DEPARTMENT: Finance
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Troy Elliott
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City Wide
SUBJECT:
Large Image Scanning of Plan Sets
SUMMARY:
This ordinance authorizes a contract with Open Text, Inc. to scan and index 270,685 building plan sheets which will be converted to digital files and stored electronically for a total cost of $312,000.00. The City's Information and Technology Services Department will manage the upload of these digital files into FileNet. Funding will be in accordance with the Department's adopted budget approved by City Council.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
The Development Services Department received 3,276 commercial building plans in FY2014 and is responsible for managing and permanently storing these plans. The current process for storing plans is to roll them up and store them in banker's boxes in the department until the plans can be scanned and converted to digital files. Accessing plan sets is a manual process and over the last five years the Development Services Department has scanned over 12,500 plans and converted approximately 530,000 pages to digital media.
Texas State Law requires the retention of building plans for the life of the building or 99 years. Development Services was originally storing plan sets in the City's Municipal Records Facility but in 2009 the department was informed that space was limited and the Records Facility was unable to continue to take in additional hard copy plan sets. Development Services explored several options, including renting storage space for plan sets, but this only provided a temporary solution and did not resolve the space limitations. In 2009, Development Services began converting hard copy plans to electronic documents and storing them in File Net. The plan sets can easily be retrieved by employees, with proper access, through a web interface or from any City networked computer which tremendously speeds up the process of finding and referencing large scale plan sets as needed.
Due to the large volume of plans that currently need to be scanned, it is more efficient to outsource the scanning of plans. The recommended vendor, Open Text has successfully implemented and completed several City scanning projects.
This procurement will be made via cooperative purchasing agreement No. 920C-1 through the Texas Council on Competitive Government which is managed by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.
ISSUE:
This contract would authorize Open Text, Inc. to scan and index 270,685 building plan sheets which will be converted to digital files and stored electronically. Open Text, Inc. will pick up batched documents to scan at a City of San Antonio designated location, scan and index the documents and return the original plans and index spreadsheet to the City of San Antonio upon completion. Digital files will then be made available to the Information and Technology Services Department for importation into FileNet.
This contract is within the scope of the Small Business Economic Development Advocacy (SBEDA) Program. However, due to the type of commodities/services being procured and value of the contract, no SBEDA tool is available.
This contract is an exception to the Local Preference Program.
The Veteran-Owned Small Business Preference Program does not apply to goods/supplies contracts, so no preference was applied to this contract.
ALTERNATIVES:
Should this contract not be approved, the Development Services Department will continue to physically store the plan sets in hard copy which takes up excessive floor space. The Development Services Department will continue to face challenges such as lack of physical storage space and difficulties in quickly accessing stored plans in hard copy form.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The total cost for this contract is $312,000.00. Funding for this agreement is provided in the FY2015 Development Services Fund Budget.
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends approval of the contract with Open Text, Inc. to scan and index 270,685 building plan sheets and convert to electronic format for a total cost of $312,000.00.
This contract is procured by means of cooperative purchasing and a Contract Disclosure form is not required.