Trying to find detailed information on large format hard copy plans was just one of the daily frustrations faced by Tauranga District Council’s City Services and Information Management staff.

Manually retrieving information about one pipe or manhole out of thousands along a road several kilometres long, for example, had become a daunting task.

After the council approached Iron Mountain, the Records & Information Management company used technology to streamline the system and enable council staff to search a database for the information they needed - all online.

With 20,000 A1 sized plans scanned by Iron Mountain to compile an imagery system, council staff now have instant information retrieval at their fingertips.

Saving space
Hard copies kept as back up can now be stored in cabinets off site to free up valuable space. “The system has given flexibility and wider access to information,” says Waid Crocket, Tauranga District Council’s manager of Information Management. “We can search on a number of criteria not possible on a hard copy system. You can’t for example ask a hard copy system to give you all the plans on Cameron Road which is 7.5kms long.”

The plans themselves came in all shapes and sizes. There was an enormous amount of preparatory work required as Iron Mountain staff working on the council project had to interpret information on each one to produce intelligent referencing.

“The time and cost to index can often be the most expensive facet of back file conversion,” says Steve Haythorne, Iron Mountains’ regional manager. “A client database, barcodes, reference fields from a GIS table or simple business rules will significantly reduce the cost of indexing and increase the accuracy of index fields.”

Haythorne notes that thorough testing and quality assurance of index validity and reliability is often overlooked but remains one of the most significant factors impacting return on investment from bureau back file conversions.

Meaningful referencing
Iron Mountain worked for over a full month to define business rules and key points to ensure maximum value was realised for the council. This included designing a business requirements manual for staff to work with.

Trials confirmed structures for indexing and profile data. Classification and cataloguing was established after extensive consultation between Tauranga District Council and Iron Mountain.

It was essential to establish consistent meta-fields and profile data to ensure sufficient and correct information was captured from each plan.

Together with the client, Iron Mountain staff developed meaningful referencing and retrieval systems. “When any issues arose the guys from Iron Mountain would be back within a few hours to address it,” says Crocket. “That is what you expect from a good service provider.”

Tauranga District Council has had a long association with Iron Mountain Records & Information Managers before the latest project and also uses the company for its document destruction service.

For more information about this case study contact:
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sales@ironmountain.co.nz
www.ironmountain.co.nz

September 2004

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