Metrofile, SA`s leading document and records management specialist, has invested R3.5 million in a digital conversion, storage and retrieval processing centre in Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal.
The processing centre now caters for the full lifecycle of document and records management, from paper records to digital assets, for corporate clients, several banks and the local regional council.
"The upgraded processing centre has the infrastructure to adapt to client requirements and to deliver and store corporate assets in the most appropriate and cost-effective manner," says Trevor Cook, Metrofile KwaZulu-Natal MD. "The new facility makes digital document management available to our clients in the greater uMhlatuze region, as opposed to having access to this only in Durban."
The processing centre consists of a 900 square metre warehouse which is 10.5 metres high, with 322 square metres of office space situated on a 3 312 square metre property. The warehouse can store 105 000 boxes and there is sufficient land for a second warehouse to be built.
"The processing centre contains a vault for digital storage media which is dust-free, temperature and humidity controlled and fireproof. This makes it particularly suited to what many clients use the processing centre for - disaster recovery," says Clive Sivil, Metrofile Zululand regional manager.
The premises have 24-hour security, an electric fence and electronic monitoring linked to armed response.
"The previous facility could only store paper, and if a client wanted to view a document we would have to find it and physically transport it to them, but with this new facility we can offer them a scanning service to speed up the process. We will scan client documents at our new processing centre bureau and can return them almost immediately, imaged and indexed on a CD-ROM," says Sivil.
Cook says this is particularly valuable to companies in the region looking to meet the King II Commission and ECT Act requirements, which make electronic documents legal tender.
"Information is an asset which needs to be delivered in the right format, to the right place at the right time," says Cook. "We now have the technical infrastructure to achieve that. We are excited about the future of the region and in the final stages of a tender process that will use the full service offering of the processing centre."
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