Web content management system also reckoned as WCMS is basically a software, which is generally applied as a web application for the greater purpose of creating as well as managing HTML content.
Typically a software system WCMS is used in controlling as well as managing a whole range of web material, consisting the varied types of HTML documents, images and other diverse forms of media. Web content management is all about editing, controlling, auditing and above all a timeline management of content. Thanks to the technology, as content creation, controlling content, editing the content and other hundred other essential web maintenance functions are now being easily done with the web content management facility.
Available in almost all shapes and sizes web content management system has simplified the robust technology of web access while making it simpler for the content owners. Mostly, the Web Developers do not write the content for the web pages and instead they put the content in a typical format that is ‘web ready’. With a web content manager, the content owner can actually access the various parts of the site and can publish on their own, directly to the website without the interference of a programmer.
Web content management is all about faster updates. Technology as if simplified, the WCMS offers solution to your entire content updation needs.
Within a system, the content management tool comes with a lot of promise:
Content management tool offers web access to the web page content owners directly without the interference of any programmer.
Faster updates of the web pages and an easy to use interface make web content management tool a choice of the era.
Simplified technology allows the web content owner to publish/edit content on his own without much knowledge of HTML
Web content management tool creates accountability. This further supports the content manager to track back logins and also helps them to make changes in the different pages within the site
The system preserves standardization rules. This is indeed a great aspect of the tool as it bars the content owner from changing or altering some of the content templates, which needs a technical hand for alteration.
Web content management tool has simplified the idea of web access. A great tool to bank upon, the system has to a great extent put an end to your HTML horror. Fret no more if you do not have any knowledge on HTML as web content management tool is there to take care of your entire need, no matter if you are even ignorant about HTML.
Source: - http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/web-content-management-simplifying-technology-1584272.html
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Independent Research Firm Recognizes Oracle as a Leader in Enterprise Content Management
News Facts
* Oracle has been named a Leader in the November 2009 report, "The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Content Management Suites, Q4 2009."
* The report notes that, "Leveraging its 2007 acquisition of Stellent, Oracle provides an extensive, robust ECM suite."
* To achieve its position as a Leader, Oracle® Enterprise Content Management Suite was evaluated against 70 criteria in three categories: current offering, strategy and market presence.
About Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite
* A component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite is a manageable, usable and hot-pluggable enterprise content management solution on a single platform that includes:
o Oracle Universal Content Management - a unified enterprise content management platform that enables organizations to leverage market-leading document management, Web content management, digital asset management, and records retention functionality to build and complement their business applications;
o Oracle Imaging and Process Management - an integrated imaging system that automates document routing and approvals and enables business applications, such as enterprise resource planning, human capital management and claims processing to automatically access and display imaged content;
o Oracle Universal Records Management - a scalable, 5015.2 Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 certified electronic and physical records management solution that enables application of records management policies and practices on content in remote repositories such as file systems, content management systems, and email archives.
Supporting Quote
* "The continuing growth of both structured and unstructured content presents complex information management challenges for organizations as they seek to reduce costs, increase productivity and minimize risk by aligning content with enterprise applications," said Andy MacMillan, vice president, Product Management, Oracle. "We believe our position as a Leader in this Forrester Wave is an acknowledgment of our commitment to providing a unified content management platform to address these challenges and support business applications."
Complete article published on http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0565965.htm
* Oracle has been named a Leader in the November 2009 report, "The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Content Management Suites, Q4 2009."
* The report notes that, "Leveraging its 2007 acquisition of Stellent, Oracle provides an extensive, robust ECM suite."
* To achieve its position as a Leader, Oracle® Enterprise Content Management Suite was evaluated against 70 criteria in three categories: current offering, strategy and market presence.
About Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite
* A component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite is a manageable, usable and hot-pluggable enterprise content management solution on a single platform that includes:
o Oracle Universal Content Management - a unified enterprise content management platform that enables organizations to leverage market-leading document management, Web content management, digital asset management, and records retention functionality to build and complement their business applications;
o Oracle Imaging and Process Management - an integrated imaging system that automates document routing and approvals and enables business applications, such as enterprise resource planning, human capital management and claims processing to automatically access and display imaged content;
o Oracle Universal Records Management - a scalable, 5015.2 Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 certified electronic and physical records management solution that enables application of records management policies and practices on content in remote repositories such as file systems, content management systems, and email archives.
Supporting Quote
* "The continuing growth of both structured and unstructured content presents complex information management challenges for organizations as they seek to reduce costs, increase productivity and minimize risk by aligning content with enterprise applications," said Andy MacMillan, vice president, Product Management, Oracle. "We believe our position as a Leader in this Forrester Wave is an acknowledgment of our commitment to providing a unified content management platform to address these challenges and support business applications."
Complete article published on http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0565965.htm
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Three reasons to list CMIS in your Document Management RFP
First off let me state boldly and clearly CMIS is an important document management (a.k.a., ECM) standard, the most important standard. But if your world is solely one of HTML and CSS then you can stop reading right here...
CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Standard) was recently ratified by OASIS and is already appearing in many RFPs. Nevertheless, it is a little misunderstood by some, and at times gets overlooked or misplaced. So here are three concise and valid reasons for putting CMIS on your list of RFP requirements.
1) If you have legacy document repositories, add CMIS to your list of requirements.
Almost every large organization has a collection of legacy DM and ECM repositories, closing those down or migrating content out of them can be tortuous and expensive, sometimes near impossible. Building a CMIS interface and federating access and viewing (no matter how basic) may well be your best option.
2) If the system you buy has a CMIS API, then you go some way to avoiding vendor lock-in at a future point.
CMIS in and off itself cannot resolve all the issues of vendor lock tricks, but its a great step in the right direction.
3) (And don't underestimate the value of this one) You demonstrate to the vendors on your shortlist your intentions and industry savvy.
When a vendor sees a specification or standard such as CMIS or XAM on an RFP they know you have done your homework, they know you are aware that committing to a vendors proprietary system can be difficult and costly, and that you intend to do what you can to mitigate against that risk.
Let's be clear about this, CMIS is important for the sole fact that it is simple (today) and should actually work. It does have the support of all the major vendors in the sector, but their enthusiasm can wane at the drop of a hat. Particularly as CMIS is a standard that empowers buyers and users of the technology, but not the vendors so much -- so the only way to ensure its success is for buyers to demand compliance from product vendors.
We work with buyers and users of document management and ECM technology every day. We help them construct RFPs, we shortlist and hand-hold our advisory clients and subscribers all the way from initial strategy through to the conclusion of the selection process. Our world is not one of expensive dinners at the vendors' expense and optimistic market forecasting. It is a world spent at the coalface. The global organizations we are working with are dealing with the dull and grinding issues that relate to legacy, integration, migration, and implementation. For them, CMIS is no silver bullet, but it's far better than nothing. And nothing is exactly what we had prior to CMIS.
Above article published on http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1751-CMIS-and-your-RFP
CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Standard) was recently ratified by OASIS and is already appearing in many RFPs. Nevertheless, it is a little misunderstood by some, and at times gets overlooked or misplaced. So here are three concise and valid reasons for putting CMIS on your list of RFP requirements.
1) If you have legacy document repositories, add CMIS to your list of requirements.
Almost every large organization has a collection of legacy DM and ECM repositories, closing those down or migrating content out of them can be tortuous and expensive, sometimes near impossible. Building a CMIS interface and federating access and viewing (no matter how basic) may well be your best option.
2) If the system you buy has a CMIS API, then you go some way to avoiding vendor lock-in at a future point.
CMIS in and off itself cannot resolve all the issues of vendor lock tricks, but its a great step in the right direction.
3) (And don't underestimate the value of this one) You demonstrate to the vendors on your shortlist your intentions and industry savvy.
When a vendor sees a specification or standard such as CMIS or XAM on an RFP they know you have done your homework, they know you are aware that committing to a vendors proprietary system can be difficult and costly, and that you intend to do what you can to mitigate against that risk.
