Like all industries, aviation has now digitised most of its important information and many critical business processes. While this is clearly a positive move, it comes with its own challenges. For instance, how do you store so many electronic documents securely, and ensure the most up-to-date versions have been distributed and read by the right people?
The rise of remote working has complicated things further, increasing the number of tools used to share and store documents (e.g., Microsoft Teams, Sharepoint, Google Docs etc.)
In this blog we’re going to look at what makes an effective document management system – how do you choose the right one and what should your priorities be? (We’re willing to bet that at least one of our points, you might not have considered before.)
Sharing information effectively – aviation’s challenge
As a heavily regulated industry, aviation has a lot of important documents. Aircraft manuals, maintenance manuals, technical logs, OEM amendments, company policies and procedures…and many, many more.
To demonstrate compliance, it’s often critical to evidence that key personnel have read and understood these documents. However, if they are produced in different formats, stored in a variety of systems, and distributed to global teams via multiple channels, it’s a huge challenge ensuring the right information is read by the right people — especially if version control is lacking.
In these cases, overheads are high, efficiency is low, and the risks can be significant.
Over the last two decades, aviation’s answer to this has been to invest in document management systems. Great! We certainly support that approach.
However, as technology has advanced, these have got more and more sophisticated. So the question is, are we now in danger of getting side-tracked by what new technology can do, rather than focussing on what people really need?
What to consider before you invest in a document management system
We think it’s time to get back to basics. We’d urge any airline or aviation business considering a document management system (DMS), to focus on the people who will be reading and creating the documents and consider what they really need from a new system.
With that in mind, here are five key questions to ask yourself when considering a DMS.
1. What do you need to improve? What are the serious problems?
It sounds obvious, but it’s so common to lose sight of this. We often get side-tracked when reviewing new technology and forget our true priorities. Or conversely, we’re tempted to just replicate the document folders we had before in a new system, without really addressing the initial issues.
Instead, consider first and foremost, where is your organisation falling short when it comes to document management, and what is the impact of that on your people, your customers and your business?
It might be that people aren’t reading the documents they need to (or that you have no idea if they’ve read them or not!) Or it might be that version control is poor and people don’t have access to the most up-to-date manuals or policies. The potential impacts here can be serious, jeopardising employee and customer safety, and leaving your organisation vulnerable to litigation.
Once you know the most important issues, you can then think about what needs to change and what success would look like. Always be open to new ways of organising documents and managing processes, if they help you achieve your objectives.
2. How easy-to-use is the new system?
This question ensures you put your people’s needs at the heart of your decision. Ease-of-use can be key to determining whether new software succeeds or fails.
Sometimes the more complicated the software, the less intuitive it is, and the more training and practice is required for end users. This reduces the chance of it being successfully adopted and increases the risk of user error or frustration.
When evaluating any new DMS, we suggest you include testing the speed and ease with which you can complete key tasks – from both the perspective of the document owner and the recipient or reader.
For instance, you might test how quickly and easily you can upload and distribute a new document to a specific audience, as well as how straightforward it is to see and prioritise the new documents you need to read and sign. Features such as email notifications and reminders can be especially useful here.
3. How accessible is it?
You could have the most advanced DMS in the world, but if it can only be accessed on certain devices, staff adoption is going to be seriously limited. Any system you choose needs to be easily accessible by all your staff, wherever they are located, whatever device they have, and whichever operating system that device runs.
As well as that, the system needs to update in real-time (or as close to it as possible) so that the latest versions of documents are always available.
4. Will it improve staff engagement and communication?
It’s rare for people to consider this question when evaluating a document management system, but why? After all, the focus shouldn’t be on the documents and the technology here, but rather on how the technology enables people to exchange information more easily to perform their jobs more effectively.
For large or disparate teams especially, being able to store documents in one place and track the dissemination of them, can dramatically improve engagement and communication. Just simple things like being able to see the name of the document author, can help make responsibilities clearer.
For instance, in the case of airports, only a small proportion of people who work on-site will be directly employed by the airport. Many more will be employed by retail concessions, ground handling service providers, security firms, border force, emergency services, and more.
Managing the communication of important airport policies and procedures to all these people in different companies is a challenge. In this scenario, having a document management system which all stakeholders can access in a controlled way, could bring huge benefits.
5. How will it support compliance?
There’s no getting away from the fact that aviation organisations need robust audit trails. File sharing tools that became popular in the pandemic, such as Teams, Sharepoint and Google Docs, may be quick and easy to use, but they can lack the ability to track who’s read the document, and often have zero version control. This makes it impossible to manage and evidence compliance, or even ensure the correct version is available for your teams.
You’ll want a DMS that makes compliance monitoring easy. Features like audit-ready reports, as well as automatic version control and archiving, should be on your list of essential requirements.
EFOS Documents – Information sharing, simplified
EFOS Documents is a cloud-based self-serve document management system, created specifically for the aviation industry’s critical documentation. It’s ideal for all aviation businesses, including airlines and airports.
If you want to make document management simpler, and the lives of aviation professionals easier, EFOS Documents is the solution for you. It focuses on the capabilities that truly matter, such as an intuitive UX, an accessible web-based interface that updates in real-time, and essential features like streamlined distribution, read and sign for compliance monitoring, automatic version control, email notifications and expiry reminders.
What’s more, we offer a fully managed implementation to ensure that everything is set up correctly from the get-go, and you can just get on with your day job.
To see a demo of EFOS Documents, just complete this form.
