OSHA and ISO Requirements Met With Domino.Doc / AS400 and zCore

The Client

Degussa Corporation (Degussa), headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, is a diversified chemical company that serves a broad range of industries. The company owns and operates production facilities, R&D and applied technology centers throughout the NAFTA region. Degussa Corporation is the North American subsidiary of Degussa AG, headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany

The Challenge

Degussa’s existing manuals, training material and other miscellaneous documents were maintained by document managers. The tools used to perform these tasks were mainly comprised of Microsoft Office products. Storing and organizing these documents in directories created and maintained by the document managers on their file servers was an additional responsibility of the tools. However, this caused issues with regard to security, file naming standards and standards for storing and organizing documents. Document Managers were unable to quickly move documents through review, approval and other notification workflow cycles. Version control was a manual process. There was an overwhelming need for a single Document Management system that would provide Degussa with the ability to enforce standards, have automatic version control, provide automatic notifications and improve the turn-around time for document review and approval cycles.

The Approach

Degussa engaged zCore Business Solutions (zCore) to provide them with a Domino.Doc solution for their AS400 environment. The project was to provide a working prototype for a single Degussa plant site. zCore’s team worked closely with Degussa resources to define the document management needs not only for the selected plant site but for all of Degussa. The purpose of this prototype was to provide the architecture needed to grow into a full scale implementation for all of Degussa. In zCore, Degussa found an IBM and Lotus Premium Partner with depth of experience in designing solutions and a strong local practice prepared to provide rapid on-site support and responsiveness. Once the zCore team clarified project requirements, it was quickly evident that Degussa needed a more robust and cost-effective way to manage documents company-wide.

The Solution

The zCore project team worked closely with Degussa resources to document existing document management needs, company-wide. Domino.Doc was installed on an AS400 at a plant site in Mobile, Alabama and was customized to be able to support the organizational structure of all of Degussa worldwide. Libraries and File Cabinets for the Mobile site were created as well as custom Binders and Document Types to be used specifically by plants at the Mobile site. Additional custom Binders and Document Types were created in preparation for future implementation of Domino.Doc at additional sites. As a complete solution to Degussa, zCore provided cross training to Degussa resources during and after project implementation in order to allow Degussa to further develop and support their Domino.Doc environment. Additional end-user training was also provided by zCore to ensure the proper usage of Domino.Doc to create, store, manage, route and distribute documents.

The Results

Degussa’s goal was to have a single Document Management solution, company-wide, that would allow them better control of their documents, provide better security, as well as improve turn-around time of their review and approval cycles. Most importantly, there was a critical need to ensure that they are OSHA and ISO compliant. Degussa found the solution in the Domino.Doc environment installed, configured and customized by the zCore team.