West Texas Consultants, Inc.Going Paperless Initiative

Industrial Technology 3390 Technology and Society

By Nathan Tompkins

INDEX

• Introduction• Objectives• Company background• Steps toward going Green• Graph• Work Cited

Introduction• In this modern era “going green” has become a common phrase in our

society. With former Vice President Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and the studies done on the ozone layer people have become concerned. With the population projected to be 11.9 billion by 2050, according to the UN, we have to turn to living “green”. In 2009, West Texas Consultants started scanning our records into our network. Since we are an engineering and surveying company, our records are very important. If there was ever a fire and the records got destroyed, it would be disastrous to the company. So, we have started scanning our records into our network just in case this was to happen. This allows WTC to go paperless with our records. If anyone needs to look at a past survey, they can pull it up on their computer instead of making copies. With future projects, we will be able to conserve paper by storing projects electronically instead of on paper in a vault.

Objectives

• The objective that West Texas Consultants has by going paperless with records is to secure records, improve customer relations by improving response time, and making record searching more efficient.

Company Background

• West Texas Consultants, Inc., and its predecessor firm are celebrating 62 years of providing services to West Texas. The firm provides engineering, planning and surveying services. Our firm is officed out of Andrews, Texas. We have employed Registered Professional Engineers (P.E.), Registered Professional Land Surveyors (R.P.L.S.), and a technical support staff which utilizes the most up-to-date engineering computer hardware and software. Our technicians are well-versed in computer-aided drafting and design (CADD). Our capabilities and computer hardware and software enable us to consider numerous alternatives in a timely manner. This allows us to provide our clients the most feasible options in a cost-effective manner.

Steps toward going Green

• When WTC gets a survey request or an engineering project, the first step is to see what information is in our records for that area. When something is found in the records for that area, it is copied and put with the project folder. The only people in the company that need a copy are the field crews who go out away from the office. The drafting department and engineering department could look at the information straight from their computer thus eliminating the need to print multiple copies for different departments.

Steps toward going Green• According to knowledge.org, some of the benefits of going green are cost reduction

and improving efficiency. There are a few subjective benefits including improved client service. As long as the filing system on the network is easily navigable, going green with our company records could improve customer relations. If a client calls and wants to know if we have done a survey on their house in the past, the secretary would be able to look on her computer instead of getting up and going to the vault and sifting through the paper records. The filing system on the network is set up based on counties. Within those county folders are all the cities that are located within that county. In each city folder is all the subdivisions in that city. You could then find the subdivision you were looking for, open it up, and find the block and lot for the house survey you are working on. Engineering has a little different set up but is very similar. Instead of having folders separated by subdivisions, it has folders such as road construction, sewer systems, airport projects, and also new subdivisions we are designing within that county/city. Once this system was set up, we began scanning our records starting in Andrews County with the different subdivisions. West Texas Consultants is over fifty years old and has a large amount of records. We have even hired a part-time clerical to help with the process of transferring to electrical filing.

Graph

Graph

• Looking at an average of 4 copies of paper per project and only 10 projects per month equals 480 per year. I multiplied that by two to include incidentals coming up with 960 per year. In 10 years this totals 9600 and according to Wikipedia a single tree can yield around 9000 sheets of paper. I didn’t include the amount of paper that WTC uses to put engineering specs together which can total around 100 pages per book with anywhere from 4 books to 20 books per project. Also not included in that graph is the amount of wasted paper when a copy doesn’t come out right. So as you can see, WTC uses more than 960 sheets of paper per year.

Conclusion

• With the amount of National and State parks/forests in the U.S., Americans are lucky to have the opportunity to break away from the concrete and steel wonderlands we have created and enjoy the outdoors. With our capitalistic mentality, we are capable of using up and destroying many of the things we love so much. Therefore, it is important that we all find ways to go green so that there will be a green tomorrow.