MSF Global Delivers Document Management Solution to Support Drainage Program Management

The Need

Following one of the largest man-made disasters in the History of the United States,the City of New Orleans is faced with the daunting challenge of restoring it’s infrastructure to support it’s citizenry everyday life but to also keep the City dry. Hurricane Katrina only exacerbated a drainage network that was in disrepair and in badly need of an overhaul.

As the Program management team responsible for overseeing the rehabilitation of the City’s drainage network, Chester Engineers must ensure critical projects funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Public Assistance Program are management and documented correctly. One key challenge was to develop the system while work was moving forward and to deliver the first shippable product 45 days after project commencement.

The Process

MSF Global met with Chester Engineers program management team to establish the initial product vision and define user stories. A key requirement coming out of this was the various levels of user access required and the security required to store sensitive documents.

With the vision and user stories defined, MSF begin designing the screens and functionality user sketches and mockup tools. These were shared with the client and provided a common view for gaining understanding of the target implementation for the features.We were able to efficiently and rapidly document feedback and final design so developmentcould start.

For development MSF Global identified a framework and design patterns that will help expedite feature development and provide the client with a usable system within a short time frame.

Results

The first phase of the Drainage Program Records Management System (DPRMS) was completedin February 2012. The system supports critical document management and collaboration among Chester Engineers, its client the Sewerage and Water Board and the program funder – FEMA. The systems supports document storage, retrieval and versioning functions.The DPRMS allows users to view document and program related info via project and facility views. This keeps information and documents organized and easily retrieval
by users.