QAI Builds Compliant, Automated Document Management System for the U.S. Geological Survey
Background
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was created by an act of Congress in 1879 as the sole science agency for the Department of the Interior. The USGS provides reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life. The agency is based in Reston, Virginia.
Challenges
The Office of Accounting and Financial Management at the USGS receives and processes over10,000 invoices, employee travel vouchers, and financial statements every year. The agency’s existing solution relied on an optical disk jukebox for image storage and proprietary third-party software for image access. Over time, this outdated system proved challenging to maintain and upgrade. For example, whenever a drive in the aging optical disk jukebox failed, IT staff had to take the system offline before rebooting. Replacement parts were also expensive, as were the agency’s existing service contracts. Additionally, the system did not support the latest network and government security requirements, including HIPPA, and therefore could not pass regular control and access security audits performed on all servers and applications. USGS required a new scanning, storage and retrieval system that would enable staff to handle the high number of paper statements, expedite the workflow process, and comply with the latest security requirements.
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Quality Associates Converts Legacy Grants for National Institutes of Health
Background & Challenges
Increasing numbers of grants are being submitted electronically via grants.gov. However, thousands of hard-copy grant applications remain in storage. These archives comprise millions of printed pages and occupy valuable storage and office space. Staff must take the time and effort to manually locate and retrieve needed files and then sort through potentially hundreds of pieces of paper. Should a file be misplaced or damaged, the information contained within the file could be permanently lost.
Solution
To help reduce reliance on paper archives, enable easier access to information, and preserve paper-based information, Quality Associates has developed a streamlined approach that converts hard-copy “legacy” grant applications into digital files that can be easily searched and accessed by authorized staff.
Quality Associates’ legacy Grants Conversion process combines advanced software from Kofax, the world's leading provider of information capture software, with experienced hands-on professionals who perform the work.
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National Institutes of Health
NIH came to a realization in 2001 with over 45,000 grant applications coming through their doors that research funding is steadily on the rise and the easiest place to receive this money is the federal government. Social indicators such as 9/11, the aging baby boom generation and the research community becoming more aware of the process to receive grant money are contributing to over 70,000 grant applications slated to come into NIH in 2004 and these numbers are only going to increase significantly over the coming years. There are three grant application review cycles each year, which cause a surge of inbound applications during these cycles.
As volume increased, so did the costs for shipping and handling and the resources to distribute these paper-based applications to reviewers nationwide. Employees and reviewers were unable to access the grant information via a central, enterprise portal and the retrieval and management of the data was paper-based and manual.
The grants management solution NIH implemented, enabled a scalable approach to manage multiple document sources as well as unique content distribution. They now have electronic, searchable access of grant applications from an enterprise portal, allowing for customized distribution to the grant reviewers. Prior to this electronic process, the time to distribute applications was six to eight weeks. This process can now be done in two to three days.
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ASRC Aerospace Corporation
ASRC acquires and manages NASA STI (scientific and technical information), dating back to 1962, in Hanover, Maryland. These multiple-page technical reports, some of them very old and delicate, contain both greyscale and color images adding another complication to the conversion process and quality of the files. Searchable images were not available. If a NASA employee requested a copy of a report, that document would have to be printed and shipped to the requestor.
NASA’s requirement to ASRC was to re-engineer the process of the current information management system to provide real-time, electronic delivery of scientific and technical information. The initial step of this requirement was the conversion of over 165,000 existing TIFF files to PDF. ASRC estimated this conversion would take nine to twelve months.
Quality Associates, Inc. (QAI) developed a conversion solution that allowed ASRC to convert over 165,000 TIFF files to PDF in one-third of the estimated time frame. QAI provided a quicker implementation to scanning the daily incoming reports, in real-time. Technology and improvements in scanner features and functionality resulted in higher quality images and enhancements in OCR recognition resulted in a higher quality, more searchable PDF image.
QAI then streamlined a better business process for information management and database building process by decentralizing the capture requirements and providing services such as programming release scripts, providing a quality control mechanism for validation, linking the input of the electronic file to LiveLink. The final process architecture is a distributed scanning model, which improved efficiencies in the capture process.
The technology and integration services QAI provided resulted in an efficient process for ASRC to meet the real-time scanning requirements and address the color and greyscale image component. ASRC now benefits from a closed-loop workflow process while eliminating much of the manual document shuffling and reducing printing and shipping costs. Improved throughput has lead to a better use of human resources and has resulted in an increase in throughput.
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Food & Drug Administration (FDA) - Center for Veterinary Medicine
The Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine had identified legacy documents, and labels, to be scanned, indexed, and published into an Oracle database for retrieval and storage by users of the information from the FDA LAN. The documents consisted of several different document types and required unique document profiles. QAI worked with the CVM to review the existing processes and documents to verify and update our knowledge of their procedures. QAI then developed and established a workflow procedure that enabled the imaging products owned by the CVM to accommodate any document imaging related functions. The workflow methods include training for the CVM personnel, acquisition and installation of hardware and software components needed, and the provision of on-site personnel to operate the equipment. QAI also helped to implement a much needed communication forum to coordinate the efforts of the contractor teams and to inform the CVM of progress.
QAI upholds quality control and quality assurance as our top priorities. Through traditional practice and state-of-the-art equipment and procedures, QAI maintains a conversion process that enabled the index and capture procedures to be quality controlled. This rigorous methodology ensures that the procedures created for the CVM contain several stages for validation of index files and image quality. Also, QAI prepares custom document workflow processes (document classes) that are unique to the particular the CVM document types.
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