LITTLE ROCK, AR - The chief elevator inspector for the State of Arkansas, Larry Smothers, now gets calls from elevator owners, thanking him for telling them to repair code violations or face possible shut down.

“The word is getting around,” says Smothers, who became chief inspector three years ago after retiring from a 33-year career as an elevator service technician. “They know we mean business, and after all is said and done, they want their elevators to be safe.”

By Smothers’ reckoning, all 5,500 commercial elevators regulated by the Elevator Safety Division will be either up to code or possibly removed from service within a year. Getting in sight of their code compliance goal has been due in equal parts to hard work and technology-based productivity improvements, he says.

Smothers initially wanted to establish a code compliance policy when he arrived on the job. At the time, it appeared to be wishful thinking, however.

“Because of the tremendous number of inspection reports that had to be reviewed and filed, our files had become chaotic,” he recalls. “We had cabinets and boxes of paper everywhere. And we had 11,000 new reports coming in from private elevator inspection services every year. It could take hours to find a file.”

“We were doing a good job as a review and monitoring agency, but were too busy to mount an aggressive field enforcement program, relying mostly on notices. I felt that we should be doing better than that.”

Things began to improve thanks to the efforts of Smothers and his staff of two assistants and three field inspectors. Code compliance became a realistic goal, however, when the Arkansas Labor Department authorized its Elevator Safety Division to digitize its paper files a little over a year ago. It was to be a pilot project for the Department as a whole, utilizing Laserfiche document management software.

“It was amazing,” Smothers says. “We committed to an all-out effort to index and scan every paper file into the new system, starting with the most recent reports.”

“Within weeks, we were able to retrieve virtually any document we needed in seconds, as opposed to hours. Converting to Laserfiche enabled us to be at least 50 percent more productive in handling our records.”

“Based on those time savings alone, we were able to step up our compliance efforts significantly. Before Laserfiche, I felt that we might have total compliance three or four years from now, if we were lucky. I now believe that we will get to that point in less than a year.”

In a typical week, Smothers sends his inspectors out with authorizations to shut down elevators that still have code violations. In some instances, the owners initiate the repairs on the spot. In others, some of the elevators are removed from service.

“I expect that the numbers will get smaller as people learn to accept that this is the new program,” Smothers says. “In my opinion, that’s exactly how we should be performing. The safety issues are that important.”

As a byproduct of becoming a more effective organization, eight of 15 filing cabinets are gone and there are no longer any boxes of files cluttering aisles and tabletops.

Doris Anderson, who has been responsible for the Division’s deployment of Laserfiche as IT manager for the Labor Department, marvels at the changes. “It has been a very successful pilot project that we now want to expand to other Divisions of the Department,” she says. “The improvements are impossible to overlook.”

AXIO Technologies, a Laserfiche Value Added Reseller based in West Plains, MO, assisted Ms. Anderson in developing the Division’s Laserfiche solution and provides continuing support.

About Laserfiche:
Based in Long Beach, CA, Laserfiche (www.laserfiche.com) creates simple and elegant document management solutions that help organizations run smarter. Laserfiche solutions are used in more than 21,000 government and business offices worldwide.

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