ECM System Gradually Spread Tentacles Throughout Organization

Buncombe County (N.C.) found itself awash in paper documents that were difficult to track and even harder to secure. To fix the problem, the county decided to purchase an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system. Gradually, that decision impacted a handful of departments, and further expansion looms on the horizon. The county's tale illustrates the far reaching effects an ECM purchase often has on an organization.

Buncombe County provides a variety of municipal services, including economic development, policing, maintaining local parks, and social services. The government agency has more than 1,900 employees who work in more than a dozen departments. Given the diversity of its service, the county relies on a dozen servers, running mainly Microsoft's Windows, to support its operation. The agency's SAN has been upgraded, so it now supports 8T of information, with much of that growth coming from its ECM expansion.

That deployment began in 2002 when the county searched for a way to streamline communications between local law enforcement departments (both city and county) and the court system. "The district attorneys needed to be able to access police reports when they were in court," explained Juliana Austin, Information Technology, Document Management at the county.

The police reports were paper, so filing cabinets were often transported from the police departments to the courthouse. Security was an issue as the files crossed the street, and sometimes they were even stored near jail cells. Compounding the problem, there were no backup copies of the files, so problems arose when they were lost or damaged.

In addition, policemen did not have a simple way to access criminal background data. "We were outfitting our officers in the field with laptops, but they could not access arrest records, mug shots, or criminal histories when they were questioning individuals," stated Austin.So in early 2002, the agency issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) and received bids from about 10 vendors. Eventually, the selection decision was narrowed down to IBM and Hummingbird, a vendor that was purchased by Open Text Corp. in the summer of 2006. The Hummingbird product was chosen because the county thought the product's APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) would enable the ECM system to be tied to a number of other applications that the government agency ran.

While open interfaces can be beneficial, they do not eliminate all programming challenges.  Initially, the county encountered some integration issues as it connected the ECM to its police system. Eventually, the problem was resolved, and the system was up and running.  

After this deployment, other departments started to ask about using the ECM, and a priority list was established.  The second department up was finance, which was also drowning in paper. Each invoice would generate several copies (sometimes inconsistent ones) as it worked its way from sender to final approval. In 2004, the county government connected the ECM to its Lawson ERP system, eliminating redundancy and cutting down on unnecessary paperwork.

Next on the docket was the human resources department. Various business units were maintaining their own copies of employee data, which resulted in unnecessary duplication and confusion. The county's hiring process was also inefficient. Prospects filled out a multi-copy that was routed to various department managers involved in the process. The HR department had about 350,000 pieces of paper involving county personnel. When the change was made, the department eliminated seven filing cabinets, whose area was turned into much needed office space.

ECM integration next came to the Permits and Inspections Department, which had a lot of complex forms, such as maps, development plans, and blueprints. The agency needed to share that information with other departments, such as, Planning and Environmental Health. That integration was complete in 2008.The investment in the ECM system have been significant: about $249 per user and now about 1,000 employees have access to it. Reductions in paperwork as well as the streamlining of business processes have been drivers for the expansion.

Buncombe County now has a few more departments waiting to be tied to its ECM. The Department of Social Services has begun to link its information to the repository. The tax department would like to use the system to the public to access old tax records and see board meeting minutes. "When we purchased the ECM, we thought that there might be a few other uses for it, but we never imagined it would be as popular as it has been," concluded Austin.