Let's be clear about this, CMIS is important for the sole fact that it is simple (today) and should actually work. It does have the support of all the major vendors in the sector, but their enthusiasm can wane at the drop of a hat. Particularly as CMIS is a standard that empowers buyers and users of the technology, but not the vendors so much -- so the only way to ensure its success is for buyers to demand compliance from product vendors.
We work with buyers and users of document management and ECM technology every day. We help them construct RFPs, we shortlist and hand-hold our advisory clients and subscribers all the way from initial strategy through to the conclusion of the selection process. Our world is not one of expensive dinners at the vendors' expense and optimistic market forecasting. It is a world spent at the coalface. The global organizations we are working with are dealing with the dull and grinding issues that relate to legacy, integration, migration, and implementation. For them, CMIS is no silver bullet, but it's far better than nothing. And nothing is exactly what we had prior to CMIS.
Above article published on http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1751-CMIS-and-your-RFP
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Good news for content management vendors: IDC
Many enterprises in the Asia Pacific intend to invest more in document management software, according to Research house IDC, which is good news for content management software vendors.
Many enterprises in the Asia Pacific intend to invest more in document management software, according to Research house IDC, which is good news for content management software vendors.
IDC has released the findings of its research in a report entitled "Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) content management pulse check, adoption drivers, and barriers in 2009: what are buyers prioritizing?"
The research - conducted in the first half of 2009 - found that record management software is the next priority for APEJ enterprises among all other content management (CM) software.
Ridhi Sawhney, market analyst of Asia/Pacific software research at IDC noted that the most important function for CM software is to manage content published on the Web.
The research firm expects CM market in the APEJ region to grow steadily at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.42 per cent. At this rate, this market will reach US$ 308.42 million by 2013.
A bright CM future
The future looks good for most respondents as they intend to increase their investment on CM software currently deployed. Both India and the People's Republic of China are currently using maximum records and document management amongst the countries surveyed. Enterprises in these nations intend to increase their spending in the next 18 months, said IDC.
The top slot for this market is taken by IBM, EMC, HP, Oracle and Interwoven. Collectively, these five vendors represent approximately 58 per cent of the CM market in the APEJ region.
Although this market is currently ruled by US based companies, local vendors, like Newgen Software and Cyberdime, are catching up fast and are counted among the top 10 players in the region.
IDC says information that has to be managed is increasing each day and is accompanied by mounting regulatory pressure. The situation has further been complicated with disparate applications with isolated data repositories, and IT managers must seek ways to deal with the situation.
Sawhney said these factors have driven the demand for content management software. Legacy businesses and developing countries require these types of applications as organizations strive to transition from manual overlay systems to automated systems.
More investment in coming months
Records management is used for regulatory requirements and business processes while Web CM is used for various purposes such as enhancing and reinforcing brand and building customer loyalty. Web CM also helps in the acceleration of delivery of new products and services and creation of competitive advantage.
IDC is a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets
Originally published on http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=46922D94-1A64-6A71-CE5EBB3A8D0340CB
Many enterprises in the Asia Pacific intend to invest more in document management software, according to Research house IDC, which is good news for content management software vendors.
IDC has released the findings of its research in a report entitled "Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) content management pulse check, adoption drivers, and barriers in 2009: what are buyers prioritizing?"
The research - conducted in the first half of 2009 - found that record management software is the next priority for APEJ enterprises among all other content management (CM) software.
Ridhi Sawhney, market analyst of Asia/Pacific software research at IDC noted that the most important function for CM software is to manage content published on the Web.
The research firm expects CM market in the APEJ region to grow steadily at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.42 per cent. At this rate, this market will reach US$ 308.42 million by 2013.
A bright CM future
The future looks good for most respondents as they intend to increase their investment on CM software currently deployed. Both India and the People's Republic of China are currently using maximum records and document management amongst the countries surveyed. Enterprises in these nations intend to increase their spending in the next 18 months, said IDC.
The top slot for this market is taken by IBM, EMC, HP, Oracle and Interwoven. Collectively, these five vendors represent approximately 58 per cent of the CM market in the APEJ region.
Although this market is currently ruled by US based companies, local vendors, like Newgen Software and Cyberdime, are catching up fast and are counted among the top 10 players in the region.
IDC says information that has to be managed is increasing each day and is accompanied by mounting regulatory pressure. The situation has further been complicated with disparate applications with isolated data repositories, and IT managers must seek ways to deal with the situation.
Sawhney said these factors have driven the demand for content management software. Legacy businesses and developing countries require these types of applications as organizations strive to transition from manual overlay systems to automated systems.
More investment in coming months
Records management is used for regulatory requirements and business processes while Web CM is used for various purposes such as enhancing and reinforcing brand and building customer loyalty. Web CM also helps in the acceleration of delivery of new products and services and creation of competitive advantage.
IDC is a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets
Originally published on http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=46922D94-1A64-6A71-CE5EBB3A8D0340CB
Monday, October 5, 2009
Open Source Changing Face of Content Management Market: Report
The content management market is seeing dramatic change because open source software has significantly changed the process of selecting a content management solution, according to a new report from Basex, a knowledge economy research firm.
The 150-page report, called “The Definitive Guide to Today's Content Management Systems and Vendors, is based on the survey conducted on 32 key content management vendors and 43 platforms and provides in-depth analysis including market trends, drivers, and barriers to guide decision makers in the selection process.
The report said that the U.S. market for content management was $4.1 billion in 2008 and is expected to reach $10 billion by 2014. Open source content management is gaining traction in some circles and the overall open source software market is growing rapidly.
"The good news is that companies today can find a wide range of content management systems at varying price points," said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex and a co-author of the report, in a statement. "The bad news is that selecting the RIGHT platform is more critical than ever to a company's future and most companies don't have the resources to thoroughly investigate their options. Managers have to understand the total cost of ownership, support options and functionality when making that decision."
The report series includes an industry survey, Content Management Systems: The New Math for Selecting Your Platform, and 16 Vendor Profiles of key content management providers and their offerings.
The vendor profiles provide a comprehensive analysis of content management offerings from Autonomy (News - Alert), Acquia, Alfresco, Bluenog, Day Software, EMC, EpiServer CMS, FatWire, Hippo, IBM, Microsoft, Mindtouch, Nuxeo, Oracle, Open Text and Xerox.
The Content Management Systems report found that choosing the right content management system is not so easy and requires an in-depth understanding of both the organization's needs and what the market has to offer. The report also found that companies need to be prepared to manage multiple forms of content including wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, social networks, podcasts and video.
Also, it was estimated that companies that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for content management systems might do equally well with platforms that cost one-tenth that amount.
Source: - http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/65760-open-source-changing-face-content-management-market-report.htm
The 150-page report, called “The Definitive Guide to Today's Content Management Systems and Vendors, is based on the survey conducted on 32 key content management vendors and 43 platforms and provides in-depth analysis including market trends, drivers, and barriers to guide decision makers in the selection process.
The report said that the U.S. market for content management was $4.1 billion in 2008 and is expected to reach $10 billion by 2014. Open source content management is gaining traction in some circles and the overall open source software market is growing rapidly.
"The good news is that companies today can find a wide range of content management systems at varying price points," said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex and a co-author of the report, in a statement. "The bad news is that selecting the RIGHT platform is more critical than ever to a company's future and most companies don't have the resources to thoroughly investigate their options. Managers have to understand the total cost of ownership, support options and functionality when making that decision."
The report series includes an industry survey, Content Management Systems: The New Math for Selecting Your Platform, and 16 Vendor Profiles of key content management providers and their offerings.
The vendor profiles provide a comprehensive analysis of content management offerings from Autonomy (News - Alert), Acquia, Alfresco, Bluenog, Day Software, EMC, EpiServer CMS, FatWire, Hippo, IBM, Microsoft, Mindtouch, Nuxeo, Oracle, Open Text and Xerox.
