Since 1956, FFA Architecture + Interiors, based in Portland, Oregon, has been driven to maintain the highest level of quality. And clearly they have, winning over 80 design awards at local, regional, and national levels for both public and private sector projects.
Ironically, this firm, known for its attention to detail, found itself bogged down in the details of what to do with the more than 1500 boxes of blueprints, mechanical drawings, and every-thing in between being kept in a document storage facility. A plan to remove them and turn them into digital files was a top priority for a while, but it never got off the ground.
“We had been considering bringing a scanning program into the office for quite some time,” said IT Manager Josh Rosenbaum. “However, the human power it would take to do it all was cost prohibitive.”
Equally cost prohibitive were the fees being charged by the storage facility, which ranged from the monthly fee and box-removal fee to the transportation fee and box-pulling fee.
A Voice in the Digital File Wilderness
At the end of 2013, Rosenbaum got a call from Dave Clark, Account Manager at ARC, regarding printing services, which ARC has been handling for FFA for the past few years. During the conversation, Clark mentioned that they also offered a cloud-based Archiving solution.
The timing was impeccable.
Soon after, Clark and Aaron Storck, ARC’s Regional Technology Services Consultant, arrived to do a presentation for Rosenbaum and FFA Principal Troy Ainsworth.
“We explained that we could remove, scan, digitize, and host the documents at approximately the same price they would be paying the storage facility over the next seven years,” recalled Storck. “And after five years, their only expense would be a monthly hosting and maintenance fee.”
A skeptical Ainsworth asked, “What’s the catch?”
A straight-faced Storck replied, “There is no catch.”
Knowledgeable and Flexible
Not only are ARC professionals well versed in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, they also have extensive experience in conforming — the process of updating past plans when discrepancies between the design and construction phases are discovered. Conforming gives architects the most current documents for their files. And FFA had a ton of plan sets that needed conforming.
“We had hired interns to handle the job, but ARC was able to do it much faster,” said Rosenbaum. “And that translated to additional savings.”
Flexibility is also a big part of the ARC package.
To wit, the storage facility was charging an exorbitant fee for FFA to remove everything and close out their account. Not only did ARC pay this fee, but it provided FFA with the opportunity to finance the cost at very agreeable terms.
“In short, they got a flashlight and showed us the way out of a bad situation,” summed up Rosenbaum, FFA’s supremely appreciative IT manager.
