Cost effective approaches to document imaging and electronic documents - minutes from the 7 December 1995 meeting of the Optical Technology Special Interest Group (Australian Public Service applications)

Minutes of the meeting of the Optical Technology Special Interest
Group (OTSIG) 6 December 1995.

by Sandra Henderson, OTSIG Minute Secretary

The meeting was held in the meeting room of the Belconnen Library.
There were no apologies and the minutes of the previous meeting
were accepted without amendment.

Election of office bearers.
Chairman: Andrew Freeman agreed to be nominated for this position
and was elected unopposed.
Secretary: There were no nominations for the position.  Andrew
Freeman will seek a suitable secretary.
Minutes: Sandra Henderson agreed to continue as minutes secretary
as there were no nominations for the position.

Mr Langford-Smith brought two events to the notice of the meeting.
On 12 December the Records Management Association is holding a
breakfast meeting at CSIRO Headquarters, with a presentation by
Canon on electronic document management systems.
The Records Management Association will be holding its annual
convention in Canberra in September 1996.

Guest speakers.
1. Len Churchward, BHP Information Technology
Mr Churchward addressed the meeting on 'Management strategies for
cost effective implementation of document image processing'.

A 1993 survey of 300 of Australia's top 500 companies revealed that
80% believed imaging would be the most significant new technology
of the next five years, but investment in major document image
processing has not eventuated.

There have been many failures of imaging systems, which can be
traced to factors such as: systems have been technology-led not
business-led; there has been no clear statement of requirements;
expectations are excessive; systems have been too complex; software
and hardware has been inadequate; the need for experience and skill
has been underestimated.

Two case studies were presented, which pointed out may of the
pitfalls in implementation of an imaging system, which include: first
installation site for the product selected; lack of executive
commitment; failure to re-engineer business practices; a lack of
vendor knowledge; underestimation of the size of the conversion task;
a lack of functional definition; scope of projects too wide; inadequate
budget allocation; lack of a feasibility study; unrealistic timeframe;
technical infrastructure not in place to support the system.

In general the problem areas can be categorised as:
     . vendor - related (a diminishing problem)
     . customer - related, which can include such things as:
failure to control the scope of the project; failure to re-engineer
business practices; inadequate functional and technical specifications;
lack of feasibility studies; inadequate budget; poor cost-benefit
analysis; poor project management; lack of contract agreement; a lack
of detail and specific deliverables in the contract.

Strategies to overcome these problems include:
have in place a clear business plan and vision; appoint a project
champion; limit the scope of projects; have a phased development and
roll-out, with specific time-boxes; re-engineer business processes; use
workshop techniques; examine all processes ruthlessly; analyse all
"sacred cows" ("We've always done it this way"); consider other
technologies - is document imaging the most appropriate option?;
recognise that document image processing and workflow needs
significant capital; conduct a cost-benefit analysis.

2. Frank Wood, Assistant Director, Publishing in Defence Central
Office, with assistance from Sharon Wood.

Frank described the Document Generator system developed within
the Department of Defence to allow creation of standard documents.

Document Generator has a set of templates in various word
processing formats, allowing for a range of document types.  Links to
address lists and file lists are included, as are letterhead.  It is also
possible to produce the document with SGML tagging, without user
expertise in SGML.  Document Generator is used throughout the
Department, and some other agencies have expressed interest.

A survey within the Department has ascertained that there is an
average time saving of 2.7 hours/week for every staff member
creating documents.  There are 3 staff involved (1 x ASO5, 2 x
ASO3).  It works with Word for Windows, Lotus AMI Pro, Word 2,
Word 6.

Introductions.
Among those introducing themselves were:
Steve Williams, Hermes Precisa Australia
Steve provide information about a new imaging system provided by
HPA to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
John Payne from Tower Technology reminded the meeting that
Tower is happy to demonstrate their products from their Deakin office.
Peter Leighton from Wang Australia highlighted Wang's  product
range of work management and imaging systems.
Neil Willis from Austor spoke briefly about his company's scanning
and storage services.