The Content Management Systems report found that choosing the right content management system is not so easy and requires an in-depth understanding of both the organization's needs and what the market has to offer. The report also found that companies need to be prepared to manage multiple forms of content including wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, social networks, podcasts and video.
Also, it was estimated that companies that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for content management systems might do equally well with platforms that cost one-tenth that amount.
Source: - http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/65760-open-source-changing-face-content-management-market-report.htm
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Document Imaging To Create The Electronic Medical Record
By Omtool
According to a Price Waterhouse Coopers study, 500 billion paper documents are created annually in healthcare and these paper documents account for 25% of every healthcare dollar spent. This equates to a total cost of $125 billion per year. Like many other healthcare organizations, Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital (180,000 patient visits/yr), located in Grass Valley, CA, faced the challenge of mounting costs associated with paper documents, their storage and accessibility.
SNMH's vision is best explained by Mark Freitas, Business Office and IT Director; "Our viewpoint was that a complete EMR solution for the hospital was necessary and we had been building towards that. There were very few hospitals that had an EMR solution. We found about 5-10% had implemented a solution and a number of hospitals that had abandoned that strategy because the return on investment was not there. We did not want to go down the same road. We started looking at how we could develop a sound strategy and look for early returns."
Creating the Paperless Environment
The first step in achieving their objective was to find a vendor who offered healthcare providers the ability to move towards a paperless work environment at their own pace, using an integrated family of document management and imaging solutions. Omtool, Ltd. was the partner SNMH selected to deliver these solutions, in a phased approach, to address their unique challenges. SNMH's first priority was to reduce costs associated with the patient registration process — with particular focus on preprinted forms and process inefficiencies associated with the scanning, routing and storage of patient documentation. This included insurance cards, condition of admission (consent), notice of privacy practices, physician order, payer eligibility, authorization documents and living wills.
Source: http://www.healthcaretechnologyonline.com/article.mvc/Document-Imaging-To-Create-The-Electronic-0002?VNETCOOKIE=NO
According to a Price Waterhouse Coopers study, 500 billion paper documents are created annually in healthcare and these paper documents account for 25% of every healthcare dollar spent. This equates to a total cost of $125 billion per year. Like many other healthcare organizations, Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital (180,000 patient visits/yr), located in Grass Valley, CA, faced the challenge of mounting costs associated with paper documents, their storage and accessibility.
SNMH's vision is best explained by Mark Freitas, Business Office and IT Director; "Our viewpoint was that a complete EMR solution for the hospital was necessary and we had been building towards that. There were very few hospitals that had an EMR solution. We found about 5-10% had implemented a solution and a number of hospitals that had abandoned that strategy because the return on investment was not there. We did not want to go down the same road. We started looking at how we could develop a sound strategy and look for early returns."
Creating the Paperless Environment
The first step in achieving their objective was to find a vendor who offered healthcare providers the ability to move towards a paperless work environment at their own pace, using an integrated family of document management and imaging solutions. Omtool, Ltd. was the partner SNMH selected to deliver these solutions, in a phased approach, to address their unique challenges. SNMH's first priority was to reduce costs associated with the patient registration process — with particular focus on preprinted forms and process inefficiencies associated with the scanning, routing and storage of patient documentation. This included insurance cards, condition of admission (consent), notice of privacy practices, physician order, payer eligibility, authorization documents and living wills.
Source: http://www.healthcaretechnologyonline.com/article.mvc/Document-Imaging-To-Create-The-Electronic-0002?VNETCOOKIE=NO
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Document management ROI too difficult to measure
Business are unable to calculate the return on investment of document management, electronic content management (ECM) and workflow software, the latest survey from NCC Research has found.
Of the 100 businesses surveyed, 27% said it was very difficult and 35% said it was difficult to measure ROI on these systems.
Organisations still have difficulty in retrieving and managing unstructured data, according to 73% of the businesses surveyed. Only 20% said this was relatively trouble free.
Only 18% of companies said their information was held corporately and was available to all who need it. This contrasts with 52% who conceded that vital corporate information was scattered around many different departmental systems and was hard to find.
Only a quarter of the companies believed their current systems were delivering all the expected business benefits, while a further 9% thought they had been partially successful.
Source: - http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/08/25/237446/document-management-roi-too-difficult-to-measure.htm
Of the 100 businesses surveyed, 27% said it was very difficult and 35% said it was difficult to measure ROI on these systems.
Organisations still have difficulty in retrieving and managing unstructured data, according to 73% of the businesses surveyed. Only 20% said this was relatively trouble free.
Only 18% of companies said their information was held corporately and was available to all who need it. This contrasts with 52% who conceded that vital corporate information was scattered around many different departmental systems and was hard to find.
Only a quarter of the companies believed their current systems were delivering all the expected business benefits, while a further 9% thought they had been partially successful.
Source: - http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/08/25/237446/document-management-roi-too-difficult-to-measure.htm
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
New AIIM Study Reveals Investments in Document Capture Produces Rapid and Considerable Cost Savings in Less Than 12 Months
EMC-Sponsored Research Highlights the Value of Electronic Documents for Compliance, Improved Customer Service, Space-Saving and Speed of Information Access
HOPKINTON, Mass., July 15 /PRNewswire/ -- EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today unveiled the results of a document capture survey conducted by AIIM. Sponsored by EMC, the research study finds that document scanning and capture is a very risk-free investment compared to other types of IT projects and payback time of the initial investment frequently occurs in less than one year.
The survey polled 677 information and records management professionals, IT staff and line of business executives. Other key findings include:
* 42 percent of organizations have increased productivity by 50 percent from their scanning and capture investment.
* 43 percent have achieved payback within 12 months and two-thirds within 18 months.
* Nearly half have achieved savings of 40 percent or more in paper storage costs.
A significant number of respondents (41 percent) cited "improved access to information" as the most important driver for scanning and capture investments. This demonstrates that companies are achieving soft-dollar benefits in addition to hard-dollar ROI. Other business drivers include compliance, productivity and improved customer service.
The survey also found that while most organizations have already invested in capture technologies, two-thirds were only scanning 50 percent of possible documents. Respondents attributed the underutilization to the lack of capture facilities close to the business process as well as the existence of few enterprise applications that are captured-enabled.
"Document capture can no longer be thought of as a technology running in a silo but rather as an integral part of a business process," said Whitney Tidmarsh, Chief Marketing Officer, Content Management and Archiving Division at EMC. "In addition to being tightly integrated with the Documentum platform, the latest versions of EMC Captiva((R)) InputAccel((R)) and EMC Captiva Dispatcher provide a new service-oriented architecture that supports integration with other business applications to increase the adoption of capture throughout the enterprise. As a result, organizations experience higher return on their investments by reducing costs and risks, accelerating business processes and lowering total cost of ownership."
A free copy of the study, "Extending Capture Capabilities - Measuring the ROI" is available at www.emc.com/captureroi.
About EMC's Intelligent Capture Solutions
The EMC Captiva intelligent capture solutions enable organizations to create a "digital office" environment by delivering complete capture functionality for scanning and digitizing paper documents using scanners, fax machines, and multi-function peripherals (MFPs), and transforming these documents into electronic images and business data. By enabling capture solutions that support distributed scanning and integration with various repositories, Captiva solutions significantly reduce the costs associated with paper management, including paper storage, shipping, and document capture labor costs.
About AIIM
AIIM is the community that provides education, research and best practices to help organizations find, control and optimize their information. For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing their business information and processes. Today, AIIM is international in scope, independent, implementation-focused, and, as the representative of the entire industry - including users, suppliers and the channel - acts as the industry's intermediary. Complete information about AIIM is available at www.aiim.org.
About EMC
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.
EMC, Documentum and Captiva are registered trademarks of EMC Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE EMC Corporation
Article Source: http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-15-2009/0005060357&EDATE=
HOPKINTON, Mass., July 15 /PRNewswire/ -- EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today unveiled the results of a document capture survey conducted by AIIM. Sponsored by EMC, the research study finds that document scanning and capture is a very risk-free investment compared to other types of IT projects and payback time of the initial investment frequently occurs in less than one year.
