OK, document management software doesn’t sound as exciting as, say, wireless video celebrity twitter messaging or all the other very important uses our society makes of new technology. But how about when modifying out-of-the box software chops staff time spent on paperwork in half and helps workers keep up with a myriad of changing rules and regulations that protect the environment.
Document management is definitely interesting if doing it more efficiently will save millions of dollars in a core business like timber sales, which is a big part in DNR’s management of state lands that raises some $200 million a year in non-tax revenue for public schools, universities, county hospitals, libraries and other beneficiaries in Washington.
A new white paper published by Microsoft explains how some creative folks in DNR’s timber and sales programs managed to pull off that feat this year by re-tooling Microsoft’s Office SharePoint Server program.
As the white paper explains, “To lower the time and cost of managing the sales process, and to ensure that the department’s six regional offices were working with current versions of documentation, the department created a document management and workflow application based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007.”
Customizing the Microsoft software cost about $150,000, but the price tag could easily have hit $500,000 if DNR had opted for other solutions.
The big savings will come in reducing the time spent on the required processes and paperwork for timber sales, a volume that has increased by 400 percent in the past five years. Each of the 250 or so timber sales DNR conducts annually requires 70 documents of 100 to 250 pages each. Unifying this paperwork on one server and standardizing how it is handled will save millions of dollars in coming years – even more when the system gets wireless capability in a few years.
By creating the Timber Sales Document Center (TSDC), DNR’s six regional offices work from one standardized timber sales process on one server. The consistency and economies of scale that DNR can now achieve in the timber sales process is useful to current and future employees, but also to beneficiaries who receive public land revenues and to the public that owns and enjoys the state’s lands.
Those working on the project included Jon Tweedale, DNR assistant division manager for product sales and leasing, and Joe Brady, DNR operations development specialist.
