Efficiency of documentation flow at scientific and engineering enterprises

Abstract

A choice of a suitable document management automation system often becomes a highly complicated task. Such systems are currently available in big variety. Apart from that, each enterprise has its own specifics, while small and medium-sized scientific & engineering enterprises have also a wide range of small-scale orders. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate a reasonable approach to the choice of a document management system to be efficient for a particular enterprise. The expediency is showed for creating a uniform information space for data exchange at a scientific & engineering enterprise. The author proposes modelling methods and algorithms enabling to decrease the number of generated documents and resources consumed for generation thereof. UML diagrams of the uniform information space have been described. Modelling of local document flows of enterprises has been performed with the help of Petri net: a conclusion has been made on multiplicity and increase in the number of documents in each cycle of the production process. Introduction of the PDM system has been supported and one of the stages of creation of the uniform information space has been described: it is possible to track in real time mode the timelines for execution of documents, ready-made documents and to make the necessary managerial decisions, thereby improving efficiency of the workflow and production process. The authors has demonstrated the implementation of the developed methods and models for a medium-sized scientific & production enterprise in real practice and has provided recommendations on introduction of document management automation systems at such enterprises.