Client Profile
Acquisition & Divestitures-Oil & Gas:
Oil and gas company that operates wells to produce oil and natural gas in the United States. The primary business focus of the company is the acquisition/divestiture of oil and gas properties.
Located in Houston, Texas, the company has been in business approximately 25 years and has 1,100 employees. Company operates in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Challenges
The Company faced the challenge of developing a Records Management Program for the Land Administration 25,000 plus filing inches.
Technical Situation
The company acquired an Electronic Records Management System as the result of an acquisition of another company in late 2014. The Electronic Records Management System was implemented upon completion of the physical inventory of the Land Administration File Room.
Business Situation
Company outsourced maintenance of Land Administration File Room to PacoTech in April 2014. There was no Records Management Program in place at the time. The Land Administration File Room (unsecured area) had the responsibility of maintaining the inventory of hard copy documents from acquired properties and transferring hard copy documents to buyers. Folders were checked in/out using a manual system. Two (2) problems existed in this area. First, there was no accurate inventory of the hard copy documents maintained by the Land Administration File Room (25,000+ filing inches). Inventory listings (physical/electronic) were received as worksheets or exhibits received from acquired companies. Inventory listings were not always accurate. Documents were filed on shelves or in boxes. Second, there was no Electronic Records Management System to track records (active/inactive).
Solution
Outsourced responsibilities included the daily maintenance of the Land Administration File Room. This file area was very active, and a need was recognized to improve efficiencies to better serve users. The decision was made to inventory all folders maintained in the area. Information was taken from the folder label and entered on an EXCEL spreadsheet. Information was mapped to a classification system and loaded into the Electronic Records Management System.
Creation of the inventory and use of the Electronic Records Management System allows the Land Administration File Room staff to track all active/inactive folders.
Products and Services Used
RIM Consultant services were utilized to generate the inventory of physical records and load data for the Electronic Records Management System. MS Excel and Access Database were utilized to collect folder descriptions for the inventory/map data.
Land Administration File Room was outsourced to PacoTech in April 2014 with a staff that consisted of three (3) resources. Staff included a Project Supervisor and two (2) Records Specialists. The primary responsibility of this team was to provide record management services to all users of the Land Administration File Room. No additional staff were added to perform the inventory of the Land File Room. Inventory was conducted as time allowed and was completed in 2015.
Land File Room staff inventoried/barcoded 25,100” of active files. There was an upload to the Electronic Records Management System that consisted of 63,265 inactive records and 37,842 active records.
Services Provided by Other Groups or Companies
Company is contracted with Pioneer Records & Information Management and Iron Mountain to provide offsite services. Electronic Records Management System (ERMS) is provided by INI Inc. The Company IT group was utilized to assist in the installation of the Electronic Records Management System (ERMS).
Achievements
- Complete listing of physical records in the Land File Room
- Implementation of the Electronic Records Management System
Positive Reaction
- Improved efficiency
- Increased ease of accessing records
Result
The company now has a complete listing of physical files maintained by the Land Administration File Room. Staff can track physical files maintained in the file area (active) and boxes in storage (inactive). Users can submit requests for service electronically.
Physical documents related to a divestiture are easily located and transferred to the buyers, a requirement of the purchase agreements. This was a time-consuming task for the department with no true way to track accuracy of documents transferred or measure time to retrieve records prior to conducting the inventory of the physical records located in the central file room.
The new Electronic Records Management System (ERMS) provides a mechanism to manage the lifecycle of their records. This will increase productivity, reduce legal costs, and decrease the risk level.
The Electronic Records Management System (ERMS) can also automatically calculate the retention period and destruction date for each record as well as track the location of each box. Retention Schedule Policy did not exist at the time of this project.