www.elision.

com

The Future for HR Records

Three document companies collaborate to deliver a smooth,

at a glance

transparent document management service to Anglian Waters

Challenge

Human Resources Department.

To replace the paper based filing

The Customer
Anglian Water is the largest water company in England and Wales, serving more
than 2.6 million properties across East Anglia and the East Midlands. Its region,
some 27,500 square kilometres, stretches from the Humber in the north to the
Thames in the south, from Daventry in the west across to the east coast.
Like so many other organisations, Anglian Water faced rising concerns regarding its
paper storage. Worries around how it could protect its paper documents in the event
of a disaster, the sheer cost and time of physically storing, filing and retrieving
documents, not forgetting the issues around misfiled or lost documents spurred the
HR department into action.
Anglian Waters HR department was routinely handling upwards of 3,500 files
containing employee related documentation. Management of these files required
considerable resources. Driven by a need to increase the efficiency of the department,
corporate concerns over losing documents from flood or fire and a desire to reduce
paper storage costs, Richard Norton, Anglian Waters HR Services Manager, lead a
project to move the HR documents into an electronic domain and safely store its
paper files.
Richard recognised that to achieve his ambition of an electronic archive, he first
faced the task of scanning the HR files and indexing them ready for input into the
document management system. He needed to select a supplier who could offer a
secure storage facility for his paper files.

and retrieval system with an

electronic document management
solution and to provide ongoing
storage and retrieval services for
the original files
Solution

Document scanning and OCR

from Elision Limited

EASY ENTERPRISE
from EASY SOFTWARE

Paper record storage and retrieval

from ARM Plc.
Benefits

HR staff deployed to more

productive tasks

Disaster recovery
system now in place

Increased compliance with employee

record storage regulations

Faster retrieval of files, no lost files

or misfiling

Increased productivity and efficiency

Software
Anglian Water approached EASY SOFTWARE who had garnered a reputation for highly
scalable, reliable and flexible document management technologies. EASY SOFTWARE
proposed a hosted solution where the HR documents are stored remotely in the EASY
ENTERPRISE document management system and the Anglian HR team accesses
them through a simple web client, enabling the team to retrieve the documents
needed online from the comfort of their desks and without the need to implement
additional hardware or software.

Elision Limited 2007

New River House
6a Colman Parade
Southbury Road
Enfield
Middlesex EN1 1YY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7674 3030
Fax: +44 (0)20 7674 2999
marketing@elision.com

www.elision.com

Capture
EASY SOFTWARE recommended its capture partner, Elision Limited, to take charge of
the crucial capture phase, to handle the not insignificant task of scanning and
indexing the 3500+ HR files.
In spring 2006, the logistics, capture (scanning) and OCR project began, and over a
two month period, Elision converted the Anglian HR files at one of its secure capture
facilities into electronic images. During this process the documents are reviewed and
prepared, all fastenings are removed and each document is manually checked by an
Elision operator prior to capture.
To ensure security and indexing specification required each record is given a unique
barcode and then scanned. This barcode is unique to each record and is associated
with the index criteria ready for upload. Moreover, it means that the file can be
identified at any stage of the capture process should the original file be required
urgently. In the final element of the capture phase the record is converted into a
personal document format (PDF) and processed using optical character recognition
(OCR) to enable the content search functionality that the easy software system
provides. The data and images were then ready for import.

Storage
Archival Records Management Plc (ARM) was selected to provide the physical
document archive and storage at its secure storage facility. Following the capture
phase by Elision, the paper files were packed into archive boxes and a CD Rom
produced and stored at ARM in a self contained, environmentally controlled area
separate from the boxes. Barcodes are applied to each box to ensure that each
file is accessible following a retrieval request. The files are then shipped to ARM.
ARM also provides a file collection and delivery service, supplying a vehicle for a
scheduled journey once a week that collects files from Anglian Water transporting
them to an Elision capture facility and collecting scanned boxes for storage at ARM.
To date, ARM has collected and stored an initial 462 boxes and a further 104 as part
of phase II. A further and significant part of ARMs contract concerns the refiling of
documents into employee files, which currently amount to between 400-500 items
per month.

Success Through Partnership

Anglian Water now has an electronic platform for its HR documents, coupled with
processes and protocols around their capture, storage and usage, thanks to the
seamless partnership of EASY SOFTWARE, Elision and ARM Plc.

Elision Limited 2007

New River House
6a Colman Parade
Southbury Road
Enfield
Middlesex EN1 1YY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7674 3030
Fax: +44 (0)20 7674 2999
marketing@elision.com
July 2007