Does anybody actually enjoy creating and sending engineering transmittals? Possibly. But in most companies, for most people, transmittals are a tedious pain.
It starts with gathering up all the documents, making sure every document is the correct version, and making sure all the XREF images and part files are included. Even when assembled with painstaking care (a time-consuming task) there is still high risk for overlooking key components. Once the transmittal is sent, there are still the issues of tracking, managing content, and controlling access. And then, what if there is an audit?
If the most automated aspect of creating and sending transmittals in your company is dragging files around on the screen, it is time to take a look at exactly how much of a drag on productivity transmittals can be. Synergis Adept user Stan Jancovic of Taggart Global figured out once just how painful transmittals can be to the bottom line. “When we added up the cost for our engineers’ time and labor, we were spending $400,000 a year just to send transmittals.”
Intelligent automation is the solution. It is possible to communicate, track, and manage project information. When all the information is already in electronic format, all that is needed is a way to tie it up in a nice digital bow and send it out with digital strings attached that report back on every detail of your transmittal’s new life beyond your office.
Automated transmittals are about relationships, on multiple levels. There are data relationships that extend from document to document, and relationships between stakeholders who need access to the data. A comprehensive approach to transmittals takes both kinds of relationships into account. In Synergis Adept, automated transmittals start with the cover sheet, generated by the software as requested. The cover sheet becomes the focus point for the software to track all activities related to the transmittal, including which documents were sent, when, and at what version. Adept will automate the creation of an email, which can contain the cover letter and document attachments. You can then choose to send the documents in one of many: As a simple URL link; a zip file that you can encrypt or password protect; or as PDFs.
Allowing the document management software to create, distribute, and track transmittals slashes creation time and eliminates errors. And at this stage of the project, errors are costly. As Stan Jancovic discovered at Taggart Global, when transmittals are primarily manual, they are expensive overhead. When transmittals are automated, they become part of the way you do projects.
As for that $400,000 in overhead, Jancovic and his team at Taggart Global adopted Synergis Adept. The result? “Adept eliminated that cost.”
Randall S. Newton is the principal analyst and managing director at Consilia Vektor, a consulting firm serving the engineering software industry. He has been directly involved in engineering software in a number of roles since 1985.
