Forms control in records management systems - Document (2024)

Date: July 1991

From: Records Management Quarterly(Vol. 25, Issue 3)

Publisher: Association of Records Managers & Administrators (ARMA)

Document Type: Article

Length: 3,756 words

Forms Control in Records Management Systems

Considering that one of the objectives of a well designed records and information management system is to control and hopefully reduce the total accumulation of paper records, it is ironic that one of the fastest growing sources of paper glut in many organizations is frequently overlooked--namely the common form. When well designed and controlled, forms are a useful and even indispensable operational tool. They not only function as a device for the collection and organization of information, but also constitute a "trigger" or initiator for management decisions or operations. However, when poorly designed, or uncontrolled, the creation and maintenance of forms leads to needless duplication, irritating proliferation, and even to increased costs of operations.

In the quality control department of the Phoenix Insurance Company, Elizabeth Stromer was puzzling over the sudden increase in the number of errors and rejections found in the insurance applications coming from the casualty department. She called the casualty department and made an appointment to discuss the problem, and when she met with Dot Flanders, the Casualty Department head, Dot's desk was covered by a mass of papers, mostly the application forms which had been recently rejected.

Dot exclaimed, "Do you see these awful forms? My new boss sent these down a week ago in place of the ones we were used to and my people are having fits trying to fill them out. They're almost as bad as IRS forms! I'm spending all my time trying to catch the errors the staff is making. These forms look prettier than the old ones, but the layout and spacing make it very difficult to insert the right data entries. I'm afraid it's going to take a lot of overtime to get back to our normal productivity level."

At the same time the head of purchasing, Fred Sommers, was walking through the supplies department, (actually a small warehouse filled with all the impediments of a large paper-intensive bureaucracy). He was looking at filled shelves and rows of stacks of paper forms, some of them shrink-wrapped in blocks of varying colors and sizes resting on pallets. Among these, he was perplexed by several large containers of forms coated with dust and obviously not recently opened. He was accustomed to periodic requests from the various departments in the company for replenishment of forms and had worked out a forecasting system, based on observed usage, to determine when the inventory of any given form had been reduced to the point where the form should be reordered--so as to reduce or minimize the likelihood of a shortage.

However, instead of shortages of forms he was being faced by a shortage of storage space and the need for an increased budget to buy new forms. Some of the stored forms had not been requested by the originating department for many months while the same department was ordering new forms. Fred knew he had a problem which could not be resolved without discussion with someone in each department...

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