Document scanning success story: City council digitises office administration

Customer Success Stories

Find out how Iron Mountain supports the Foreigners' Registration Office in the town of Schwäbisch Gmünd with digitisation and records management.

1 June 20218 mins

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City council optimises foreigners’ registration office administration with digital processes

Challenge:

With over 11,000 brief cases stored in ageing carousel units, the Foreigners’ Registration Office in Schwäbisch Gmünd was running out of space while wasting unnecessary time and effort processing rising immigration cases.

Solution:

Iron Mountain® Backfile Scanning provided a fast, efficient, and data protection (GDPR) compliant process, converting legacy paper files and handwritten notes into digital records for uploading via SFTP to the council’s document management system.

Results

Staff work more efficiently and respond quicker to court and agency requests. There’s also less risk of essential documents getting lost or mislaid. Other benefits include space savings, lower storage costs and continuous access to files for remote workers

Simplifying pressured office processes

Purchasing three new storage carousels would have cost about ¤120,000 and we would still be left with the same administration and space problems.

Christian DolleProject Leader, Stadtverwaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd

Sprawling hard-to-manage archive

Outdated paper-based work practices

Set in the picturesque foothills of the Swabian Alb and Dreikaiserberge mountains, the town of Schwäbisch Gmünd is home to around 60,000 people. The city council had been moving towards digital public services and e-government processes. Due to the influx of refugees, the Foreigners’ Registration Office for Immigration had come under particular pressure and thus moved into the spotlight.

“Records management became increasingly challenging at the Foreigners’ Registration Office,” says Project Leader, Christian Dolle. “There were over 11,000 paper files kept in carousel storage units, which were timeworn and beyond repair. Fast running out of room, we had to install temporary racks taking up more and more office space.”

Solid commercial case

Having recently introduced a document management system and integrated it with LaDiVA, a programme that is used by other German immigration authorities, the council seized the opportunity to move to digital records. The decision made sound financial sense too. “Purchasing three new storage carousels would have cost about ¤120,000 and we would still be left with the same administration and space problems,” adds Dolle.