JCJ Architecture has been in business since 1936, designing buildings in the commercial and institutional arenas. They have five offices in Boston, Hartford, New York City, Phoenix, and San Diego and are registered in 33 additional U.S. cities.
Countless jobs have generated an abundance of documents over the decades that have been archived with brick and mortar storage companies. While this system has served them well, issues recently began cropping up. Along with a huge time lag between requesting documents from vendors and receiving them, there was a huge price tag.
With new technologies available, the firm realized that switching to digital archiving was inevitable. Once the decision was made, the only question remaining was which solution to choose.
JCJ went with ARC Archives. They were drawn to its comprehensive, secure, and easy-to-use system for immediate access to the most up-to-date project information. Plus, as document needs grow, ARC’s expandable, cloud-based platform would provide seamless access to critical data from multiple points and various devices.
The Perfect Partnership
One of the most important reasons they selected ARC, however, was not related to technology but to domain expertise.
“ARC’s knowledge of the architecture world was very important to us because we were able to leverage their understanding of best practices within the industry,” recalled John Taylor, JCJ Senior Associate and Controller.
Since AIM was implemented, JCJ has seen clear differences in the way they do business, everything from increased productivity to efficient collaboration. And with features such as in-document, Google-like search and most current document versioning, information is always accurate and easy to find.
Attention to detail is another reason JCJ found ARC to be the perfect partner.
“They arranged for our records to be transported to their scanning location and allowed us to visit on a regular basis to ensure that the records were being transitioned correctly,” added Taylor.
Economical and Ecological
The enormous financial benefits associated with ARC Archives have not been lost on JCJ. Over the next five years they expect to save about 30% on archiving costs, courtesy of decreased spending on paper, supplies, and inks, as well as maintenance on printers and copiers. And less paper waste means lower recycling and disposal fees.
Then there’s the more than 12,000 cubic feet of JCJ documents no longer being stored.
“The fact that a million pages are now being recycled where they can be used for other purposes is very satisfying,” said Ann Iseley, JCJ Principal and CFO.
Clearly, going the digital archiving route has had a profound effect on JCJ.
“ARC has given us a tool that hasn’t changed who we are at the core as a company,” explained Julia Hinchliffe, JCJ Records Manager. “What it has done is given us a tool to help us improve our operations — and that makes us a better, sustainable company.”
