EPC companies are jumping on the bandwagon of using document workflow software in their engineering business. As the trend continues, we need to start looking at ROI – what can you expect to gain from such a system? The obvious benefit is that a digital system can help manage your documents more efficiently. But what about its impact on your cash flow?

Before exploring that we need to define what we’re talking about.

A document workflow automation software streamlines workflows and helps you monitor them digitally. It can be set up to notify users in case there was a deviation from the workflow for any reason. Document Workflow automation makes data searches more effective thanks to the metadata used in modern digital documents.

When you consider what such systems actually do you can get an idea of how it will benefit the business. Keep in mind that the documents involved can be of different formats – Word .docx files, Excel spreadsheets, pdfs, etc. – and of different types – contracts, drawings, invoices, BoMs – and there can also be different standards, protocols and procedures that have to be met with. Defining a workflow is one thing, enforcing it across every user is another – in fact you could argue that enforcing a workflow would be impossible without a document workflow software. For example, winning a contract is one thing, managing a contract smoothly across all parties is another. So in such cases its quite obvious that digital automated workflow would be invaluable.

Now in the EPC industry when you talk of document workflow management software what springs to mind is engineering documents like drawings and reports and so on but there are many non-engineering documents that also need to be managed, like legal documents, contracts, purchase orders, invoices, as well as documents related to human resource management, procurement and logistics management documents, and so on. Document workflow automation will save huge amounts of time spent managing all these documents.

Here are the ways a document workflow management software boosts your bottom line:

Minimizes or Eliminates Human Error

Engineering organisations are well-known for their reliance on manpower when it comes to creating and managing engineering data. This includes verifying and updating the data, and since these tasks are typically manually carried out and managed, the effort involved is high. These errors can snowball, as the process continues and the errors can multiply or magnify, and ultimately impact a schedule. Thus, errors have to be corrected as soon as possible and that involves rework, which is expensive because you need more manhours, and while in the past it used to be expected and often budgeted for, with digital systems becoming the norm companies are finding that rework need not eat up such a big chunk of their budgets.

Helps Avoid (Expensive) Rework

Engineering processes are quite detailed and complex, involving many steps and often multiple stakeholders at each step. If managed manually, the process can become impossible to monitor efficiently without dependency on human effort. A digital document workflow management system fixes this issue by eliminating the dependency – and saving time. The employee just has to open the file he wants, apply or edit a preset template, which shaves literally hours off his workday as he need not do everything from scratch. And all the work is automatically logged and saved into a common archive where it can be accessed by anyone at any time.

Ensures Quality and Compliance

Ensuring quality is a challenge across every industry and construction is no exception. At the same time, construction companies also have to contend with local compliance laws and regulations governing their project. Without a digital system to ensure that every prescribed workflow and protocol and regulation is enforced down to the last step, achieving compliance or quality remains a pipe dream for most organisations.

Makes the Most of Manpower

It’s no secret that the biggest chunk of a project’s operating budget goes towards manpower. This issue is exacerbated in new working landscape with the emergence of ‘gig workers’ and WFH and other models of working that make it difficult to find and retain workers. A digital system eliminates the worst aspects of the job, in terms of tedious and repetitive tasks, and frees up the worker to focus on more high value and satisfying tasks, so morale goes up and employee satisfaction goes up with it, while from the company’s side, the managers get more productivity from their staff because the staff is not over-burdened with manual work any more.

In short, a digital workflow management system addresses many of the problems and bottlenecks engineering companies faced in the past when it came to creating and managing documents. As technology continues to advance, soon a digital workflow management system will not be an option, it will be ubiquitous as email or spreadsheets.