Qwest Communications makes 4.6 million records available to over 3,000 users in a 14 state area

Qwest Communications needed to store, manage, and revise over 800,000 outside plant facilities drawings for their facilities located in 14 western states.

Due to their re-engineering/centralization efforts the Outside Plant Records need to be stored in central location but available to users throughout the 14 states.

In January of 1994, Qwest decided to implement a Cimage Electronic Document Management System (EDMS), combined with Cimage's easy to use scanning and raster editing tool, ImageMaster. This system was completely installed in Qwest's Denver, Colorado based design engineering center within 4 weeks of procurement. Contract workers were hired and trained to scan and index the paper drawings which would ultimately be converted into TIFF format and stored on magnetic and optical disk. Over time, the system and its various functions have been geographically dispersed to maximize its efficiency.

Qwest now uses over 2400 non simultaneous copies of the UNIX ImageMaster Motif raster editor, and they have over 800 concurrent user licenses. The system is used for everything from creating and posting engineering work orders to CD ROM to viewing outside print records on PCs. On average 1,270 new scans are entered into the Cimage Document Manager every day, bringing the archive to well over 4.6 million records. The system is used by approximately 3,000 users at over 100 office sites on a daily basis, with users printing up to 5000 drawings per day. US West plans to continue to use the Cimage EDMS for many years to come, as it has become and integral part of their day to day business.

Qwest has their own internal EDMS support structure comprising of database, operating system, network and training/user support personnel. The overall success of the Qwest implementation can certainly be credited to this team, as well as the underlying support of the Access Systems Customer Support and Professional Services groups who themselves are committed to complete customer satisfaction.