As every discrete manufacturer knows, a customer audit can make or break a company. One of the most infamous cases illustrating this would be the “Big Dig” in Boston (a megaproject rerouting convoluted streets into 3.5 mile underground tunnel). A July 17, 2008 article in The Boston Globe stated, “In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not be paid off until 2038.” Although construction began in 1991 (and ended in 2007), audits and settlements continued to plague this project, with complaints of leaks, substandard materials, and even a fatal ceiling collapse.
Protecting your manufacturing company with a Document Management System (DMS) against audits and lawsuits should be at the top of your Risk Mitigation Plan. Failure to produce such a document (lost, destroyed, misfiled) is an automatic non-compliance for most regulatory bodies; producing that critical document protects your company from litigious attacks.
When considering a DMS, there are performance factors relevant to risk mitigation. The system must:
- Search and retrieve business-critical information instantly
- Incorporate Records Retention, Revision Control, Workflows and Digital Rights Management components
- Provide secure limited access to third parties
- Comply with quality requirements and government regulations
While your primary decision driver may be Risk Mitigation, benefits will be realized across all business divisions with a DMS. These cost-saving features benefit other stakeholders:
- Eliminate misfiled and lost documents
- Manage audits with immediate access to records
- Speed up and control engineering specification changes
- Manage and improve production safety
Don’t allow your company to risk a ‘guilty’ verdict in an audit. The ICM Risk Management solution is composed of software, professional services, workflow development, and scanning functionality built around ICM Document Management’s ViewCenter® software. ViewCenter is a secure document library and workflow management application that is currently being used successfully in a number of discrete manufacturing companies, such as Lockheed Martin, Ducommun Technologies, Honeywell, and Motorola.
Call (800)676-4261 today to speak with a sales representative, or visit our website at www.icmdocs.com.
