EDMS software, or engineering document management system software, is a robust platform that can centralize your engineering documentation and streamline your operations.

What Is EDMS Software?

EDMS software, or engineering document management system software, helps organizations centralize, store, search, and access engineering documentation, drawings, and data from a variety of systems and locations, thus increasing productivity, reducing mistakes from incorrect document versions, and ultimately helping companies save money.

Many companies consider their EDMS to be one of the most powerful tools in their software collection as it helps them manage complex engineering documentation, optimize plant operations, improve operational insights, achieve and maintain governmental compliance regulations and standards, and streamline workflows within departments for increased efficiency. It can also help organizations overcome their most pressing day-to-day pain points, including:

  • Difficulty ensuring compliance with control procedures and requirements
  • Trouble numbering, sorting, and filing important electronic and hard copy documents
  • Inconsistent collaboration and siloed information across departments
  • Low accessibility to data that can maximize staff productivity and support personnel safety
  • Complicated work order management and data entry errors
  • Data security and disaster recovery concerns

Introducing Meridian, Accruent’s EDMS Platform

Primary EDMS Software Functions

A robust, comprehensive EDMS software has several primary functions. It can keep your critical engineering documentation centralized, accurate, and easily accessible. This can streamline manual processes and replace pen and paper, ultimately increasing employee productivity, asset uptime, and ROI across facilities and departments.

  • Analyze data for actionable insight
  • Automate work order processes
  • Help users automatically import and validate data
  • Effectively move documents through the various stages of their workflow
  • Facilitate document review and approval
  • Integrate with other business-critical systems for comprehensive insights

What Can You Accomplish with EDMS Software?

You can accomplish a lot with the right EDMS software, including effective storage and management of accurate information, integrations with EAM software and other mission-critical systems, data automation, robust customizations, and compliance support.

Customize Document Management

Meridian EDMS software is customizable to be as robust or as simple as your business needs. Immediately upon implementation, you can use EDMS software to effectively store and manage your electronic documents, and it can be integrated with other systems as needed, including your EAM software. With Meridian, you can:

  • Import and organize pen and paper documents
  • Easily archive electronic records that are no longer active
  • Create customizable workflows to inform users of their responsibilities and automate key tasks
  • Automatically transitions comments and photos from maintenance to engineering departments  
  • Access document management information via mobile devices, thereby eliminating the need for printouts
  • Maintain relationships between CAD models, assets, and documents
  • Access your important technical documentation and EAM data in just one click
​​​​accruent meridian documents dashboard EDMS software
Figure 1: Meridian Documents Dashboard 

Simplify Compliance

With Meridian’s engineering document management system, you can streamline inspections and ensure your business is always ready for the audit process. Maintain compliance easily with:

  • Automated document routing, escalation, and document approval  
  • Document change controls that allow you to spot and control any changes to your documents with ease  
  • Robust reporting capabilities  
  • Document version control to help you maintain compliance with regulatory bodies  
  • Effective standard operating procedures (SOPs) that make it easier to obtain ISO certification

Maximize Your Connectivity

Connect your engineering document management software with other mission-critical systems and processes to maximize efficiency and help your users draw comprehensive insights. More specifically, connect your EDMS software to:

  • Your computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) to break down silos, develop comprehensive insights, increase document security, and ensure that your asset information is accurate throughout the entire asset lifecycle.
  • Your CAD software systems so you can store, manage, render, and visualize your 2D and 3D drawings.
  • Mobile devices so you can access and edit documents from a tablet or smartphone
  • Your customer relationship management (CRM) platform
  • Accounting software for comprehensive billing and financial insight

Ensure Your Documentation is Complete

Incomplete or out-of-date documentation can lead to increased downtime, rework, and lower employee productivity. Meridian EDMS can help ensure that documentation is comprehensive using:

  • Proper implementation
  • Advanced product training
  • Technical support
  • Automations
  • Accessibility across devices

Automate Your Data

Effective engineering document management requires a significant degree of automation. Meridian EDMS software provides this kind of automation, ultimately increasing employee productivity, ensuring document accuracy, and decreasing manual errors. Automation capabilities include:

  • Document imports
  • Grouping of documents with related purchase orders, receipts, drawings, and more.
  • Document-driven workflows
  • Approval of invoices
  • Creation of purchase orders

Ready to See How It Works?

