| Greetings:
Some thoughts on Document Management, Imaging, Document Retrieval/Text
Searching, Workflow including document handling
One of the problems with this discussion, as it always is, is that we
are imprecise in our use of terminology. Below is a brief discussion
of the terms at the top and some positioning of various products.
Document Management: Document management, at a minimum, provides a way
to insure that a user is
a) looking at the most recent version of a
document
b) able to find previous "released" versions if necessary.
The focus of document management is on release control and access of
documents.
Imaging is, IMHO, an underlying or base technology to capture and
display physical pages via a computer system. Once you have images
on-line you must of course be able to retrieve and display them, which
is why imaging systems have developed document retrieval, workflow and
even document management capabilities. But the emphasis has frequently
been on developing vertically integrated industry specific ways of
handling that industry's paperwork by capturing and displaying images.
Document Retrieval/Text Searching/Content-based retrieval: Document
Retrieval systems focus is less on release control and more on
accessibility of information stored in document formats. Studies
suggest that the 80/20 rule applies for how "information" is stored in
organizations: 80% is in documents, 20% in various structured databases
DB2-Rdb-Paradox whatever. Find information located in reports stored
on-line involves either a heck of a lot of sophisticated indexing work
-- hard to develop and harder to maintain -- or some method of
"reading" (and I use the term very loosely) through all that text and
return items of potential interest.
Workflow (including document handling): A hot area and useful buzzword
when talking about documents. The corporate world is beginning to
clue into how we work being at least as crucial as what we are
supposedly accomplishing; thus the general interest in business process
re-engineering, and the specific interest in workflow management (also
related to groupware concepts). I don't have time to write, and you
don't have time to read all of the discussion possible around this
area, but, briefly, workflow in the *document* space attempts to
facilitate the movements of documents (e-mail, forms, reports, drawings
etc) between people on a network. The business objective is part
control (who's got it now) and part elimination of wait states (a week
in this in basket, a week in that out basket can really add up).
Industry Foci:
In addition to the above, specific industries have specific needs for
certain kinds of document handling. People managing drawings for
plants (chemical, nuclear, oil & gas, and aircraft carriers) deal with
configuration management, maintaining the documented model of the
real-world entity over time. People managing product development and
support (auto mfgs, chip makers, pharmaceuticals) tend to call what
they want to do document management and are driven by time-to-market,
concurrent engineering kinds of factors. If you need more detail on
this kind of stuff, contact me directly
JBEICH::BEICHMAN
John Beichman @PLO
DTN 271 6912
THE PRODUCTS
Document Management
EDCS II
For all of its bad reputation, not a bad product and very well sold in
Europe. Limitations had more to do with the VAX fixation than
functionality, although there were some of those.
OpenDATA Manager (EDCS III kinda)
Based on Objectbroker, EDCS II concepts, and Powerframe, OpenDATA Manager
has begun to and will shortly elimiate any issues of platform
dependence for an all-Digital document management software solution.
digital, HP, Sun, IBM (Risc) and the PC Windows world are all
supported in a client server architecture is a very richly configured
set of functionality for document management including workflow.
(Much of the work done in the powerframe area is fully incorporated in
ODM). It initial target markets are in manufacturing environments, but
it is a heck of product on paper and initial demos are very good.
Europe again is taking the lead and selling it hard and well.
RE:Solution/DECedms
History time. RE:Solution provides a VAX system based server, MAC and
PC client engineering documentation control system. Certain pieces go
back to IMPEL days, but most of the product was developed by EA
Systems. RE:Solution (there is a reason for the cute name) was unique
some years ago in that it provided a PC client that could display up
to a J size (that's big) engineering drawing on a minimally configured
386 PC (no expensive hardware compression/decompression boards) with
impressive speed. A hybrid document management & imaging system.
Digital became involved with RE:Solution is a special SI project for an
oil & gas company where we integrated RE:Solution with Excalibur's (see
below) content based retrieval software and created DECedms. Process
marketing liked the potential so much they bought the company (80%
share) from its owners ABB (20% share). We have since bought the whole
thing and brought it in house. Decent product in the right niche. Its
future is uncertain (aren't they all) but I have seen plans which merge
development with ODM and various imaging products such as DECimage
express & megadoc (see below).
3rd parties
NovaSoft (used to be NovaCAD)
Third party document management, strong workflow capability, used to be
one of our major Ultrix offerings, is also on a VAX systems today.
demoes beautifully, decent product.
GEScan. Only read the literature on it. Supposedly a good VAX based
engineering based document management system.
Sherpa
Very influential player with some major customers in the product data
management area. Excellent functionality overall. Haven't seen it in
years, but it is still the Cadillac in price and has a long track
record.
Lots of CAD related ones -- CAD vendors tend to offer ways to manage
drawing files online.
Imaging
DECimage Express, DAS, Megadoc
These are the applications which fall into the imaging definition
above. They are focused on capture and display of paper based
documents, primarily 8.5X11. Indexing, folders, some workflow
capability in place. VAX-based and SCO unix based respectively,
although ports to OSF/1 are underway (completed?). There is an
installed base for both products, which suggests any rationalization
strategy must deal with migration issues. Megadoc is originally from
Phillips and is run out of Appeldorn in the Netherlands. DECimage
express is Rdb-based for its indexing; megadoc is informix I believe.
Wang's Imaging system (works on vax systems too!)
Nice to know you can come back from CHP-11 isn't it?
IBM, Unysis are the other big companies who wish to be/are major
players in imaging systems particularly in the banking and
administrative/government spaces. Xerox, Kodak and others have and are
messing around in imaging as well. BUT the big movement is at the PC
level -- what a surprise, that's where the volume is -- with hundreds
of imaging vendors demoing at AIIM every year.
Workflow
Linkworks
My ignorance is total, other than the fact I understand it to
be a application integrator, providing workflow in the network PC
environment. Who has time to go to training?
TeamLinks
Document routing primarily I believe, but I left the Office world a
long time ago, someone else can fill this one in.
OpenData Manager (Powerframe inheritance) Does provide workflow
capability.
Third parties in the PC world are emerging and, of course, get all the
press.
Content Based Retrieval
I'm only going to list the two I've worked with:
Excalibur Pixtex/EFS
Snazzy fast, good reference sites, pattern recognition software, good
demo'er, expensive, runs on competitive platforms (rs/6000). Exclusive
focus on full-text search and retrieval.
Verity/Topic
Slightly different approach to full-text retrieval, working with the
alternate approach of 'knowledge-based' retrieval. Where Excalibur
excels in recall, finding everything that might be related to your
query, Verity tries to excel in precision, finding exactly the correct
response to your query. I do believe that the Verity technology
formed the basis of our own CBR product, but I'm not a hundred percent
on that and certainly do not know the status of our CBR engine.
Worldview
Interleaf's product for technical documentation presentation across
platforms. Replaces Bookreader for Digital (and its customers)
worldwide I do believe. Never seen it.
If people want to add to this list, feel free. I'll be happy to
incorporate additions and correction, put in postscript and place it on
the net and voila, a positioning paper!
regards,
johnb
|