Eberhard
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A Swiss construction group says goodbye
What does a large company do when the paper archive in the basement is suddenly full? When you can no longer see the wood for the trees because of all the files and documents? When you can only find important documents with great difficulty or not at all? Should you tear down, rebuild, extend or rent additional rooms? –
Although the Swiss group of companies Eberhard Bau AG is one of the leading companies in Switzerland when it comes to construction, expansion and demolition, they decided differently: After detailed consultations with the Swiss windream distributor Kinetic AG, they invested in a modern, electronic and easy-to-use IT solution for the administration of extensive file inventories – in short: They invested in the windream ECM-system to put an end to “claustrophobia” once and for all.
Eberhard builds everything
Eberhard Bau AG, headquartered in Kloten, is one of the largest construction companies in Switzerland. Eberhard builds pretty much everything, and on a grand scale: railroad systems and airports as well as roads and buildings of all kinds. There are also business areas such as construction recycling, remediation of contaminated sites, excavation of building pits and demolition services. The company employs around 450 people at its headquarters in Kloten alone.
Notorious lack of space
It is therefore no wonder that such extensive fields of activity generate a whole host of documents that can only be managed and archived with a great deal of manpower – especially when it comes to quickly finding paper documents in the constantly growing file archive. The notorious lack of space combined with the constantly increasing flood of paper eventually led to the existing archive simply becoming overcrowded and no more space was available. Although the investment in a modern electronic archive was initially given low priority despite the overflowing paper archive, it was decided after detailed consultations with the Swiss windream distributor Kinetic AG not to simply enlarge the existing rooms by further structural measures. Instead, they realized that the extension of the existing IT system environment by a comfortable ECM-system like windream was a much more elegant solution.
If you can do it, do it – defined requirements
However – and these were the conditions – the new electronic archive
should not simply be a replacement for the existing paper archive. For EberhardBau AG, the new windream ECM-solution should also and especially help to avoid long document processing times as well as multiple filing, and this with a high degree of transparency at the same time. In addition, an eminent reduction of access times to any document was in the foreground, with an estimated volume of about one million new documents per year. Furthermore – and this was also important – the new ECM system had to be able to be integrated into the existing IT infrastructure without any major programming effort.
At first, the decision makers at Eberhard Bau planned to use windream only as a pure image archive for the administration of photographically documented construction projects. However, they quickly realized that this restriction would be like shooting at sparrows with cannons and that the scope of the ECM-system was far from being exhausted
.
Customized solution from the windream distributor Kinetic AG
The Swiss windream distributor Kinetic AG from Lenzburg was therefore commissioned to integrate windream as a comprehensive ECM-system into the existing IT infrastructure of Eberhard Bau AG. Thus, Kinetic implemented a state-of-the-art software solution on the technological basis of the windream ECM-system, which enables Eberhard’s employees to scan and digitize all project data including existing documents from the paper archive at a central workstation.
Background: The Swiss windream distributor Kinetic AG
Kinetic AG, located in Lenzburg, Switzerland, is a long-standing windream distribution partner specialized in the distribution and integration of windream solutions throughout Switzerland. As a windream distributor, Kinetic supports an extensive network of specialized partner companies and also provides 2nd level support for partners. In this way, Kinetic covers the entire range of typical ECM requirements, from classic document management in medium-sized companies to complex ECM projects in large enterprises.
Kinetic AG’s range of services also includes the integration of special applications that are tailored to individual customer requirements. Kinetic develops such customized software solutions in its in-house solution distillery under the label Dalvany. In this way, Kinetic has already successfully realized a large number of complex ECM projects for windream GmbH.
Key data
- Seamless integration of the new ECM solution into the existing IT infrastructure
- Reduction of space requirements and replacement of the existing file archive by implementing a modern IT solution
- Automatic indexing of archived documents via full texts
- Handling a scanning volume of around one million new documents
per year - Shortening access times to documents
Automatic full text indexing
To ensure that the scanned documents can be retrieved later without any time-consuming effort, they are automatically indexed by full text during the scanning process. This means that the text, i.e. the actual content of a digitized document, is automatically read out during the capture process. The read-out information can be used for retrieval at a later point in time by simply entering any search terms into the system. windream then searches for all documents from the electronic archive which match the entered search terms in the shortest possible time. The search in the windream archive is carried out via an integrated, central search function of the ECM-system. In addition to the search via full text, all other search functions offered by windream can of course also be used. This includes, for example, a search based on predefined index features such as date, project number or customer number. Eberhard Bau AG also likes to use the possibility of indexing documents via barcodes.
One hundred percent realization of the desired goals
The solution used by Eberhard Bau today and implemented by Kinetic is characterized, among other things, by the fact that it offers the “Eberhard employees” a holistic IT approach. The solution integrates different areas of application under one roof: from the capture and digitization of incoming paper documents to their processing and administration, to their revision-proof storage in the windream archive and subsequent convenient retrieval.
The time needed to realize the entire project up to the productive use was also extremely short – compared to the requirements defined at the beginning. In particular, the fact that the use of the windream ECM-system requires almost no training effort contributed decisively to the fact that the involved employees of Eberhard Bau AG are highly satisfied with the new system. And they notice every day how much less time they need to search for documents. What used to mean a lengthy trip to the cellar is now just a mouse click away.
Michael Rime, team leader of the secretariat of Eberhard Bau AG in Kloten, is almost euphoric: “I can hardly imagine working without windream today.” – Could there be a better compliment for Kinetic and windream?