Development and implementation of an enterprise content management system for the CSIR-Food Research Institute

Abstract

Today’s enterprises create an increasing volume of unstructured content that includes documents, e-mail messages, videos, images, instant messages, Web pages, and other digital assets. The steadily decreasing costs for storage space and the general availability of large scale storage systems, enable enterprises to store all their relevant business data. However, this content often exists in a state of unmanaged chaos with little or no routines regarding capturing, storing, sharing, retrieving, archiving, etc. which prevents an enterprise from properly using these valuable assets for better collaboration, knowledge sharing, improved customer and vendor communications, compliance, and increased process efficiency. Hence enterprises are facing increasing challenges concerning management of their content. The Food Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is a leading food research institution in Ghana where there is an immense amount of unstructured content and information created and received internally and externally every day. However, these content are scattered across staff personal computers and exits in an unmanaged state. This project seeks to develop and implement a secure and robust web-based ECM system solution using the Alfresco platform, an open source ECM software that will take control of the unstructured content and enhance the information management routines. The project focuses on managing the unstructured content with an enterprise-wide approach. The end result was a successfully rolled out ECM system that easily controls the volumes of information for a comprehensive member view, streamline business processes, and capture documents electronically. The system provided a platform for management and staff of the Institute to store, manage and share the organizational documents (project documents, forms, lab reports, memo, training materials, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, web pages, photos, videos, documentary, digital assets, email messages, notices, research findings, research proposals, research reports etc) in a centralized repository. This allows users from different divisions to access their content, latest revision documents anywhere anytime and on any device