The survey polled 677 information and records management professionals, IT staff and line of business executives. Other key findings include:
* 42 percent of organizations have increased productivity by 50 percent from their scanning and capture investment.
* 43 percent have achieved payback within 12 months and two-thirds within 18 months.
* Nearly half have achieved savings of 40 percent or more in paper storage costs.
A significant number of respondents (41 percent) cited "improved access to information" as the most important driver for scanning and capture investments. This demonstrates that companies are achieving soft-dollar benefits in addition to hard-dollar ROI. Other business drivers include compliance, productivity and improved customer service.
The survey also found that while most organizations have already invested in capture technologies, two-thirds were only scanning 50 percent of possible documents. Respondents attributed the underutilization to the lack of capture facilities close to the business process as well as the existence of few enterprise applications that are captured-enabled.
"Document capture can no longer be thought of as a technology running in a silo but rather as an integral part of a business process," said Whitney Tidmarsh, Chief Marketing Officer, Content Management and Archiving Division at EMC. "In addition to being tightly integrated with the Documentum platform, the latest versions of EMC Captiva((R)) InputAccel((R)) and EMC Captiva Dispatcher provide a new service-oriented architecture that supports integration with other business applications to increase the adoption of capture throughout the enterprise. As a result, organizations experience higher return on their investments by reducing costs and risks, accelerating business processes and lowering total cost of ownership."
A free copy of the study, "Extending Capture Capabilities - Measuring the ROI" is available at www.emc.com/captureroi.
About EMC's Intelligent Capture Solutions
The EMC Captiva intelligent capture solutions enable organizations to create a "digital office" environment by delivering complete capture functionality for scanning and digitizing paper documents using scanners, fax machines, and multi-function peripherals (MFPs), and transforming these documents into electronic images and business data. By enabling capture solutions that support distributed scanning and integration with various repositories, Captiva solutions significantly reduce the costs associated with paper management, including paper storage, shipping, and document capture labor costs.
About AIIM
AIIM is the community that provides education, research and best practices to help organizations find, control and optimize their information. For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing their business information and processes. Today, AIIM is international in scope, independent, implementation-focused, and, as the representative of the entire industry - including users, suppliers and the channel - acts as the industry's intermediary. Complete information about AIIM is available at www.aiim.org.
About EMC
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.
EMC, Documentum and Captiva are registered trademarks of EMC Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE EMC Corporation
Article Source: http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-15-2009/0005060357&EDATE=
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The Top 5 Ways ECM Can Help You Avoid an Annoying Co-worker
The corporate workplace is not for the faint of heart. Any time you get a group of people together with different backgrounds and interests and isolate them into large fabric-covered boxes, chances are that you’ll find some personality clashes.
While not every office is subject to anecdotes about Dwight Schrute’s life on the beet farm or the ineptitude of Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss, there are probably some workplace idiosyncrasies that—given the opportunity—you would just as soon avoid. You know what I’m talking about. Maybe you’re getting a little too much information about your coworkers on casual day. Or maybe—now that the obsessive conversation over the American Idol results has died down—there are awkward silences near the water cooler. It could just be that you’d like to steer clear of that coworker who is so fanatical about her hobby that she can’t talk about anything else. (Seriously. We’re all concerned about the honeybee decline, but there are other things to talk about.)
Enterprise content management (ECM) won’t decrease your incidence of email lottery notifications or male enhancement-related spam, but it can help you retain your sanity in the workplace. For those days when you just want to get your work done without interruption— whether it comes in the form of a debate about the discrepancies in the most recent Star Trek movie or a one-sided conversation about why your coworker’s cats are the best pets in the entire history of domesticated animals—consider these benefits:
1. Business process management (BPM) eliminates the need to drop the paperwork off at your annoying coworker’s desk.
With BPM, you can distribute, receive, and access work and online files digitally. This means that all of the information that you need to process your work is available immediately, accessible with the click of a mouse. In addition to enabling you to increase your productivity and improve services to customers and partners, this means that you can also avoid overhearing that phone conversation that is so important that your coworker feels the need to broadcast it on speakerphone.
BPM gives you secure, immediate access to your work documents from any web browser. So if you are the employee who is unfortunate enough to have a cubicle next to the woman who insists on coming to work when she’s sick, it might be nice to have the option of working remotely during cold and flu season. In these days of potential global pandemics, you can’t be too careful.
2. Electronic access ensures that your records are available whenever you need them. Even if your coworkers are alphabetically challenged.
Under a paper-based system, it’s not uncommon for records to be duplicated, misfiled, or even lost. Without question, this can be a major cause of annoyance. The news is worse if you look at the big picture: in a compliance environment that grows continually more rigid, mismanagement of your records can result in expensive penalties. An enterprise content management system lets you scan and store those paper records in an electronic repository along with your business forms, faxes, images, documents (paper and electronic), personnel files, etc. The information that you need to process your work efficiently is only a mouse click away.
If your annoying coworkers are misplacing files, there may also be a chance that they’re not paying attention to document lifecycles. Are you holding on to records beyond their mandated retention times? Are you (or your annoying coworkers) shredding documents prior to their mandated destruction times? Mismanagement of records has repercussions that go well beyond annoyance in the workplace. It can lead to fines and stiff penalties—especially if you are required to produce specific information in cases of e-discovery.
3. ECM means never having to say you’re sorry.
Got an annoying coworker who tries to throw you under the proverbial bus when the work doesn’t get done on time? ECM provides businesses with tracking tools that can prove, irrefutably, who is doing what. Tracking allows organizations to better manage their processing loads. On the personal level, your annoying coworker can no longer take credit for work that was done by someone else. More importantly, consider what it means from an enterprise standpoint: work can be distributed according to standards that you set ahead of time, using parameters such as round robin, first in, first out (FIFO), lightest workload, and other criteria.
Having work distributed electronically ensures that your annoying coworker—the one who is always complaining that “he’s bored”— constantly has work flowing into his inbox. Other workers whose positions might include repetitious, monotonous tasks can be transitioned to areas that allow them to use critical thinking. Processing efficiency is improved significantly, turnaround is improved, and your annoying coworker can move on to his next area of grievance.
4. Without ECM’s integration capabilities, you can’t get there from here.
Sometimes, even annoying coworkers have legitimate complaints. Take, for example, someone whose job it is to use information from a legacy system in order to process work. More often than not, data from legacy systems is—at best—difficult to retrieve. Software system incompatibility can make life difficult, and can result in the need to constantly re-key information. A system that doesn’t communicate well with other software can result in processing slowdowns and delays.
A high-performance ECM system has the capability to make information available quickly and easily throughout your entire enterprise. It should offer easy integration with your line of business applications, back-office system, website, portal, office environment, and the other systems that keep your business running smoothly. An ECM system that is underwritten in open standards will not limit you to proprietary software when choosing components to complement your technology infrastructure.
An ECM system is supposed to simplify your life. It shouldn’t require complicated programming if you want to call documents from within your storage repository. It should also integrate into your current line of business applications without the need for programming. Your annoying coworkers have enough to whine about. A system with robust integration may not alter their outlook on life, but it will make their lives easier.
5. An easy-to-use ECM system silences the chronic complainer.
You’ve heard the complaints. Her job is so hard. She has soooooooooo much work to do. How is she going to get everything done? She’s overworked, underappreciated, frazzled, and—as you might guess—feels the need to share the love. When the complaints dominate the workplace to the point where you just want to stick needles in your eyes, bang your head against the wall, and chew on tin foil, it’s definitely time to consider ECM. A system that is easy to use will bring order and efficiency to the workplace.
ECM will silence your coworkers’ complaints about not being able to find the right documents to process their work. Information will be available at the fingertips of authorized users—securely—from any web browser. There will no longer be any muttering about other staff hogging the files that your coworker needs in order to do her job. Files can be viewed simultaneously, from different locations. Complaints about rude customers become obsolete when you are able to provide immediate customer service.
