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Italian public archives of the future will be super-efficient

A leading public IT services company and an Italian government office wanted to rethink their document management processes, redesigning their practices, physical and digital tools and evolving their internal archiving culture. A future-proof framework to enable a radical transformation enabled by new technologies and aimed at efficiency and standardisation.

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Cover pattern

A leading public IT services company and an Italian government office wanted to rethink their document management processes, redesigning their practices, physical and digital tools and evolving their internal archiving culture. A future-proof framework to enable a radical transformation enabled by new technologies and aimed at efficiency and standardisation.

Industry

Public Service & Institutions

Year

2020

Client

Public company for IT services

Services

Organising the present for a secure future

The archives of the Italian government office that participated in the project today suffer from fragmentation due to the widespread distribution of offices in the various municipalities and provinces throughout the country. The same files are managed differently depending on the office, despite the proposed national guidelines.

The archive system is complex and, due to the lack of regulation, chaotic. While initiatives such as the uniformity of folder labels show an interest in standardisation, the lack of control and the absence of a culture of good archiving prevent this.

The folder itself as a minimum storage unit can vary in form and content. The documents within it are not always useful for archiving purposes and the end the information on the coast is not always self-explanatory: there is no general coding standard.

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Old folders of Italian paper archives

Outcome

Through envisioning, backcasting and technology scouting, the new vision of tomorrow's archive was outlined. Based on the storytelling, macro-areas of intervention were defined, on which to focus incrementally in the near future. 

A centralised system to optimise national archiving resources was envisioned, enabling communication and sharing between the different locations, defining a common language and processes, and making it possible to keep track of operations and monitor coded subjects in the archive at different times and places.

The archive as a highly efficient place, whose primary purpose is to make sure that everyone find what others have archived. The moment of archiving becomes an action, a ritual, of very high value for those who will come in the future.

anonymous folders and millions of non-coded documents
500K
explored solutions
Eight

An ecosystem for hybrid and transparent archives

We have designed an ecosystem of processes and tools that ensure a consistent, continuous and complementary experience. Users will naturally interact with both physical touchpoints, such as smart documents and folders, and digital ones, such as connected furniture and centralised platforms.

We have promoted solutions to integrate the new concepts with the current state of paper-based archives, facilitating the transition to the new model and the full digitisation of information assets, while also normalising local differences.

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Archive complexity scheme

The archivist is back, but smarter

We have rethought the government office organisational model, identifying the archivist as the archives manager. The coding and archiving processes and defined standards at national level to meet the nature of different offices and documents.

The archive thus becomes a highly efficient place, whose primary purpose is to ensure that anyone can find what others have archived.

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Example of connected shelves equipped with RFID receivers, detecting folder movement

The content of the archive is tracked in a centralised system. The position of documents, folders and boxes is constantly monitored, from the moment they are placed to when they are transferred or discarded.

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Empty folder placed on the connected tray, generates a digital counterpart

The content of each bundle are digitised in a central system: cataloguing is facilitated by automatic recognition tools, which associate documents with the unique ID of the bundle. 

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Scanning of documents for inclusion in the digital folder

When the documents are digitised, the reference data are automatically read from the Connected Tray; from then on, all the actions carried out on it are recorded. 

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Checking scanned documents

Archivists are supported in their archiving and research work by mobile devices connected to the central system which enable them, for example, to read the contents of folders, find their way around and keep track of ongoing procedures.

AI to optimise space and operations

The artificial intelligence system guides the evaluations and decisions of archive employees in space planning and during a move. The system predicts when space is exhausted or surplus, suggests possible solutions and notifies in advance of any inconvenience.

The central system is structured to handle different user roles, which can be assigned specific tasks. The system allows access to the archive only to authorised users and is able to track their path and actions while they are in the warehouse.

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - The system notifies a move proposal with the relevant details
Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Notification with tasks to complete transfer activity
Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Folders to be transferred are placed in the intelligent packaging area

All the ideas proposed were supported by technological solutions that are widely used in other sectors such as logistics, automotive and large-scale distribution, or in other countries in libraries and national archives. The design humanised and adapted the technological solutions to document management, building an ecosystem at the service of the archive user.

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Entry of a public IT services company

A transformation roadmap

Such a profound transformation of archives and the way they are maintained and updated is a slow process.  A strategic vision and an incremental roadmap for the development of the new system has been defined, taking into account the needs of users, logistical and technological sustainability.

Each office will continue to archive documents as it has always done, but this will be accompanied from the outset by a new, unique codification of archive space, the first fundamental and enabling step in the transformation. This will be followed by the reaction of a new centralised computer system connected to all Italian archives, a necessary step to enable the digital traceability of materials, throughout the country, also with the help of tools to support officials, until the system is fully proactive. 

Sketchin - New Archives for Public Administration - Strategic vision in a roadmap describing actions from the present to the future vision

The project for the transformation of archives was guided by the desire to make the collection of documents organised, simple and capable of returning information and value to those who need to consult it. 

In this way the archive becomes not only the custodian of time, but also the guarantee of a profitable, transparent and efficient relationship between institutions and the tasks they have to fulfil in the interest of citizens and the state.

Project numbers

Italian government office department involved
10+
involved Italian regions
Eight
involved managers
1438

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