Best Practice EDMS Template for Power Utilities

Power Utilities require a centralized platform for sharing and managing documents and associated processes within asset construction, enhancement and maintenance. However, evolving from the current state of disorganized documentation spread across multiple silos to a fully digitized, searchable resource that can be securely shared throughout the supply chain can appear daunting.

Each cooperative typically has a wide array of document types that describe the operation and maintenance of 100,000s of assets, many with revisions going back decades. Each piece of information is interlinked, from asset location to drawing to supplier technical specifications to back up procedures and safety processes.

The evolution from ‘as-is’ to ‘to-be’ state can now be achieved within a much shorter time than many perceive. Leveraging extensive experience in working with cooperatives across the US over the past two decades, Idox has evolved the best practice electric utilities template to fast track the creation of a single source of digital information.

The EDMS with a proven out of the box electric utilities template can adapt easily to generation and transmission changes. Furthermore, with automation and the possibilities enabled by AI, the solution delivers continuous improvements in cost and efficiency. The best practice template accelerates the process by building in depth understanding of engineering processes combined with robust workflows that enforce document creation, approval, publishing and transmittals models.

• Workflow: Documents are both tracked for usage, including both viewing and revision, and status within a workflow. Whenever a stage within a process occurs, whether that is design, construction or operational change, relevant stakeholders are notified. The system also records the progress to provide a fast view of the status of each workflow.

• Security: Each document includes a watermark, an unalterable stamp that shows its purpose, when it was reviewed, approved and signed off, by whom, and on-going revision status. This watermark provides the full history of every individual – from cooperative and partners – involved in the creation and use of the document. This in-depth document history provides essential information and evidence in the event of questions or disputes.

• Audit Trail: Every document stored includes a full history including its issue purpose, for example design or construction, the custodian, reviewers, approval steps. The system also records every time a document is viewed and by whom. With this golden thread of information, including every document view, every change, both internal and by contractors, a cooperative has a complete audit trail.

• Compliance: Traceability and auditability streamline regulatory compliance, for both internal and external standards.

• Enhanced visualization: A single document viewer ensures users can access, read and mark-up all document types, from drawings, models, office documents and image files, on any device both in the office and the field.

• Resilience: To ensure 24×7 access to this business-critical data demands robust storage, backup and disaster recovery. While many cooperatives will leverage existing resilience strategies with onsite data storage models, if using off site providers it is important to look for a provider that stores primary data in an ISO 27001 data center, with a daily back up to a secondary disaster recovery facility ensuring continuous and seamless access to information.

Streamlined Migration and Adoption

The Idox EDMS solution includes support both in document migration and user education to accelerate adoption, increasingly using the power of AI to accelerate change.

Data Migration

The Idox migration process includes locating and collating information across different locations, ages and format types into a single consistent source that supports both innovation, collaboration and regulatory compliance.

The entire data migration process can be accelerated by using AI to automatically capture vital metadata. Within this highly regulated environment, around 30 pieces of metadata are required for each document, including title, author, document type, revision, review and approval data. By extracting metadata and prepopulating the EDMS with the required information, AI is transforming the speed of document migration and significantly reducing deployment timescales.

Within months, organizations can evolve from outdated, disparate document resources, often without the required metadata, to a comprehensive single data source that is fully digitized and searchable, with documents and summaries discoverable in seconds.

Adoption

In addition to user training and education, AI is easing the transition to the new system. Workers can use natural language to query the User Guide, for example, and quickly access a relevant summary – in multiple languages. This facility plays a key role in improving user engagement throughout the onboarding process. AI can also create mini training courses in a relaxed style to appeal to the younger workforce, even including exam questions to demonstrate levels of understanding.

In addition to improving the adoption of the new solution, AI will also help organizations manage the onboarding of new workers who have less understanding of the environment than their older, more experienced colleagues.