Page 46 - Information Management 3rd Edition

Information Management
Documents can be stored by means of a manual system or by means of an electronic system. About 25 per cent of all paper documents involve correspondence, reports and operating papers. The remaining 75 per cent are used to store information of a recurring nature that may be used inside and outside the business, for example, purchase orders. Today, documents are produced with relative ease, fast, in great quantities and at low costs. Photocopiers, scanners, computers and telecommunication systems and devices such as fax machines, modems, routers and networks, quickly and easily create and distribute information by means of documents. Because of this, effective document management is becoming more of a challenge.
Information managers must understand and apply the following stages of the document management cycle:
• Storage – During the storage stage of the document management cycle, Pre-pub
• The creation of documents – Decisions must be taken about the format of a document, who will use it and for how long it must be stored.
• Utilisation – Documents are created to be used, so they must be stored in such a way that they can be effectively and readily retrieved. The period during which a document should be available for utilisation determines, to a large extent, the storage and maintenance thereof.
decisions regarding the filing methods, equipment and the effective use of space are taken. Documents must also be stored in such a way that they can easily be used.
• Retrieval – The speed with which the documents can be traced is of importance. Factors that influence the retrieval speed are storage methods, classification methods and filing procedures.
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• Maintenance – Documents must be maintained in the most cost-effective
way. Since documents sometimes must be maintained for long periods of time,
decisions about the suitability of space and storage equipment must be taken
carefully. In instances where the documents can be destroyed after a relatively short period of utilisation, storage is not such a big consideration.
In certain businesses, document management of the entire business is entrusted to an individual or a group of individuals. This is referred to as centralised document management. However, documents can also be the responsibility of separate sections within each department. This is referred to as decentralised document management. In addition to this, as information is released from the document management system and utilised by most people in the business, it is important that the procedures and methods for managing the documents are well known throughout the business.
The tangible format of paper documents facilitates their control. In contrast to this, documents in computer systems, such as networks and servers, appear in intangible forms on computer drives. These intangible documents can be produced in unlimited numbers, which has greatly increased the responsibility of the information manager to provide adequate document management control systems. There are two types of document management systems, namely the manual document management system and the electronic document management system.
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