Work is distributed to you and your coworkers at a manageable pace. You may not be able to have much of an impact on the social skills of people who tend to consistently see the glass as half-empty. But with ECM, you can eliminate the factors that contribute to complaints about work. You’re on your own when your coworkers start elaborating about their personal lives.
Source: - www.ecmconnection.com
While not every office is subject to anecdotes about Dwight Schrute’s life on the beet farm or the ineptitude of Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss, there are probably some workplace idiosyncrasies that—given the opportunity—you would just as soon avoid. You know what I’m talking about. Maybe you’re getting a little too much information about your coworkers on casual day. Or maybe—now that the obsessive conversation over the American Idol results has died down—there are awkward silences near the water cooler. It could just be that you’d like to steer clear of that coworker who is so fanatical about her hobby that she can’t talk about anything else. (Seriously. We’re all concerned about the honeybee decline, but there are other things to talk about.)
Enterprise content management (ECM) won’t decrease your incidence of email lottery notifications or male enhancement-related spam, but it can help you retain your sanity in the workplace. For those days when you just want to get your work done without interruption— whether it comes in the form of a debate about the discrepancies in the most recent Star Trek movie or a one-sided conversation about why your coworker’s cats are the best pets in the entire history of domesticated animals—consider these benefits:
1. Business process management (BPM) eliminates the need to drop the paperwork off at your annoying coworker’s desk.
With BPM, you can distribute, receive, and access work and online files digitally. This means that all of the information that you need to process your work is available immediately, accessible with the click of a mouse. In addition to enabling you to increase your productivity and improve services to customers and partners, this means that you can also avoid overhearing that phone conversation that is so important that your coworker feels the need to broadcast it on speakerphone.
BPM gives you secure, immediate access to your work documents from any web browser. So if you are the employee who is unfortunate enough to have a cubicle next to the woman who insists on coming to work when she’s sick, it might be nice to have the option of working remotely during cold and flu season. In these days of potential global pandemics, you can’t be too careful.
2. Electronic access ensures that your records are available whenever you need them. Even if your coworkers are alphabetically challenged.
Under a paper-based system, it’s not uncommon for records to be duplicated, misfiled, or even lost. Without question, this can be a major cause of annoyance. The news is worse if you look at the big picture: in a compliance environment that grows continually more rigid, mismanagement of your records can result in expensive penalties. An enterprise content management system lets you scan and store those paper records in an electronic repository along with your business forms, faxes, images, documents (paper and electronic), personnel files, etc. The information that you need to process your work efficiently is only a mouse click away.
If your annoying coworkers are misplacing files, there may also be a chance that they’re not paying attention to document lifecycles. Are you holding on to records beyond their mandated retention times? Are you (or your annoying coworkers) shredding documents prior to their mandated destruction times? Mismanagement of records has repercussions that go well beyond annoyance in the workplace. It can lead to fines and stiff penalties—especially if you are required to produce specific information in cases of e-discovery.
3. ECM means never having to say you’re sorry.
Got an annoying coworker who tries to throw you under the proverbial bus when the work doesn’t get done on time? ECM provides businesses with tracking tools that can prove, irrefutably, who is doing what. Tracking allows organizations to better manage their processing loads. On the personal level, your annoying coworker can no longer take credit for work that was done by someone else. More importantly, consider what it means from an enterprise standpoint: work can be distributed according to standards that you set ahead of time, using parameters such as round robin, first in, first out (FIFO), lightest workload, and other criteria.
Having work distributed electronically ensures that your annoying coworker—the one who is always complaining that “he’s bored”— constantly has work flowing into his inbox. Other workers whose positions might include repetitious, monotonous tasks can be transitioned to areas that allow them to use critical thinking. Processing efficiency is improved significantly, turnaround is improved, and your annoying coworker can move on to his next area of grievance.
4. Without ECM’s integration capabilities, you can’t get there from here.
Sometimes, even annoying coworkers have legitimate complaints. Take, for example, someone whose job it is to use information from a legacy system in order to process work. More often than not, data from legacy systems is—at best—difficult to retrieve. Software system incompatibility can make life difficult, and can result in the need to constantly re-key information. A system that doesn’t communicate well with other software can result in processing slowdowns and delays.
A high-performance ECM system has the capability to make information available quickly and easily throughout your entire enterprise. It should offer easy integration with your line of business applications, back-office system, website, portal, office environment, and the other systems that keep your business running smoothly. An ECM system that is underwritten in open standards will not limit you to proprietary software when choosing components to complement your technology infrastructure.
An ECM system is supposed to simplify your life. It shouldn’t require complicated programming if you want to call documents from within your storage repository. It should also integrate into your current line of business applications without the need for programming. Your annoying coworkers have enough to whine about. A system with robust integration may not alter their outlook on life, but it will make their lives easier.
5. An easy-to-use ECM system silences the chronic complainer.
You’ve heard the complaints. Her job is so hard. She has soooooooooo much work to do. How is she going to get everything done? She’s overworked, underappreciated, frazzled, and—as you might guess—feels the need to share the love. When the complaints dominate the workplace to the point where you just want to stick needles in your eyes, bang your head against the wall, and chew on tin foil, it’s definitely time to consider ECM. A system that is easy to use will bring order and efficiency to the workplace.
ECM will silence your coworkers’ complaints about not being able to find the right documents to process their work. Information will be available at the fingertips of authorized users—securely—from any web browser. There will no longer be any muttering about other staff hogging the files that your coworker needs in order to do her job. Files can be viewed simultaneously, from different locations. Complaints about rude customers become obsolete when you are able to provide immediate customer service.
Work is distributed to you and your coworkers at a manageable pace. You may not be able to have much of an impact on the social skills of people who tend to consistently see the glass as half-empty. But with ECM, you can eliminate the factors that contribute to complaints about work. You’re on your own when your coworkers start elaborating about their personal lives.
Source: - www.ecmconnection.com
Saturday, June 20, 2009
How Effective Document Management Helps Pharmaceutical Companies Accelerate Time to Market
Introduction
Translating a scientific idea into a safe medicine that benefits millions of people is a long, difficult, and expensive process. It takes 10 to 15 years at a cost of $800 million to $1 billion to bring a new drug from a laboratory to a pharmacy shelf, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
Let’s take the hypothetical example of a young pharmaceutical company with one product so far. The company obtained a 20-year patent for its new drug at the start of the discovery process. Let’s say it took 11 years for the company to develop the drug and get it approved by the FDA. Taking out 11 years of development time from the 20-year period of exclusivity under the patent would leave the company only nine years to capture the full value of its product before generic competitors enter the market. A company loses 75 percent of its pre-generic sales in the first year that competition enters the market, according to Josef Bossart, founder and principal of Bossart4 Bioconsult, in an article in the July-August 2006 issue of Specialty Pharma. The loss is estimated to increase to 85 percent in the second year, and 90 percent beyond that.
Needless to say, the period of exclusivity for a new drug is critical. Any delay that cuts this period could cost the company a lot. In the drug development process, time is indeed money. So it only makes sense to try to reduce delays in every phase of the process. But how and where do you begin to save time?
The fact is, drug development requires document-intensive work. It behooves a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company or a contract research organization (CRO) to start with a basic activity that must be performed throughout the drug development cycle: document management. From the scientists leading the drug discovery process to the marketing specialists writing a new drug’s labeling — they all need to document their activities for a variety of reasons. More importantly, they need to control or manage their documents. So any delay caused by poor document management could affect overall time to market.
This white paper will discuss common challenges pertaining to document control encountered by most drug companies from the preclinical stage through the post-market phase, and how the MasterControl™ GxP process and document management software solution addresses such challenges.
Preclinical Phase
One could say that the years spent by chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, toxicologists, and other scientists “discovering” the right combination of chemical and biological substances that could be used for a drug are geared toward the submission an investigational new drug (IND) application. FDA approval of the IND is necessary to conduct clinical trials and to proceed with product development.
