Stemming the Paperwork Flood
By it's very name the Internet means speed and efficiency. But can that be incorporated into document and project management processes in order to stem the inevitable paperwork flood that mammoth construction projects generate?
[From iSource Business, April 2001] Building 12 hydroelectric power plants to tame the waters that flow through Brazil and Colombia was simple. Controlling the flood of paperwork that went along with that task was the hard part.
The blueprints. The job specification sheets. The work orders. The memos between managers or engineers. The surveys. The reports. The requests for changes. The printouts taken to meetings with clients.
Having spent years as a major worldwide player in the construction, installation and maintenance of massive electrical systems, ALSTOM Power is intimately familiar with this situation. So when the company started the South American projects earlier this year, executives decided they needed something to help stem the paper flood. They realized they couldn't stop the torrential rush, but they could at least build a dam to control it so it could be better managed, more easily accessed and more simply examined.
"Our projects are very long in years
