Definition
Document management is simply how your organization stores, manages and tracks its electronic documents.
Certain companies in particular industries are required by government or industry regulations to effectively control their documents.
These industries include:
- Accounting (Sarbanes–Oxley Act)
- Food Safety (Food Safety Modernization Act)
- Healthcare (JCAHO)
- ISO
- Information Technology (ITIL)
- Manufacturers of Blood, Human Cells, and Tissue Products (FDA)
- Medical Device Manufacturing (FDA)
Some industries are held to a higher level of documentation control for privacy, warranty, or insurance purposes. For example, in the construction industry, it is common to hold project documentation on record and adequately controlled for warranty periods ranging on average for 5 to 10 years.
Benefits
There are many benefits an organization can reap from better document management, including:
- Lower Document Management and Archiving Costs
- Better Knowledge Management and Search
- No More Emails
- Improved Timeliness
- Increased Document Security and Control
- Facillitated Collaboration
- Better Version Control
- More Reliable Backups
- Built-in Regulatory Compliance
Components
Some components of document management software systems include:
- Document Storage
- Check-in / Check-out
- Simultaneous Editing Coordination
- Security and Access Control
- Search and Retrieval
- Version Control
- Indexing and Classification
- Audit Trails
- Annotations