Scanning & Digitization Services for Construction Files: Building Permits, Drawings, Plans, Certificates & Other Documents

If you work for a municipality or a city archive, you may be familiar with the complexities associated with storing, maintaining, retrieving and making building files and construction permits accessible to citizens and other parties with legal authority to view the documents. It is no easy task considering that a typical construction file contains a large number of documents of different sizes and in various conditions. These documents are often modified, copied, re-used on location and sometimes altogether lost.

To complicate things even further, building files also happen to be just the kind of documents that citizens and various agencies request and consult the most. Therefore, making these building files and documents digitally accessible, especially now that most governments are on a path to complete digital transformation, has become one of the top priorities for local authorities everywhere.

Digitize your construction / building files to:

  • Improve and provide a better service to the public, easy and user-friendly access
  • Save archive space by replacing physical files with digital ones (substitution)
  • Make your building documents ready for transfer to E-depot
  • Ensure that even if the original documents are damaged or lost, a digital replica is always available
  • Significantly simplify search for and retrieval of construction related documents
  • Make file sharing between all parties concerned as easy and efficient as possible
  • Make it easy to work with files (for example, zoom in on minute details via a computer screen)
  • Streamline and optimize your document retention processes

We can expertly scan all kinds of documents that comprise the building files / construction files in your archive including oversized, wide format or large format documents (up to A0+), such as: architectural drawings, blueprints, construction drawings, building permits, demolition & environmental permits, floor plans, site plans, inspection certificates, photographs, design/engineering calculations, specifications, soil reports, plumbing plans, drainage plans, and much more.

Blueprint (floor plan)

 

With over 30 years of experience in scanning, indexing and archiving massive volumes of documents, we know how to meet and exceed your special digitization requirements. Our scanning & digitization services are delivered through our ScanFactory division by highly qualified, security-cleared personnel that are dedicated to quality construction file scanning.

Convert your analogue archive to digital construction files today!

Superior Equipment & Technology

We use only the highest quality scanners available on the market today, and you can expect the quality of your scanned images to be even better than the quality of the original. Our professional, top-of-the-line scanners come equipped with features that bring out every detail in your originals and can scan virtually every type of document in any format, including large format documents up to A0+. In addition, we use our own proprietary technology to control, streamline and automate all our scanning operations, from A to Z – ScanFactory Resource Planning (SRP). It was developed entirely in-house by our expert personnel. Its main purpose is to reduce human intervention to an absolute minimum and remove the risk of human error. This highly sophisticated, one-of-a-kind technology offers complete traceability and provides full real-time reporting functionality.

Customer Portal

The Customer Portal allows you to search for and consult the status of every document processed by ScanFactory at any point in time (e.g. In Transport, In Scanning, etc.). The Portal also makes it possible to make requests for urgent scanning or physical delivery of a particular document, and view full history of such requests. All information and metadata about every single document, including its exact physical location, are stored in the SRP database and can be retrieved on-demand.

Construction File Scanning & Digitization Process

Our experienced project managers and consultants will work with your personnel to determine the special requirements of your digitization project. One of the key items to discuss are the main objectives / purposes of digitizing your construction files as these will determine how the files will need to be scanned and indexed. For example, if one of your objectives is to make the digital construction files ready for E-depot, then specific metadata requirements will apply. All our procedures are designed to maintain a high degree of accuracy throughout the process. In addition, our personnel are highly trained professionals who are experienced in handling construction files, including documents that are folded, rolled-up, flat, brittle or delicate. We are committed to ensuring best quality capture from even the most challenging originals.

A typical building file scanning project involves the following steps:

  • One of our consultants meets with your staff to determine the file types, scanning resolution and indexes / metadata needed for your documents
  • A secure and sealed iGuana vehicle comes and picks up your construction files / building files and transports them to our digitization facility
  • Our expert ScanFactory personnel prepare, scan and index your construction files to your specifications
  • Digital images and metadata are delivered to you securely via VPN or on an encrypted drive in your preferred format

Document Preparation, Clean-up & Classification

We will prepare your construction files for scanning by cleaning up, sorting, classifying and organizing the documents. Building files often contain duplicates of various documents – we will identify and remove them prior to digitization. We will also organize you construction documents (e.g. by type: plans, specifications, calculations, etc.) and classify them (e.g. using barcodes, separation sheets, etc.) to ensure that their digital versions end up in the right place in the digital construction file.

Quality Control & Image Enhancement

First and foremost, a set of clearly defined quality control procedures governs every single step of our scanning & digitization process, from Pick-up of your documents to Metadata & Image Delivery. Every action taken in relation to individual documents is tracked in our SRP system in real time. The SRP system has built-in quality control features (as do all the scanners used at our digitization centre). Complex quality control algorithms analyze every single image, flag images that are suspected to have a quality issue and automatically alert our Quality Supervisor to take action. In addition, SRP utilizes a 16-core server dedicated exclusively to post-scan image processing. It performs a variety of algorithmic image enhancement functions (in addition to native scanner functions).

Our scanners utilize high-end lenses that are specially designed for scanning resolution, ensuring against various issues such as uneven sharpness, chromatic errors, colour fringing, etc. They are also equipped with advanced features that bring out unseen details and restore even the faintest originals. Other quality control features include, but are not limited to: full image adjustment control, auto-rotation, auto-alignment, deskewing, sharpening and smoothing filters, black and white level adjustment, RGB level adjustment, and more.

Indexing 

We will work with you to ensure that all your documents are scanned and indexed in accordance with your requirements and objectives (e.g. to make them E-depot ready, etc.). Our personnel are trained in capturing all kinds of information from construction files, including technical and descriptive metadata. For example, we can capture descriptive information and revision dates from the title block of drawing scans or from anywhere else on the surface of drawings, plans, blueprints and other documents; project plans and other multi-page documents can be captured as a single set or as multi-page files that encompass various plans or drawings from the same set, etc. We can also perform OCR for text searchable PDF files and prepare images and metadata for import into your back-end databases or document management software.

Metadata & Image Delivery

Delivery of images and metadata can be done via a Direct File Transfer method (VPN) or External Storage Device method (e.g. encrypted Hard Disk, USB sticks, etc.). You decide which option suits you best. Delivery is a fully automated process governed entirely by SRP. During scanning, all digitized images and metadata are stored directly in the SRP database. These images and metadata are automatically exported from SRP without any human intervention whatsoever. As a result, you have virtually unlimited flexibility in choosing your preferred image and metadata file formats.

Repacking & Archive Storage After Digitization

If you wish to keep physical construction files / building files after scanning, we can also repack them for you in a way that will help you save physical archive space. We do this by neatly packing all your construction documents into acid-free, properly labelled archive boxes and providing a full inventory list. Your physical documents are now ready for long-term storage. Alternatively, we can also store these documents for you.

Privacy & Security

iGuana takes matters of privacy, security and data protection very seriously. We have an in-house Data Protection Officer (DPO) on staff who is responsible for ensuring compliance with internal privacy & security policies and implementing procedures in line with GDPR and with the ISO 27001 standard for information security.

  • In-house DPO on staff
  • Strict access controls; 24/7 monitoring
  • Ban on Wi-Fi & mobile phones
  • Background checks & confidentiality agreements
  • Secure transportation & sealed storage
  • Secure image & metadata delivery
  • Confidential certified destruction

 

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