Discovery research scientists typically start with thousands of possible compounds. Through continuous testing, screening, and refining that could take several years, they would whittle down the thousands of compounds to hundreds, and then dozens, and then three to five drug “candidates.” This rigorous phase includes laboratory and animal studies that cover chemistry tests, biological tests, manufacturing tests, and pharmaceutical development studies. The overarching goal during this phase is to determine the safety of the candidates before they are tested in people.
The preclinical phase could easily generate thousands of documents. The IND submission alone requires the compilation of everything known about the new drug being developed: its chemical structure; how it might work in the human body; how it works in animals; any side effects in animals; and how the compound is manufactured. The IND also must include detailed information on how the company plans to test the drug on humans during clinical trials.
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies and the CROs that serve them need effective document control during this phase for two major reasons that directly affect time to market:
* Efficiency: Thousands of documents generated over a period of one to three or more years necessitate a formal document control process to ensure that documents are not lost, and that they can be tracked, retrieved, revised, and approved easily. Without an efficient system for managing documents, thousands of man-hours will be spent in even the simplest tasks.
* Compliance: FDA regulations such as 21 CFR Part 58 (Good Laboratory Practice for Nonclinical Laboratory Studies) and 21 CFR Part 312 (Investigational New Drug Application) require effective documentation. 21 CFR 58 has specific document control requirements pertaining to SOPs for animal care, lab tests, data handling, and equipment maintenance and calibration; protocols; and handling of records, reports, and raw data documentation. 21 CFR 312 has its own set of requirements pertaining to recordkeeping, record retention, and investigator reports. Management of IND documentation is particularly crucial because it serves as the basis for other information that will be submitted to the FDA later.
Clinical Phase
While preclinical work is directed toward the IND submission, the clinical phase is geared toward the submission of an equally important regulatory filing: the new drug application (NDA).
During this stage, doctors (called clinical investigators) carry out studies to find out if the drug is safe in people and whether it is effective in treating the targeted disease. There are three phases in every clinical trial: Phase I (the drug is tested in 20 to 100 healthy volunteers), Phase II (involving 100 to 500 volunteers who have the disease that the new drug is meant to treat), and Phase III (involving 1,000 to 5,000 volunteer patients).
Clinical trials could take up to 10 years, during which the sponsor will conduct parallel research on toxicity, dosage forms, and methods for full-scale manufacturing and packaging of the drug. Everything about the clinical phase is geared toward the NDA submission, which essentially summarizes 10 or more years of development work. The NDA dossier is complex and voluminous — anywhere from 100,000 to 600,000 pages of text that are meant to persuade the FDA to approve the new drug.
As in the preclinical phase, if not more so, the clinical stage requires effective document control to help achieve:
* Efficiency: Managing hundreds of thousands of documents generated by cross-functional teams during a period of 10 years or more is a daunting challenge. Bottlenecks abound during this phase because there are more people involved in the process and the data from clinical investigators grow exponentially from Phase I through Phase III.
* Compliance: In addition to GLP and GCP requirements that various teams must comply with, the sponsor also must manufacture the investigational new drug used for clinical trials in accordance with Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) requirements under 21 CFR Parts 210-211. GCP also includes guidances that call for effective documentation. Moreover, the sponsor must comply with 21 CFR Part 314 (Applications for FDA Approval to Market a New Drug) for its NDA submission.
Commercialization, Product Launch, and Post-Market Phase
While a sponsor is waiting for FDA approval, it is likely to be gearing up for mass production, or perhaps it is already manufacturing the drug. FDA approval takes 18 months on the average, according to PhRMA. As soon as the FDA approves the NDA, the company will be able to start selling the new drug. But even after the product is brought to the market, the company will continue to submit reports to the FDA, such as adverse reaction reports and quality-control records. In some cases, the FDA may require a sponsor to conduct Phase IV clinical trials to evaluate the drug’s long-term effects.
With the clock ticking in terms of market exclusivity, the company that has just launched a new drug needs effective document management to help achieve:
* Efficiency: Document control needs after FDA approval are especially great in the areas of quality control, manufacturing, marketing, and sales. Voluminous documents will be generated by quality-related processes that will handle corrective and preventive action (CAPA), electronic batch records (EBR), consumer complaints and adverse event reports, quality audit, deviations, and nonconformances, among others.
* Compliance: Document control is a CGMP requirement. In addition, the pharmaceutical or biotech company with a newly approved NDA must address post-market requirements found in 21 CFR Part 314, including the reporting of adverse drug experiences and the submission of NDA field alert report, annual report, distribution data, labeling, report on CMC changes, etc.
The MasterControl Solution
The MasterControl™ GxP process and document management software provides a solid foundation for effective document control that will help accelerate overall time to market by simplifying workflows, promoting efficiency, and making compliance easier. Below are some of the benefits of using MasterControl throughout the drug development process.
Increased Efficiency Through Automation. MasterControl reduces document cycle time and simplifies document management by automating routing, notification and follow-up, escalation, and approval. Its robust tracking feature identifies bottlenecks by showing when a document was sent and to whom. It shows the document’s history, including who has approved it and when. A document that has been rejected will automatically go back to the sender, so tasks don’t languish. MasterControl can handle all types of documents, regardless of the software used to create them.
Centralized Repository Makes Search and Retrieval Easier. You can store all records and documents from the discovery stage through the post-market phase in a centralized electronic repository, making it easier to update, and to search and retrieve them. Documents reside in secure virtual vaults that can be accessed only by authorized users. Access is limited by the extent of a user’s system rights. Although the system is centralized, every department can compile documents separately using the Organizer, a MasterControl tool similar to Windows Explorer, which helps users find documents quickly.
Web-Based Platform Provides Easy Access. A Web-based system will give employees in different locations and time zones easy access. Even CROs, suppliers, consultants, and other authorized users outside of the company can have system access based on the extent of their roles in any document-based process.
Automatic Revision Control Reduces User Mistakes. With a paper-based document control process, there is no mechanism that would stop a user from inadvertently using obsolete or unapproved documents. With MasterControl, revision control is automatic, so only approved documents are released. Any outdated documents are automatically archived, and documents in the process of revision are locked. The system provides a time-stamped audit trail of all changes made to a document.
Virtual Workspace Makes Collaboration Easier. Collaboration is possible regardless of location through a virtual workspace for cross-functional review and approval of documents. The system automates tasks pertaining to collaborative projects, including routing, follow-up, escalation, and approval.
Best Practices Help Streamline Workflows. To increase efficiency, MasterControl incorporates best practices in critical processes such as CAPA, nonconformance disposition, deviation handling, EBR management, quality audit, change control, or any document-based or forms-based process. Best-practice workflows can be used as is or customized.
Electronic Approval Fosters Efficiency. The capability to review and approve documents electronically speeds up the approval process significantly. Signature manifestation can be appended automatically to each document as required by 21 CFR Part 11. In addition to e-signature, the system provides a time-stamped audit trail that can be linked to the approval process.
Integrated Approach Connects Document Control with Other Processes. MasterControl connects the document control process with other processes, and it synchronizes changes in documents and documented processes. For example, document control can be integrated with customer complaints, CAPA, and training control processes. So a customer complaint serious enough to require a CAPA will be automatically escalated to the CAPA process. Any document change resulting from an approved CAPA will automatically trigger training on the revised document for all affected employees.
Integration Helps Optimize E-Submission Process. MasterControl can be integrated with leading e-submission tools to optimize and accelerate the electronic submission process. MasterControl provides a single repository for all regulatory submissions, as well as a virtual workspace where different teams can easily and quickly revise the dossier.
Integration Helps Leverage Existing Systems. You can leverage your existing systems, such as ERP, PDM, and PLM, by integrating them with robust MasterControl applications without expensive custom coding.
Risk-Based Software Validation Offerings Help Reduce Compliance Burden. MasterControl offers a line of products and services designed to dramatically reduce the time, pain, and cost involved in software validation. Companies may choose the appropriate products and services based on their own risk assessment.
