Integrating document management with project and company data

Electronic document management (EDM) systems have revolutionized the construction document storage and retrieval process. An electronically managed document consists of a computer representation of the main document body, usually in the form of a bitmap, and a reference or indexing structure used to retrieve the document. In construction, the reference data includes information that relates the document to certain aspects of the constructed facility and the construction company. It is argued that this relationship needs to be represented explicitly and in an integrated manner as opposed to the approach used by traditional EDM systems. This paper presents an integrated approach based on the concept of specialized construction data models. A detailed account of how this approach was followed to integrate a quality assurance document management system within a steel fabrication company is also presented.