Quality Associates Builds Archive for Anne Arundel County Maryland

Background

The government offices of Anne Arundel County, Maryland are located in the state capital of Annapolis. With print archives dating back nearly 100 years, Anne Arundel County’s offices include storage rooms filled with more than 300 boxes containing nearly 1 million pages of County Council Legislative documents including bills, resolutions, supporting documentation and zoning maps – essentially, all of the records dealing with the regular operations of a county government.

Challenge

Reliance on print records placed the County at a disadvantage. For example, the archives primarily consisted of hard-copy documents, which put decades of County Legislative records at risk in the event of a disaster. Locating essential documentation, such as specific Bills and Resolutions, for County Council members and constituents was time consuming. To find documents, staff manually searched numerous print indexes and bound volumes of legislative records – a process that could take up to several hours.

Solution

Aging archives presented another major concern. Many documents, such as meeting minutes dating back to the 1920s, were very fragile and required handling with the utmost care.

Anne Arundel County needed to preserve decades of information to ensure the availability of its content for years to come. The County turned to Quality Associates Inc. (QAI), a systems integrator with extensive experience in developing customized electronic document management (ECM) systems for numerous counties and government agencies. QAI worked closely with Anne Arundel County staff to understand the County’s requirement and goals.

                                                                                                READ THE FULL CASE STUDY

Quality Associates Creates Accessible Digital Archive for Bucks County Domestic Relations Office

Challenge
Tasked with handling cases for more than 38,000 families, the County processes massive volumes of information - including millions of hard-copy pages and several types of electronic documents, including PDFs, e-mails and computer files. To accurately track and process all case files -- from the initial filing and docketing to the court hearing and intake into the County system -- the Domestic Relations Office relied on an outdated paper-based process.

As Thomas Stoehr, Deputy Director, Office of Domestic Relations, Bucks County, explained, "We relied on dozens of employees to spend the majority of their day physically moving paperwork. As a result, large amounts of information were missing and misfiled. In addition, with a satellite facility 25 miles away in Bristol, we relied on a courier and the fax to deliver needed information to the appropriate location at great effort and expense."

Often, dozens of County employees may need to be involved in a single case and this presented a logistical challenge for the agency. Sharing information often required hand-delivering files to the caseworker who required them - whether the employee was on another floor in the same building or working from the satellite facility in Bristol. This constant movement of files increased the possibility that paperwork could be damaged or even lost permanently.

Solution
Bucks County turned to Quality Associates Inc. (QAI), a systems integrator with a strong track record in developing customized electronic document management (ECM) systems for numerous counties and government agencies. QAI worked directly with County staff to develop a hardware and software solution to meet its specific requirements. Accuracy and quality were major factors.

READ THE FULL CASE STUDY