Improving Your Document Control Practices in 2018
It's not too late to set a new year's resolution to handle your document control practices better in 2018. Here at DocBoss, we're busy adding new functionality to help document controllers do just that.
How well prepared are you to handle your documentation workload in the new year?
While many oil watchers are projecting a cost of $50 +/- per barrel in 2018, others are more optimistic and are willing to bet that oil will hit $100/barrel during the next calendar year. Clearly, this will have implications on the number of new projects that you may have access to.
Regardless of what target is hit, what can you do to ensure that your project document control work is under control and and up to par with what your competitors are offering their customers?
Here are some thoughts regarding questions you might be thinking about regarding how you do your documentation work currently.
I already use Microsoft Excel to manage our documentation work. How is DocBoss better?
Excel is a spreadsheet application with severe limitations since it was not designed specifically for document control. Excel is no longer suitable to handle document control when more than one person uses the spreadsheet, you have multiple locations, you add data on a regular and recurring basis or if you routinely produce custom documentation for different customers.
Once your organization starts regularly handling projects with in excess of 15 customized documents, you might be doing yourself and your customers a disservice by continuing to use Excel or another manual, non-document control specific method.
I can build a document control application on my own so why should I use DocBoss?
DocBoss was designed by someone who spent 15 years in the process equipment industry who couldn’t find an existing application that helped deliver increasingly custom engineering documentation to customers. When you consider the ongoing cost of designing, building, maintaining, supporting and upgrading an inhouse application, the costs can become very large. This is especially true if your app doesn’t end up addressing your needs or if your needs change over time. Being a hosted and cloud-based application, DocBoss takes care of all of this for you. DocBoss also includes all ongoing upgrades and patches.
What should I look for in a good document control system?
A good document control system will enable you to understand where any document is at any time in the process and enable you to automate tasks normally done manually while also providing the paper trail needed to properly control documents.
A good document control system will ultimately enable you to manage and deliver custom documentation to end users by building the document register, accessing project reporting, working with customer templates, preparing custom compilations (databooks), building submittal packages and automating workflow, among other things.
How do I know if DocBoss can help me?
DocBoss helps process equipment suppliers manage and deliver custom engineering documentation to their customers in the instance where the document control function is time-consuming and frustrating. DocBoss is especially helpful to companies who tag their products, work with a bill of materials and/or vendor document requirements list (VDRL) and must provide increasingly customized documentation to their customers at the end of projects.
DocBoss customers include manufacturers, distributors and fabricators who provide a wide variety of products including pumps, valves, instrumentation, pressure vessels, skid packages and actuators among others.