In terms of “office technology” we’ve come a long way from fax machines and pagers! Now-a-days it’s email messages, electronic documents and text messages…many of which are done right from our smart phones. Anymore I find myself making frequent trips over to the nearest copier/scanner to turn a piece of paper into an electronic document so I can get it into my computer and work with it. My, how times have changed!

Oh…and the piece of paper gets put into the recycling bin (of course) after its been scanned.

Anyway, we recently made a move in our office to adopt a “document management system”…just one more step towards added efficiency. Starting in one area/department, we’ll systematically incorporate our various processes into this electronic system. If done properly it’s designed to save time, money and

paper. Not that we want everyone to start going around “hugging trees”…we still need paper, and will most likely never get completely away from it. But paper and ink cost a business like ours a lot of money. Not to mention all the machines (printers & copiers) that we need to support a “paper filled” office environment.

One thing we’ve realized during this “project” is to also take a look at our internal procedures before (or while) transferring them to the new electronic system. It’s not smart to take an existing, cumbersome, multi-step, redundant process and simply transfer it over to an electronic format. If we do, we won’t gain any efficiency or productivity. So, as a part of the “project” we are also analyzing our workflows to make sure it’s being done efficiently and to eliminate duplicate efforts.

This is just one of many new enhancements we’re making in order to accomplish our mission of “being the leading provider of superior mechanical systems & services.”