The EDM, or Electronic Document Management, is an environment consisting of a tool or several tools allowing the organization and management of data for distribution or exchange between different stakeholders of a project. Today, this type of solution has become widely embedded right across the corporate landscape. But the merits of EDM go far beyond the mere filing and archiving of papers. Thanks to the optimal roll-out of a tool tailored to a company or project needs, a company can achieve high levels of performance and generate meaningful added value for its business.
EDM is a shared electronic management IT system. It is an intelligent tool capable of grouping together, classifying and storing all the documents that pass through a project, and of controlling the document flow. It is a platform that centralizes documents and associated data in precisely organized folders, thereby simplifying their distribution, access, sharing and searching.
EDM is used to optimize the management and exploitation of document flows from different stakeholders.
It displays, in fact, some essential functionalities:
EDM has a primarily operational purpose. A company that implements it in-house can:
The EDM allows you to distribute, store, classify, search and dematerialize all types of documents related to a construction project.
For it to work optimally, it is necessary to start by creating an environment specific to the project or the company.
The organization of the EDM must be adapted to the specificities of the project:
Once the EDM environment is set up and online, all types of documents can be filed and stored on the EDM throughout the project.
Thus, the various written and graphic documents related to the construction of the work are compiled. Once the construction is completed, the EDM lists all the latest versions of deliverables required to create the final handover file, which is useful for the operation of the project.
It is very important to choose an EDM software (link to The 5 criteria for choosing EDM software) that perfectly matches the needs of the project. The more complex and large-scale the projects are, the higher the number of participants and the more documents are exchanged. It is therefore necessary to deploy a reliable EDM, whose functionalities are rich and adapted.
It is also essential to choose a DMS that is easy to use for all users. The application must be accessible and user-friendly so that employees can use the tool easily and quickly find the information they are looking for.
Last but not least, don’t leave the tool’s configuration to chance. If in doubt, the best thing is to seek guidance from experts, such as Kairnial or Kalidoc, who perfectly master the specific processes of the construction industry in order to deploy your EDM project space. Only a correctly configured EDM can bring you gains and better productivity from design to delivery.
Discover here a short demo of the Kairnial GED module:
By rolling out EDM for your construction projects, it allows to :