Converting An Information Management System From PAPER to BITS and BYTES

An environmental task management system for a multi-facility mineral mining and smelting company was previously developed through a series of formatted spreadsheets and paper checklists. These checklists were distributed, collected, reviewed, and summarized by hand on a monthly basis. This process was inefficient, but it was very successful at demonstrating both the shortcomings of such a system and the desired attributes of an automated/electronic system. This paper will review the attributes of the paper-based process, the desired attributes included in a Request for Proposals, and the accommodations made balancing the desired attributes with the features of commercial software solutions.