Elomatic
Thousands of Projects Require Advanced Document Management
Highlights
- Efficiency: the introduction of M-Files made document management and retrieval faster and more efficient, allowing more time for productive work.
- Improved security: the right people have access to the right documents.
- Development work tailored to the company's needs.
Use Case
Compliance Management
Project Management
Industry
Industrial Design and Consulting Services
Country
Finland
Share This Story
Company Introduction
Elomatic is a Finnish industrial design and consulting company focused on solutions that improve the well-being of people and the environment. With over 50 years of experience in the field, the company is known as a pioneer in the development of design methods.
The company offers its expertise from the first consultation to the end of the investment lifecycle to both industrial companies and public sector organizations. The company's areas of expertise include mechanical and plant engineering, process and energy, marine and offshore energy, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals.
Key Challenges Before M-Files
File-Based Document Management Became Impossible
Elomatic employees have around 1,500 different customer projects on their desks every year. The size of the projects varies: the smallest projects may take a couple of hundred hours, while the largest projects may involve hundreds of thousands of hours. Even the smallest projects have dozens of different documents, while the largest projects have tens of thousands of them. The vast number of documents created data management challenges for Elomatic, making them difficult to locate and process.
"You can no longer manage such a large number of documents on a file basis without metadata," says Jari Åberg, Vice President of Digitalization at Elomatic.
Quality is important to Elomatic: in Elomatic's business, it is also important that documents are checked and approved, and that no unchecked documents ever reach the site. Data security is also a key issue in terms of who has the right to see what information.
"We also work in a variety of secure and restricted environments, where information security is even more important than before," says Åberg.
Managing documents also became increasingly challenging for Elomatic as independent work across different locations and times grew more common. The company has offices not only in several locations in Finland, but also around the world, for example in Canada, India, and Germany. The company's employees work in different time zones and locations.
"This poses challenges in terms of how much we can work together. We needed a platform where we could talk together on a documentary level," says Åberg.
"We work in a variety of secure and restricted environments, where security is even more important than before."
Jari Åberg, Vice President of Digitalization, Elomatic
M-Files Roll-Out Started with a Pilot
Before M-Files, Elomatic had tried different solutions for document management. For example, Kronodoc and Elodoc, designed for internal use, were used in projects.
"However, at some point, we came to the conclusion that our own program would have needed more development investment. We started looking for ready-made platforms on the market. M-Files stood out because of the features we value, such as metadata, custom view building, search capabilities, and security. Being able to manage documentation on a project-by-project basis is also important to us. Project documents are available to everyone who has been given access to them," says Åberg.
Elomatic started implementing M-Files by first piloting it in its Marine business.
"We started to develop M-Files the way we do things and what we needed from this system," Åberg explains.
After the successful pilot it was decided that M-Files will be rolled out to the company's other business units. For Elomatic, it is important that document management can be modified accordingly to the specific needs of each business area. It is therefore up to each industry to define the features they need, and M-Files is adapted to suit their needs. Naturally, however, the aim is to keep the whole system manageable and the basic structures unified.
"We know now what our users want. For example, we've built views so that users can see document paths and virtual folders and can drag and drop documents directly to the location they want. Metadata is also automatically populated," says Janne Hongisto, M-Files' Lead Administrator at Elomatic.
"In each project, the project manager invites the right people to join the project in M-Files and gives them the rights and roles they need."
Jari Åberg, Vice President of Digitalization, Elomatic
The M-Files Solution
Help with Document Management
M-Files' metadata-based document management helps the employees store and find documents. At Elomatic, M-Files is first and foremost a tool for the efficient storage of large volumes of documents.
Elomatic's designers create technical drawings using various modelling software, and the published documents are managed in M-Files. Each publication is its own version, and it is easy to revert to a previous version if necessary.
"Document version control is really important to us," Åberg says.
The documents are also easy to distribute to the customers from M-Files.
"Our customers get access to a project-specific environment. This allows the customer to view and approve their project documents directly in M-Files," Åberg says.
In the future, Elomatic also plans to integrate the design software used by the company into M-Files.
"We know now what our users want. For example, we've built views so that users can see document paths and virtual folders and can drag and drop documents directly to the location they want. Metadata is also automatically populated."
Janne Hongisto, Lead Administrator, Elomatic
The Results
"Before M-Files, it often took a long time to find the material. Over the years, it became painfully difficult to find. We do about 1,500 projects a year, so you can only imagine how much documentation you accumulate in, say, ten years."
Jari Åberg, Vice President of Digitalization, Elomatic
Enhanced Document Management and Security
The implementation of M-Files has delivered the most notable advantages within Elomatic's Marine business division, where the system has been in use the longest. Marine's document management has become clearer and faster, and the security has improved as people's access to documents is easier to manage. Now the Process, Pharma, and Mechanical divisions are also well on board with M-Files for projects.
"In each project, the project manager invites the right people to join the project in M-Files and gives them the rights and roles they need. For example, everyone doesn't need see everything or administration only see administrative things and so on," Åberg explains.
Thanks to M-Files, employees can also find the documents they are looking for quicker, freeing up time for the productive work.
"In our projects, we often use the information content accumulated in previous implementations as a starting point, from which we start developing new content. Before M-Files, we often had to search for materials for a long time. Over the years, it became painfully difficult to find. We manage around 1,500 projects a year, so you can only imagine how much documentation is accumulated, say, in ten years," says Åberg.
Business efficiency has improved as documents are now located and published more quickly.
Continued Use and Development
Each division of Elomatic has its own M-Files administrator, whose task is to develop the system further and support users. These administrators also receive support for their work from M-Files. This is a joint effort, because the use of M-Files is a matter of continuous development and improvement. The user experience provides more insight into what works in the company and what users want.
"The use and development of M-Files continues. We are firmly on our chosen path with M-Files," Åberg concludes.
Why M-Files?
M-Files is the leading platform for knowledge work automation. With the M-Files platform, knowledge workers can find information faster, work smarter, and achieve more. M-Files features an innovative metadata-driven architecture, embedded workflow engine, and advanced artificial intelligence. This enables customers to eliminate information chaos, improve process efficiency, and automate security and compliance.
