Cloud-based DMS: so everyone can keep an overview

The factory setup example shows how important the topic of mobile document processing via cloud infrastructure is.

How can companies enable interdepartmental collaboration within the same company and between companies, their partners, and suppliers to seamlessly happen across borders, but also across countries or continents? A good example of the latter is the cooperation between Siemens Mobility Gesellschaft, which is responsible for the international transport business of the Siemens Group, and the Canadian Railways. In 2018, Siemens Mobility received an order from Canada to develop 32 new generation trains that will be used on the main route from Quebec to Windsor from 2022. Fabasoft Approve, the software company’s standard cloud-based product, was selected as the platform for the exchange. Project data and technical documentation. Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Linz, Fabasoft is one of the leading software manufacturers in Europe when it comes to the digital management of documents, files and business processes. Fabasoft Business Process Cloud in-house plays a major role in this.

When the information grows exponentially

Information exchanged over a wide range of communication channels increases exponentially with the duration of large projects. Keeping an overview, not losing sight of any upcoming deadlines and making sure everyone involved has the same and up-to-date information is a huge task.

Martin Diemt, Head of Project Operations Functions, Siemens Mobility

Cloud-based digital business processes and workflows have been used from the start in order to enable the highly complex evaluation, testing and feedback cycle between Siemens Mobility and the railroad company as seamlessly as possible. The goal: an efficient workflow in which hundreds of thousands of contractually binding documents are efficiently exchanged, processed, and accepted in the areas of design, planning, approval or certification.

mobile communication

The importance of mobile document processing via cloud infrastructure can also be seen in the establishment of the plant, for example Siemens Energy. The company supplies, among other things, turnkey fossil power plant solutions. The effort in managing the project and organizing the data and documents required for this is great. So it is ideally suited to shift document management processes to the cloud and enable editing from the workplace and on the go. Mobile phone usage is an essential requirement, especially when it comes to quality control. For example, all connection points of electrical building connections must be checked and documented – the so-called isometrics, of which there are tens of thousands for each power plant. Previous practice, in which hundreds of inspectors took pictures at the power plant and manually documented them on scraps of paper – which eventually ended up as a mountain of paper in their construction containers – has proven very ineffective. With regard to the rapid, clear and orderly processing of the information collected as part of the testing processes, the procedure is now digitized in the cloud. With the mobile app, clerks and examiners can access data in the cloud on iPad and iPhone.

Information processing times have been significantly reduced while data quality and availability have been increased at the same time. The option of being able to digitally sign on mobile devices easily and legally on site – even offline – greatly simplifies and speeds up the process

Andreas Dängle, Managing Director of Fabasoft Austria