"Best Practices" for the Management of Engineering Project Files

“Ask the CRM” - Bob Dalton, CRM

Question:

Are there “best practices” for the management of engineering project files?

Question was recently asked by a potential customer

Response:

Many of my colleagues and I have struggled over the years with the need for some type of system to organize engineering project files. Unfortunately, the variables among different organizations make a system that works for everyone almost impossible.

In a recent discussion on a classification system on the records management listserv, Virginia A. Jones, CRM, stated that “Engineers each have their own STRONG opinions about how the documents should be arranged and why”. I agree. It has been my experience, that you must find a way to have the client express their requirements in their terms to find a methodology to manage their project files.

For a number of years I have managed engineering drawing and project files using various classification methods. One company used an elaborate classification scheme based on their financial coding system for engineering projects. It was a very large classification scheme, but if used properly it was effective. Another company used a scheme established by the Construction Specifications Institute (www.csinet.org) that was also referred by Virginia Jones in her listserv message. I have also used as a reference guide “Records in Architectural Offices: Suggestions for the Organization, Storage and Conservation of Architectural Office Archives” by Nancy Carlson Schrock and Mary Campbell Cooper, which is available through the ARMA bookstore (www.arma.org).

In a recent consulting job I was asked to develop a system to manage engineering project files. The organization consisted of engineering project managers who managed specific projects, some large and some small. The department provided minimal administrative support and each project manager managed their own document collection. Each project manager had their personal idea of what should be retained; from ‘toss most’ to ‘keep most’. A large part of my role as a consultant was listening to what the engineers perceived as their document management requirements and then assisting them to come to a consensus.

I inventoried the project documents, active and inactive, of each project manager to determine the type of records they were maintaining. In addition, I also inventoried the department reference file of documents retained for each facility/location. Once completed, I classified the collection into four groups as follows:
§ Administrative
§ Financial
§ Legal
§ Engineering

The listing was presented in alphabetical order to the clients for their review and input. Once they are agreed, I then matched the records against the legal retention requirements for a public agency. This was accomplished by classification of the collection into four groups of records that would be transferred to storage on termination of the project. The documents types are as follows:
§ Temporary (transitory) documents that could be destroyed on termination of the project
§ Short term retention (Termination + 6 years)
§ Long term retention that also required approval of the state archivist prior to destruction (not necessary to gain permission if they have a retention schedule unless they have potential archival value).
§ Documents that would be transferred to the facility reference file (is this a central reference file?).

The listing was again forwarded to the clients for their review and approval. Once approved by the client, a template was created to be used as a filing guide for classifying documents/records into their collection and for the final disposition documents on closure of the project.

The key to the success of the project, or any project, is listening to the client and then developing a methodology that will work in their specific environment. In this particular case, a simple system was developed that could be used by a department that provided limited administrative support to the project managers.

Note: My thanks to Barbara Werelius, Records Manager and Guru at Tacoma Public Utilities, and the Puget Sound Chapter of ARMA for her assistance in the development of this article.