As the winner of a 2007 InfoWorld 100 Award for IT innovation, Gaston County, NC, is a shining example of the way technology can help move government forward. So when it came time to implement a digital document management solution, it’s no surprise that CIO Brandon Jackson sought the system that could best promote broader-ranging citizen services. As part of the award-winning initiative, a rapidly-growing Laserfiche® system now provides solid technological support for Gaston County’s service mission.

“The philosophy behind many of our technology initiatives,” he explains, “is to present information on the Web, rather than face-to-face. Not only is it a whole lot less expensive, but it’s so much more convenient for citizens.”

Before implementing Laserfiche, completing everyday tasks was far from convenient. Jackson describes the working environment as “Paper, and lots of it. Our business processes were mostly manual and very costly, with regard to both lost productivity and excess paper consumption.”

Gaston County had another document management system in place when Jackson arrived, but it didn’t meet all of the organization’s business needs. “Our previous software lacked Web publishing and OCR capabilities,” he recalls, “and its architecture couldn’t scale to support our more ambitious initiatives or additional departments.”

Keeping in mind both present needs and future plans, Jackson authored an RFP, to which seven vendors responded. While two other solutions provided similar functionality to Laserfiche, none could match its cost-effectiveness. “Return on investment was probably our chief criterion,” he says. “Laserfiche offered the quickest ROI of all the potential solutions.”

It offered fast deployment as well. Within 6 weeks, the environmental health department had scanned paper records of over 55,000 septic system inspections dating back to 1955. Jackson gives much of the credit for Gaston County’s success to its Laserfiche reseller, One Source Document Solutions. “Our reseller has been great to work with, and they’re a great representative for Laserfiche as well,” he says.

The HR, finance and building inspection departments were also part of the pilot installation. “It was really a ‘first come, first served’ process,” Jackson says. “These departments really wanted to be the initial adopters of the new technology.”

In addition to these departmental champions, Laserfiche also found strong political support. Gaston County commissioners had recently passed a resolution enabling deployment of new e-government initiatives—many of which fell right into Laserfiche’s wheelhouse. “Our commissioners are very interested in using technology to reduce costs, so fortunately, we didn’t have major problems getting funding for our Laserfiche system,” Jackson says.

Deploying at the departmental level proved advantageous in convincing decision makers that Laserfiche would support their goals. “It allowed us to present concrete cost savings to commissioners,” Jackson recalls, “so they’d be on board with expanding the system. It also helped us persuade the few skeptical staff members that, when all is said and done, Laserfiche would make everyone’s jobs easier.”

It turned out that staff didn’t need much persuading at all. “The resistance to change has been far less than for other applications or new business processes,” he adds. “Employees all realize how tedious working with paper is, and that the opportunity to digitize will help them tremendously.”

Indeed, after just one year of using Laserfiche, staff and citizens have already realized many benefits. For example, Laserfiche Records Management Edition™ (RME) has greatly simplified the way staff work with records series. “It’s very easy to establish new records series in RME,” Jackson says, “and when it comes to managing them, staff simply scan documents in and let the system worry about the rest.”

Beyond sophisticated behind-the-scenes records management, staff greatly benefit from one of the most basic Laserfiche functions. “Laserfiche gives staff the ability to search in so many different ways,” Jackson notes. “For research and information requests, it’s really reduced the amount of information staff need to find what they’re looking for.”

In a recent case study, the building inspections department documented just how much more efficient they’ve become thanks to Laserfiche searching. With 6,000 building permits filed yearly, staff spent an estimated five hours per day filing and handling research calls. Because they can now index and retrieve documents automatically with Laserfiche, they’ve reduced the time spent answering those calls by 75%—saving almost half a man-year of work.

And that’s just in a single department. “We know that once we start deploying to larger departments, the savings will mount up into the millions of dollars,” Jackson says.

From an IT perspective, Laserfiche offers many advantages to Jackson and his staff. First and foremost among these is ease of administration. “We’re a Windows®-based shop, so we really appreciate the way Laserfiche integrates with Active Directory®. That made it really easy to fit Laserfiche into our operating environment.”

Because deployment was so smooth, Laserfiche delivered quickly on its promises. “Many solutions have the potential to increase productivity or lower costs,” he adds, “but are very difficult to set up. With Laserfiche, the upfront investment to attain these kinds of benefits is very low.”

With such rapid results, it wasn’t long before other departments were lining up to request their own Laserfiche systems—a common occurrence among new Laserfiche users. “Once other departments saw the benefits that the pilot departments were reaping, they came to IT and said ‘sign us up,’” Jackson remembers.

In response to these departmental demands, the 2008 Gaston County IT strategic plan includes a major expansion of their Laserfiche system. Planned enhancements include integrating Laserfiche with their redesigned GIS system, so that staff and citizens can retrieve parcel information and tax histories. The emergency medical services department will begin storing patient records and ambulance call histories within Laserfiche—which will help answer HIPAA compliance challenges. Meanwhile, the county attorney’s office will use the Workflow™ module to simplify the contract review process by automatically routing contracts for approval.

Workflow will also play a major role in some very sophisticated e-government applications. “We’re developing Web forms that will send information straight to Workflow,” Jackson says. “For example, employment applications submitted online will go straight to HR for initial screening, then on to hiring departments, who will route back the applications of individuals they want to interview or extend offers to.” Similar technology will enable citizens to submit permit applications and pay taxes online as well. And the building inspection department, one of the earliest adopters of Laserfiche, has become the first county department to go paperless, after receiving state approval for self-warranty in May 2008.

Internal business process improvements notwithstanding, the number-one goal of implementing Laserfiche was to improve citizen service. The citizens’ response? “They love it,” Jackson says. “Having building inspection reports online has been a major success. They can’t believe how much time they save. Previously, they had to call us, come into the office or travel to an inspection site. Now, they have on-demand access to all that information.”

Not bad for the first year. But Jackson is gearing up for bigger and better things. “I knew that digital document management would be a major asset, not only in the short term, but also further on down the road. I really anticipate that, within five years, Laserfiche will become as widely-used as e-mail.”

Tags: county IT, Enterprise, local government

Posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 5:55 am under Government Newsletter, State & Local Government. You can comment on this article. trackback from your own site.