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Work with Accruent’s EDMS Experts

You’re not on your own when it comes to implementing your Meridian EDMS software. When it’s time to get started, Accruent experts will build the implementation, test it, and provide the templates, plans, feedback, and training you need to succeed. They will also help you resolve any concerns that could hinder implementation, such as data cleanliness, IT, and business processes. Schedule a call with an Accruent professional today

After implementing your Meridian solution, you’ll continue to have access to many Accruent resources, including post-go-live support and the Accruent Academy. These services are designed to help you accelerate adoption, build a profitable business, and move forward in developing a culture of continuous improvement.

Whitepaper: Comprehensive Guide to Implementing Accruent’s Meridian

Learn what to expect and how to simplify the Meridian implementation process.

Understanding the Benefits and ROI of EDMS Software

By digitizing and streamlining your document management using EDMS software, your company can see immediate revenue gains and big-picture boosted ROI.

In the short term, this can be seen as reduced paperwork costs, increased employee productivity, and reallocated office supply budgets. In the big picture, an EDMS system will:

  • Provide a single source of truth for mission-critical information
  • Streamline collaboration across departments
  • Help ensure that every document change is adequately tracked and managed
  • Facilitate regulatory compliance with all relevant bodies
  • Streamline task completion
  • Connect all the departments within your organization

 These improvements, in turn, will help you automate and optimize processes, develop a data-driven business model, and transform your business efficiency.

EDMS Software Stats

FAQ: EDMS Software Frequently Asked Questions

What is an electronic document management system?

An electronic document management system (eDMS) is a type of software that stores, organizes, and manages documents in the form of electronic files for an organization. This system works best for documents that do not undergo much change, such as legal files, financial reports, marketing collateral, and scanned posts.

What does EDMS mean?

The acronym EDMS has many synonyms — including electronic document management system (eDMS), engineering document management system (EDMS), enterprise document management system, and engineering drawing management software — which can sometimes lead to confusion. An engineering document management system is a type of electronic document management system focusing specifically on engineering documents, drawings, and data, which tend to be more complex and dynamic than other files. When people use the term EDMS, they generally refer to a software — or suite of software tools — that is used to centralize an organization’s documentation and ultimately improve collaboration and ROI.

What is the purpose of EDMS software?

The purpose of EDMS software is to keep all relevant engineering documents and drawings in one place. This ultimately provides a single source of truth for mission-critical information. It also streamlines collaboration with all internal departments and ensures that every document change is properly tracked and managed. Likewise, an EDMS helps maintain regular compliance with all relevant regulatory bodies and connects all departments within an organization to ensure everyone is on the same page.

How do you use EDMS software?

The first step in using EDMS software is gathering and digitizing all of your relevant engineering documentation, including paper documents and digital files. Once the information is effectively scanned and saved, an EDMS can help you organize, analyze, and use your information to improve your workflows and processes. For example, by looking at the data and automations, you can easily share documents with the right people at the right time. It also allows you to organize documents in standardized formats and file structures, easily store and access information needed to maintain compliance or complete a work order, and secure documents to ensure ongoing compliance over time.

What is EDMS healthcare?

EDMS, or engineering document management systems, are often used in the healthcare industry to extend equipment life through predictive maintenance, accelerate service requests and repairs, ensure compliance with The Joint Commission and DNV GL regulations, improve labor productivity, and drive down asset and productivity-related costs. An engineering document management system can accomplish all of this by consolidating the core asset data needed for preventive maintenance, including operating and maintenance procedures, vendor manuals, and other essential information.

What can you do with Meridian’s EDMS software?

Meridian’s engineering document management software provides the functionality and customization capabilities to manage and optimize your documents effectively. Use Meridian to consolidate hard copies on an electronic archive, easily save and unify online files, create customized workflows with individual user permissions, implement document management in various departments, and maximize document security.

Who uses EDMS software?

Businesses and individuals in many resource-heavy industries use EDMS software, including biotech, government, healthcare, manufacturing, oil & gas, transportation, and utilities. EDMS software resolves recurring pain points in all organizations by simplifying document management, improving document integrity, increasing internal bandwidth, decreasing security and disaster recovery risks, reducing data entry errors, and removing interdepartmental siloes.

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