Document management
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Contents
Definition
Document management is Template:Document management 2
Summary
Description
The publication IAEA-TECDOC-1284, April 2002, ‘Information Technology Impact on Nuclear Power Plant documentation’ addresses all aspects of documentation associated with various life-cycle phases of NPPs and the information technology (IT) that are relevant to the documentation process. It also provides a guide for planning, designing, and executing an IT documentation project. This report includes examples that demonstrate successful implementations at NPPs and also discusses issues related to the application of IT at NPPs and the trends for applications of IT at NPPs as well as the technology itself.
Source: Planning and Execution of Knowledge Management Assist Missions for Nuclear Organizations
Description
Document and content management systems have been used for many years to hold explicit knowledge in the form of documentation. Such systems are particularly important in R&D organizations to help maintain in electronic format items such as research papers, results of experiments, design information, component data, drawings and other data and information relating to the research centre and its operations. Most systems incorporate a workflow module that allows the circulation of documentation amongst users maintaining configuration control for document updates following check and approve cycles. Examples of the most frequently deployed systems include:
- Documentum (www.documentum.com);
- Hummingbird (www.hummingbird.com);
- Microsoft SharePoint (www.microsoft.com);
- FileNet (www.ibm.com);
- Livelink (www.opentext.com).
Source:
Knowledge Management for Nuclear Research and Development Organizations
Description
Documentation process is strongly linked to business process. We can’t design good document management system without business process model. For example, If we design document management system with document search application and data such as PDF, .doc etc. That system is a kind of electric document storage box, not document management system. One of the important parameter for manage documents is document circulation route. e.g. Some expert written information notice memo then he distributed it to a few colleague. This is a clear knowledge share or transfer process. Therefore, We should think documentation process with refer business process model.
I have commented this issue earlier. Let me make clear what is key technology and mind set about improve document process by NMK. In other words, What is key technology and method to improve existing document management system to intelligent NK information management process?
- Analyze existing process. (Select target process e.g. Fuel inspection, LOCA analysis, etc)
- Decomposite target process element. e.g. People, Document, Data, Workflow route.
- Identify tacit knowledge owner, written knowledge, data and workflow route.
- Assess tacit knowledge value and risk
- K-Loss Risk by Retirement. (Expert age. Retirement plan. Successor, etc.)
- K-Loss Risk by Accident. (Fire, Traffic accident, etc. Expert injury.)
- Prepare knowledge retention plan about target process.
- Capture tacit knowledge by interview, Web service, etc. then store it to the K repository.
- Edit captured tacit knowledge to usable form for process knowledge support IT service.
- Transfer, Share captured knowledge for the target process staff and so on.
An important aim of KM is to transform implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge by documentation in order to be understood and utilized by others; this is often denoted as knowledge externalization. The most practicable way to achieve this is to integrate KM into everyday work, i.e. into work processes and procedures, in contrast to treating documentation of work steps as an add-on task. This integration is easiest if the work process is a very structured one. In those cases, the process might lend itself even to a high degree of automation by devising workflows supported by IT tools. The documentation of such workflows (e.g. documentation of field work in a nuclear power plant, approval of documents) is usually well supported by the workflow system. Less structured processes will require greater effort at documentation. As an example, a project implementation plan usually defines milestones for which certain types of documents (e.g. lessons learned, state of art reports) will have to be produced.
A prerequisite for continuous improvement of work processes is the feedback from all actors. Many organizations have included feedback mechanisms such as after-action reviews, lessons learned or knowledge audits into their work processes and procedures. Again, an appropriate IT-based documentation management system is instrumental in administrating documented feedback. On a broader, organization-wide scale, portals usually include forums open to all employees for expressing new ideas or proposals for improvements, often combined with a reward system for the best and most effective ideas. An efficient feedback system will prove invaluable for planning and carry through corrective action.
A problem often encountered concerns the actuality and completeness of the knowledge. The dismissal of out-dated information and knowledge is not straightforward, since it runs counter the attempt to store all relevant information in an organizational memory. Document management systems will offer the feature of defining a lifetime for a document, after which it may be automatically archived. However, this is just a small contribution to renewing knowledge domains and archiving or deleting obsolete knowledge. For this purpose, regular self-assessments should be conducted, taking into account not only the explicit documentation but also the full knowledge activities in the domain. If knowledge mapping is part of the KM system, then maps will be reviewed, changed and enhanced by means of the self-assessment.
