Acron switched to electronic document system

The Acron Engineering Research and Development Center (part of the Acron Group) has completed the implementation of a PDM system (Product Data Management), which will allow structuring the storage of documents, ensuring documentation flow control throughout all development life cycles and reduce negotiation time.

The document flow of the research and design center is more than 5 thousand internal and external technical assignments, as well as more than 2.5 thousand sets of issued documentation per year. In addition to structured storage, two hundred specialists from the research and design center in several cities of Russia received access to such digital processes as the coordination of interdisciplinary technical specifications and engineering documentation issued, their approval through a digital signature, as well as control of the movement of documentation throughout all development life cycles.

The PDM system, as an integral part of BIM technology, will serve as a node for receiving and transmitting data for the information modeling developed in the research and design center, and the principle of one-time entry of information and its further transmission to the next life cycles will increase the accuracy and uniformity of documentation.

The development of the PDM system began at the end of last year with the upgrade of the IMSearch software to its modern successor IPS Search, developed by the Belarusian company Intermech. For more than 15 years, the Search software has served as a reliable archive of the design center and provided a control process for the developed documentation.

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The implementation of IPS Search was carried out without the involvement of third-party integrators, by the developers of the Information Modeling Support Department of Acron Engineering and the Information Technology Department of Acron. This approach provides a high response rate when administering the system and developing new functionality.

The main feature of the system was the adaptation of the software to the processes created over many years of work. The purpose of this approach was to minimize systemic changes in work and long-term retraining of employees of the research and design center. The new concept made it possible to integrate the workflow with the ERP system developed by ISA, and taking into account new needs, the ERP ISA functionality was transferred to WEB technology.

“Digital processes will not only eliminate the possibility of loss but will also increase the speed of approval of both technical specifications and issued documentation. The time intervals allotted for the completion of tasks within the framework of the approval processes, as well as the reminder system, will allow specialists to keep current tasks “in focus”. Automated cost accounting will simplify planning, control and reporting on the development of documentation,” noted Andrey Kolosovsky, General Director of the Acron Engineering Research and Development Center.