Flexible Approach Makes System Ownership More Cost-Effective. While mature companies typically prefer to purchase a full MasterControl suite outright, many smaller companies choose the application server provider (ASP) service for a minimal upfront cost. This approach allows fast deployment, offers software validation services, and requires no technical maintenance or special equipment. Companies may select an ASP system that is purely document management and 100 percent preconfigured. Or, as their needs grow, they may want more customization and additional applications (CAPA, change control, training control, etc.) to fit their requirements.
Conclusion
Time is a precious commodity for everyone, but especially for people involved in drug development. You can maximize development time starting with the way you control document-based processes. As this white paper has shown you, a delay in time to market due to poor document management is largely preventable with the help of the right solution
Article Source http://www.ngpharma.com/article/Issue-10/Manufacturing/How-Effective-Document-Management-Helps-Pharmaceutical-Companies-Accelerate-Time-to-Market/
Translating a scientific idea into a safe medicine that benefits millions of people is a long, difficult, and expensive process. It takes 10 to 15 years at a cost of $800 million to $1 billion to bring a new drug from a laboratory to a pharmacy shelf, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
Let’s take the hypothetical example of a young pharmaceutical company with one product so far. The company obtained a 20-year patent for its new drug at the start of the discovery process. Let’s say it took 11 years for the company to develop the drug and get it approved by the FDA. Taking out 11 years of development time from the 20-year period of exclusivity under the patent would leave the company only nine years to capture the full value of its product before generic competitors enter the market. A company loses 75 percent of its pre-generic sales in the first year that competition enters the market, according to Josef Bossart, founder and principal of Bossart4 Bioconsult, in an article in the July-August 2006 issue of Specialty Pharma. The loss is estimated to increase to 85 percent in the second year, and 90 percent beyond that.
Needless to say, the period of exclusivity for a new drug is critical. Any delay that cuts this period could cost the company a lot. In the drug development process, time is indeed money. So it only makes sense to try to reduce delays in every phase of the process. But how and where do you begin to save time?
The fact is, drug development requires document-intensive work. It behooves a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company or a contract research organization (CRO) to start with a basic activity that must be performed throughout the drug development cycle: document management. From the scientists leading the drug discovery process to the marketing specialists writing a new drug’s labeling — they all need to document their activities for a variety of reasons. More importantly, they need to control or manage their documents. So any delay caused by poor document management could affect overall time to market.
This white paper will discuss common challenges pertaining to document control encountered by most drug companies from the preclinical stage through the post-market phase, and how the MasterControl™ GxP process and document management software solution addresses such challenges.
Preclinical Phase
One could say that the years spent by chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, toxicologists, and other scientists “discovering” the right combination of chemical and biological substances that could be used for a drug are geared toward the submission an investigational new drug (IND) application. FDA approval of the IND is necessary to conduct clinical trials and to proceed with product development.
Discovery research scientists typically start with thousands of possible compounds. Through continuous testing, screening, and refining that could take several years, they would whittle down the thousands of compounds to hundreds, and then dozens, and then three to five drug “candidates.” This rigorous phase includes laboratory and animal studies that cover chemistry tests, biological tests, manufacturing tests, and pharmaceutical development studies. The overarching goal during this phase is to determine the safety of the candidates before they are tested in people.
The preclinical phase could easily generate thousands of documents. The IND submission alone requires the compilation of everything known about the new drug being developed: its chemical structure; how it might work in the human body; how it works in animals; any side effects in animals; and how the compound is manufactured. The IND also must include detailed information on how the company plans to test the drug on humans during clinical trials.
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies and the CROs that serve them need effective document control during this phase for two major reasons that directly affect time to market:
* Efficiency: Thousands of documents generated over a period of one to three or more years necessitate a formal document control process to ensure that documents are not lost, and that they can be tracked, retrieved, revised, and approved easily. Without an efficient system for managing documents, thousands of man-hours will be spent in even the simplest tasks.
* Compliance: FDA regulations such as 21 CFR Part 58 (Good Laboratory Practice for Nonclinical Laboratory Studies) and 21 CFR Part 312 (Investigational New Drug Application) require effective documentation. 21 CFR 58 has specific document control requirements pertaining to SOPs for animal care, lab tests, data handling, and equipment maintenance and calibration; protocols; and handling of records, reports, and raw data documentation. 21 CFR 312 has its own set of requirements pertaining to recordkeeping, record retention, and investigator reports. Management of IND documentation is particularly crucial because it serves as the basis for other information that will be submitted to the FDA later.
Clinical Phase
While preclinical work is directed toward the IND submission, the clinical phase is geared toward the submission of an equally important regulatory filing: the new drug application (NDA).
During this stage, doctors (called clinical investigators) carry out studies to find out if the drug is safe in people and whether it is effective in treating the targeted disease. There are three phases in every clinical trial: Phase I (the drug is tested in 20 to 100 healthy volunteers), Phase II (involving 100 to 500 volunteers who have the disease that the new drug is meant to treat), and Phase III (involving 1,000 to 5,000 volunteer patients).
Clinical trials could take up to 10 years, during which the sponsor will conduct parallel research on toxicity, dosage forms, and methods for full-scale manufacturing and packaging of the drug. Everything about the clinical phase is geared toward the NDA submission, which essentially summarizes 10 or more years of development work. The NDA dossier is complex and voluminous — anywhere from 100,000 to 600,000 pages of text that are meant to persuade the FDA to approve the new drug.
As in the preclinical phase, if not more so, the clinical stage requires effective document control to help achieve:
* Efficiency: Managing hundreds of thousands of documents generated by cross-functional teams during a period of 10 years or more is a daunting challenge. Bottlenecks abound during this phase because there are more people involved in the process and the data from clinical investigators grow exponentially from Phase I through Phase III.
* Compliance: In addition to GLP and GCP requirements that various teams must comply with, the sponsor also must manufacture the investigational new drug used for clinical trials in accordance with Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) requirements under 21 CFR Parts 210-211. GCP also includes guidances that call for effective documentation. Moreover, the sponsor must comply with 21 CFR Part 314 (Applications for FDA Approval to Market a New Drug) for its NDA submission.
Commercialization, Product Launch, and Post-Market Phase
While a sponsor is waiting for FDA approval, it is likely to be gearing up for mass production, or perhaps it is already manufacturing the drug. FDA approval takes 18 months on the average, according to PhRMA. As soon as the FDA approves the NDA, the company will be able to start selling the new drug. But even after the product is brought to the market, the company will continue to submit reports to the FDA, such as adverse reaction reports and quality-control records. In some cases, the FDA may require a sponsor to conduct Phase IV clinical trials to evaluate the drug’s long-term effects.
With the clock ticking in terms of market exclusivity, the company that has just launched a new drug needs effective document management to help achieve:
* Efficiency: Document control needs after FDA approval are especially great in the areas of quality control, manufacturing, marketing, and sales. Voluminous documents will be generated by quality-related processes that will handle corrective and preventive action (CAPA), electronic batch records (EBR), consumer complaints and adverse event reports, quality audit, deviations, and nonconformances, among others.
* Compliance: Document control is a CGMP requirement. In addition, the pharmaceutical or biotech company with a newly approved NDA must address post-market requirements found in 21 CFR Part 314, including the reporting of adverse drug experiences and the submission of NDA field alert report, annual report, distribution data, labeling, report on CMC changes, etc.
The MasterControl Solution
The MasterControl™ GxP process and document management software provides a solid foundation for effective document control that will help accelerate overall time to market by simplifying workflows, promoting efficiency, and making compliance easier. Below are some of the benefits of using MasterControl throughout the drug development process.
Increased Efficiency Through Automation. MasterControl reduces document cycle time and simplifies document management by automating routing, notification and follow-up, escalation, and approval. Its robust tracking feature identifies bottlenecks by showing when a document was sent and to whom. It shows the document’s history, including who has approved it and when. A document that has been rejected will automatically go back to the sender, so tasks don’t languish. MasterControl can handle all types of documents, regardless of the software used to create them.