A knowledge assessment should however not be limited to the organization; it should extend to external good practices and state-of-art. This holds true in particular for industrial organizations, when competition has to be closely watched, and for R&D organizations, since the state of art in research is always measured by international standards. Regular benchmarks comparing the knowledge level with external organizations and practices may well aid in maintaining and enhancing organizational knowledge. Integrating KM into work processes and procedures will produce a vast amount of documents. IT tools for document management such as portals and content management systems are mandatory for storing, annotating, retrieving and structuring these documents; over time, the inventory will build up a corporate memory. Today’s IT tool strongly support features such efficient search and retrieval, annotation with metadata, versioning, rights management, and archiving (see also the paragraph on IT-tools).
Efficient IT-tools are indispensable in change management. As many organizations have to adhere to rigorous policies regarding the documentation of changes in procedures, software, input data, codes, drawings, lesson plans. A document management system will provide an appropriate storing place for the related document, provided that a versioning feature is available recording all changes to a document. For software related activities, version and configuration control systems are available for software development and change management.
Documentation is generally restricted to successful activities that are it concentrates on ‘how to do things properly’. But organizations also learn from failures. It is important to document also the experience on ‘how things should not be done’, as a way of avoiding in the future the repetition of failures. This implies a deep cultural change, as well as modifying reward systems, where more moving towards cooperation. Emphasis should be made on transparency and experience and not only on success.
Source: Guide on nuclear knowledge management
Description
Format of document presentation in FRKPS
The method for inputing information (not the entire documents) into the FRKPS is by use of information cards (ICs). These information cards will follow a standard format. The ICs are the basic unit of the FRKPS. The advantage of this method is that it requires no translation of the original document. However, it is important that the IC gives an accurate and sufficient representation of the original document. The IC has to be comprehensive enough for the information to be correctly placed in all the pertinent sections of the FRKPS. The IC must also be comprehensive enough for the FRKPS to retrieve the information.
The format for the information included as a SQL file in English on the IC is given below:
- Title of the document;
- Type of document (appropriate classification of the documents based on their type should be provided in FRKPS, e.g. 1 — book, 2 — article, 3 — report, 4 — paper, 5 — theses, 6 — design document, 7 — code description, 8 — drawing, 9 — working material, 10 — memoirs, 11 — photographs, 12 — movies, etc. with necessary notes);
- Authors and institutions they represent;
- Issuing country/countries of the document.
- Title of magazine/publishing house issuing the document/meeting at which the document was presented;
- Year of issue;
- Volume of the document (number of pages);
- Original document language;
- Storage location of the hardcopy of the document (organization taking responsibility for storing the original document; name of database, if available, in which the document has been included);
- Set of key words (at least 10 key words for each document)
- Abstract of the document in the original language and in English (minimum number of characters, 1000, at least half of A4 format page, letter size 10, single spacing);
- Names of reactor facilities to which the document refers;
- Names of reactor stages related to the document;
- List of topical sections (directories) to which the document refers and where the reference labels should be placed;
- Indication of degree of accessibility of the original document;
- Indication of availability of an electronic version of original document;
- Electronic version of the original document as a separate document (if possible from the standpoint of its confidentiality level);
- Registration number (if available).
Each document is presented in FRKPS in 2 files (SQL file and PDF file). The necessary number of reference labels is stored in related sections (directories) of FRKPS. ICs are accessible to the user as PDF files. The name of the IC is the title of the document.
A search of related topical sections for insertion of a new IC into the FRKPS taxonomy is determined by prompting on the key words listed in the IC when compared to the key words in the different topical sections in the FRKPS. Matches of key words will determine where the new IC resides in the FRKPS.
It is necessary to provide within the framework of the FRKPS an opportunity for creation of ICs, not only for individual documents but also for some arrays of documents. These arrays of documents can be, for instance, proceedings of the topical meetings or conferences, sets of papers related to specific research, etc.
The unified IC format for documents inserted into the FRKPS should be agreed to by the Member States to provide consistency from one country to the next with regard to the volume and selection of input to the FRKPS. The unified format of IC enables its placement in the FRKPS by using a computer prompt.
Source: Fast Reactor Knowledge Preservation System: Taxonomy and Basic Requirements
References
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