong. In WesTech’s situation, not all paper is created equal. Engineering design documents are generated by programs that are not commonly used by most companies. Integrating these specialized software applications into the context of a document management system is a very complex process.

When WesTech began researching document management software systems, they had to ask very specific questions in order to judge which software would match up best to their needs.

“No one has a perfect solution for engineering,” says David Scott, WesTech’s Information Administrator and the man charged with taking the company completely into the digital age. “We probably looked at a dozen different packages. The questions were: who came the closest to fulfilling all of our needs, who offered the best value so we could calculate a reasonable return on investment scenario, and who was easiest to work with to implement this strategy?”

More Challenges


In addition to integrating design software into the document management system, there were several obstacles that further complicated the task:

  1. The backlog of paper was large enough to use a whole, separate building. Estimates were that it would take approximately two years to convert the backlog into an electronic format.
  2. The company structure drastically increased the degree of difficulty. WesTech is divided into many departments. Projects frequently require inter-departmental cooperation, but the departments function almost as separate businesses. A document management system represented a paradigm shift in version sharing.
  3. Employee buy-in was met with resistance, mainly because the old system worked so well, even though it did not meet the changing demands and needs of the company. WesTech is ISO 9001-2000 certified, part of which requires the company to demonstrate its ability to have a structured response to audit trail requests. Using a combination of Microsoft Explorer, Groupwise, and paper files in boxes in a separate building, WesTech employees had learned over the years to respond to critical information searches with the same superior efficiency as the machines they designed.

“Despite reasons not to convert, the move to completely digital documents was inevitable, mainly because we were growing too big. The only way to properly prepare for the future was to implement document management now,” says Scott.
WesTech’s Wish List

A committee was formed to begin looking for the right document management software in the fall of 2006 armed with an extensive list of requirements, some of which are listed below:
  1. Cost – There had to be a fiscally responsible balance between cost and return on investment. “I soon found out that just because some systems were more expensive did not make them a better fit with engineering needs,” says Scott.
  2. User references
  3. Ease of implementation
  4. Ease of use
  5. Ease of scanning
  6. Ability to save directly from other applications
  7. Ease of linkage into Microsoft Navision
  8. Works well with Groupwise
  9. Customizable
  10. Integrated Document Viewer
  11. Full text search
  12. Check-in/Check-out
  13. Version control
  14. Overall security features
  15. Workflow features
  16. AutoCad Integration
  17. Pro E integration

WesTech looked at about a dozen document management systems, including “some of the big ones.” In the price comparison, ViewWise was not the least expensive, however, it was far from being the most expensive and offered the best price/value ratio.

Some of the programs addressed different groups of WesTech’s needs and none fit the bill for all of their needs. One company had a great repository, but their interface was unacceptable to the point where their references had created their own interfaces. One system was a good fit on many fronts, but could not interface with GroupWise. Another system was designed to work with AutoCad, but not with other programs. One worked with Pro E, but nothing else.

On and on the committee searched, and by late spring 2007, their due diligence led them to the decision to make ViewWise the choice for WesTech.

The Implementation


“We expected that the integration of our specialized design programs would be difficult,” says Scott. WesTech has been steadily working towards their integration goals for over a year and “the employees who are online with ViewWise think it’s excellent,” says Scott. They would like to store files from programs like Pro E, AutoCad, SolidWorks, Navision, and more. According to Scott, basic file integration is pretty straightforward but some of the programs create files that have underlying connections and duplicating the routing to connected subdocuments is extremely complex.

“In the long run, it’s worth the effort,” says Scott. He believes that once the integration is complete, the reward is quickly realized on the client side. According to Scott, ViewWise is extremely intuitive and user friendly. Based on the way current ViewWise users enjoy the experience, Scott believes that employee objections will be overcome by the simplicity of ViewWise operations.

The features of ViewWise that Scott likes most are:
  1. Lookup
  2. Viewing functions (In fact, viewing is one of the features that distinguishes ViewWise from competitors)
  3. Email – being able to email directly to ViewWise
  4. ViewWise functions extremely well with scanned paper
  5. Easy to understand client

Return on Investment


Scott’s initial prediction about ViewWise was full ROI in 2 to 3 years.

Continued Rollout – From Department to Enterprise

WesTech was able to put three departments online with ViewWise in the first year. Since a lot of the integration work has been completed, Scott’s plan is to put a new department online each week to achieve enterprise-wide implementation by the end of year two. There were 41 users at the end of the first year and the plan is for that number to expand to 350 by the end of year two.

“Our goals are ambitious when you consider the obstacles,” says Scott. “We need Computhink to be our partner to realize complete integration.”

Conclusion

“Our employees who love ViewWise and now can’t live without it, speak louder than words,” says Scott. “We knew it would be a difficult integration, and there is no point in minimizing that the degree of difficulty would have been even greater had we not chosen ViewWise,” he continued. “Computhink is becoming more tuned to our needs every day and if they continue to work with us as an equal partner we will have a truly integrated Engineering document management system that will pay for itself. That will be a huge accomplishment.”

About Computhink


Computhink provides best-in-class ECM solutions for secure information sharing and compliance, targeting small and medium size organizations. Using state-of-the-art technology Computhink solutions operate on a wide range of platforms, including Windows, LINUX and Novell. The ViewWise Product line includes Email Archiving Solutions for Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise. Founded in 1994, Computhink has thousands of customers worldwide in government, financial services, education, healthcare, manufacturing and utility organizations. For more information on Computhink and its products go to Computhink.com.

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