Integrating document management with project and company data

Electronic document management (EDM) systems have revolutionized the constr uction document storage and retrieval process. An electronically managed do cument consists of a computer representation of the main document body, usu ally in the form of a bitmap, and a reference or indexing structure used to retrieve the document. In construction, the reference data includes inform ation that relates the document to certain aspects of the constructed facil ity and the construction company. It is argued that this relationship needs to be represented explicitly and in an integrated manner as opposed to the approach used by traditional EDM systems. This paper presents an integrate d approach based on the concept of specialized construction data models. A detailed account of how this approach was followed to integrate a quality a ssurance document management system within a steel fabrication company is a lso presented.