The Association of Information and Imaging Management (AIIM) announced today that the County of Orange was one of three winners of its prestigious Best Practices Award for 2003. David E. Sundstrom, county Auditor-Controller accepted the award on behalf of the county at the association&singlequot;s annual convention that was attended by over 20,000 industry professionals. Encompassing North America and Europe, the AIIM Best Practices Award recognizes innovative applications of document and/or process management technologies to solve critical business requirements. The term "Best Practice" denotes a standard of excellence that has been achieved within an organization and refers to a process that can be quantified, adapted, and repeated. These awards were established to acknowledge personal or organizational excellence within the enterprise content management industry.

Sundstrom accepted the award for the Electronic Report Management and Imaging (ERMI) system. ERMI provides nearly 800 system users with online access to over 12,000 financial reports and 1 million documents that support financial transactions that are produced annually. Also accepting an award was A. J. Hyland of Hyland Software, the developer of the OnBase technology that serves as the backbone of the ERMI system. The county has estimated that the system saves over $2 million per year in print, distribution and document retrieval costs while costing less that $200,000 to maintain. According to Sundstrom, "the recognition for this award is particularly gratifying given the funding shortfalls that will be experienced by the county that are resulting from the State&singlequot;s economic woes." As impressive as the cost savings are, Sundstrom thinks the most beneficial aspect of the system is the increased accountability it provides for the county. He adds, "with this system all transactions are available to all users at all times. It&singlequot;s like having an additional 800 auditors continually reviewing the county&singlequot;s business."