Centralized Repository Makes Search and Retrieval Easier. You can store all records and documents from the discovery stage through the post-market phase in a centralized electronic repository, making it easier to update, and to search and retrieve them. Documents reside in secure virtual vaults that can be accessed only by authorized users. Access is limited by the extent of a user’s system rights. Although the system is centralized, every department can compile documents separately using the Organizer, a MasterControl tool similar to Windows Explorer, which helps users find documents quickly.
Web-Based Platform Provides Easy Access. A Web-based system will give employees in different locations and time zones easy access. Even CROs, suppliers, consultants, and other authorized users outside of the company can have system access based on the extent of their roles in any document-based process.
Automatic Revision Control Reduces User Mistakes. With a paper-based document control process, there is no mechanism that would stop a user from inadvertently using obsolete or unapproved documents. With MasterControl, revision control is automatic, so only approved documents are released. Any outdated documents are automatically archived, and documents in the process of revision are locked. The system provides a time-stamped audit trail of all changes made to a document.
Virtual Workspace Makes Collaboration Easier. Collaboration is possible regardless of location through a virtual workspace for cross-functional review and approval of documents. The system automates tasks pertaining to collaborative projects, including routing, follow-up, escalation, and approval.
Best Practices Help Streamline Workflows. To increase efficiency, MasterControl incorporates best practices in critical processes such as CAPA, nonconformance disposition, deviation handling, EBR management, quality audit, change control, or any document-based or forms-based process. Best-practice workflows can be used as is or customized.
Electronic Approval Fosters Efficiency. The capability to review and approve documents electronically speeds up the approval process significantly. Signature manifestation can be appended automatically to each document as required by 21 CFR Part 11. In addition to e-signature, the system provides a time-stamped audit trail that can be linked to the approval process.
Integrated Approach Connects Document Control with Other Processes. MasterControl connects the document control process with other processes, and it synchronizes changes in documents and documented processes. For example, document control can be integrated with customer complaints, CAPA, and training control processes. So a customer complaint serious enough to require a CAPA will be automatically escalated to the CAPA process. Any document change resulting from an approved CAPA will automatically trigger training on the revised document for all affected employees.
Integration Helps Optimize E-Submission Process. MasterControl can be integrated with leading e-submission tools to optimize and accelerate the electronic submission process. MasterControl provides a single repository for all regulatory submissions, as well as a virtual workspace where different teams can easily and quickly revise the dossier.
Integration Helps Leverage Existing Systems. You can leverage your existing systems, such as ERP, PDM, and PLM, by integrating them with robust MasterControl applications without expensive custom coding.
Risk-Based Software Validation Offerings Help Reduce Compliance Burden. MasterControl offers a line of products and services designed to dramatically reduce the time, pain, and cost involved in software validation. Companies may choose the appropriate products and services based on their own risk assessment.
Flexible Approach Makes System Ownership More Cost-Effective. While mature companies typically prefer to purchase a full MasterControl suite outright, many smaller companies choose the application server provider (ASP) service for a minimal upfront cost. This approach allows fast deployment, offers software validation services, and requires no technical maintenance or special equipment. Companies may select an ASP system that is purely document management and 100 percent preconfigured. Or, as their needs grow, they may want more customization and additional applications (CAPA, change control, training control, etc.) to fit their requirements.
Conclusion
Time is a precious commodity for everyone, but especially for people involved in drug development. You can maximize development time starting with the way you control document-based processes. As this white paper has shown you, a delay in time to market due to poor document management is largely preventable with the help of the right solution
Article Source http://www.ngpharma.com/article/Issue-10/Manufacturing/How-Effective-Document-Management-Helps-Pharmaceutical-Companies-Accelerate-Time-to-Market/
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
2009 Review of Document Storage Systems
Document Storage Systems Offer Affordable Organization Tools
John Higgins, CPA.CITP
From the June 2009 Issue
Just like the white snow melting into green grass, our perennial review of document storage and document management solutions has become a key milestone in the transition from winter to spring and summer. What a great time of year! This also means we have completed yet another year of development efforts by the vendor community. The solutions they develop to help you take your accounting and tax practice “digital,” have become even more effective. So our mission in this review and the companion review of document management systems to be featured in the The CPA Technology Advisor in July, is to help you gain a better perspective of what many of the leading vendors have to offer and some of the enhancements they have made while you were busy laboring through another productive tax season.
In these reviews we continue to face the challenge of trying to appropriately categorize the solutions into comparable groups. That is much easier said than done because there are so many good solutions and the depth and breadth of functionality varies considerably. However, we have made our best attempt to provide meaningful comparisons by separating the reviews between document “storage” systems and document “management” systems. I’ll be the first to admit that the line that separates them is much grayer than it is black and white. So we’ll start by attempting to explain the differences between the two categories.
When we talk about document storage systems, think of these as software applications that are designed with the primary focus on managing the way you organize the storage of your electronic documents, as well as other application files from MS Office, Acrobat, etc. These systems are generally limited in their scope of features, which makes them very affordable for the small firm or sole practitioner, and better yet, quite easy to deploy and use.
In the July 2009 issue, we will review the more robust document management solutions that are designed to fulfill the needs of the entire firm. Document Management systems not only organize the storage of electronic documents and files; they also provide extended functionality to integrate with tax and accounting applications, and perhaps provide a portal component, workflow automation, document retention and more. We’ll provide an in-depth discussion of the features and functions of these systems next month. For now, our focus is on the more simplistic document storage tools.
Since these document storage systems tend to differ considerably in the nature of their functionality, we have rated them on four relatively broad attributes: user interface, file organization/management, integration with other software applications, and overall value based on the depth of functionality and pricing. We have almost a dozen products in this review, so let’s get started.
Article Source http://www.cpatechnologyadvisor.com/print/The-CPA-Technology-Advisor/2009-Review-of-Document-Storage-Systems/1$2354
Article Source http://www.cpatechnologyadvisor.com/print/The-CPA-Technology-Advisor/2009-Review-of-Document-Storage-Systems/1$2354
Sunday, May 31, 2009
What is Electronic Records Management?
ISO standard 15489: 2001 defines Records Management (RM) as the field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including the processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records.
What is Electronic Records Management?
ISO standard 15489: 2001 defines Records Management (RM) as the field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including the processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records. AIIM expands this definition to include records of all types including those maintained in electronic format. Currently, most information is created “digitally”, by some sort of computer or system application and stored on personal computers, network drives and PDAs, reaching terabyte storage levels and beyond. It is vital that organizations understand that information and records are assets of the organization, not the individual and as such need to be managed actively and properly. The incorporation of Electronic Records Management Systems (ERMS) and practices provide structure, consistency, security, and control over these records. Electronic records management approaches are neither new nor unique. For decades, we have had centralized control of human resources (HR) and capital (Finance). Records management is the centralized control of the information assets of organizations. Establishment and enforcement of enterprise-wide records management explains the requirements, responsibilities, and accountability in managing an organization’s information assets. The need for accountability and policy enforcement is becoming clear to executives and managers and, as more information is generated in electronic form, opening the risk of non-compliance and information loss. An enterprise-wide classification scheme within an ERMS, allows us to establish and manage:
- Retention and disposition rules
- Security and access controls
- Digital rights management
- Information sharing
- Findability
There is the absolute requirement for a central function of RM professionals and staff to carry out the many critical activities and responsibilities needed by the organization. RM is often expected to conduct legal research on the many statutes and regulations impacting records practices. RM professionals must team with legal staff and IT to ensure that information and records are properly managed and readily available in the event of litigation, request for records under Freedom of Information laws (FOIA), audits, and government investigation. AIIM has developed a comprehensive training program to help you focus and get control of the information and records in your organization. www.aiim.org/training
Above information published on http://www.aiim.org/erm/what-is-erm-electronic-records-management.aspx
Above information published on http://www.aiim.org/erm/what-is-erm-electronic-records-management.aspx
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