Tracey:
In addition to the good advice already stated, I would recommend you
look at how drawings are created or received and maintained.  We scanned
all our existing mylar drawings, saved them in tiff format, did some
magic something to allow them to be imported into our GIS system (still
not sure what that something was), and placed the images in an
Engineering Drawing EDMS repository with lots of indexing.  The original
mylars are kept in environmental storage for permanent retention.
Currently, our drawings are mostly created in AutoCAD and we receive
many of the drawings from developers in the same format.  We convert
what we have to to work in our AutoCAD system so we can save them in
tiff format into the EDMS.  All revisions, corrections, "red-lining,"
etc. is done through AutoCAD - not on paper or mylar.  We print a
"final" or "as built" to mylar and place in environmental storage.
Those that require a PE (professional engineer) signature by law, we
scan after signature and stamp are affixed to the mylar.  We only access
the mylars if there is a questions about the image or the index (which
is rare).

More info about drawings and RIM are covered in an article I co-authored
(along with Fred Grevin - also on this list) in the ARMA Journal.  You
can access a pdf download of the article at
http://www.arma.org/bookstore/productdetail.cfm?ProductID=1467.

Member Price: $0.00
Non-Member Price: $10.00

Article description:
Because drawings will continue to be important information sources for
most organizations, managing them will continue to be a great
opportunity for those who manage records and information. (The
Information Management Journal; PDF download; English, 5 pages; May/June
2004, Vol. 38, No. 3; Copyright 2004, ARMA International.)


Ginny Jones
(Virginia A. Jones, CRM, FAI)
Records Manager
Information Technology Division
Newport News Dept. of Public Utilities
Newport News, VA
[log in to unmask]

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance