Organisation
Rijkswaterstaat manages 3,320 km of motorways and 1,250 km of exits and entrances. A range of Dynamic Traffic Management Systems exists to manage traffic.
Rijkswaterstaat’s Data ICT Service (DID) helps Rijkswaterstaat to fulfil its knowledge and advisory function in the field of infrastructure in the Netherlands. For example, DID advises senior officials at Rijkswaterstaat on the accessibility of government information and how Rijkswaterstaat can respond to ICT developments.
In addition, DID ensures that Rijkswaterstaat staff have access to reliable information and resources for their day-to-day work.
Our solution
“FileLinx allows you to store information you previously couldn’t store. Internet messages, for example,” says Louis Goorden Senior Advisor at Rijkswaterstaat. Of course, you can create a digital folder on a server with internet publications, but if you don’t know the connection with the Rijkswaterstaat, it’s of no use to you. In FileLinx you can relate these messages to relevant Rijkswaterstaat projects and it is also possible to search for them.
The Data ICT Service (DID) of Rijkswaterstaat has more than 700 employees. The DID takes care of data collection, data management, data provision, ICT management and ICT development. The DID is the controller of Rijkswaterstaat’s information provision.
“We collected information about the market, which are potential ICT contractors of Rijkswaterstaat,” says Louis, “and were looking for a solution to make our knowledge about these suppliers more transparent and available.”
Louis continues: “When it comes to generic IT, we are just a normal company with more than 10,000 employees to suppliers. Specific IT for traffic management places different demands on suppliers. In some cases, it even requires special development. In that case, it’s really a matter of looking for a suitable supplier.
So we collected supplier information. What’s more, we also wanted to store information from the Internet and combine information in different formats and forms. Then we encountered the objections and limitations of a folder structure on a server. Collecting and documenting from a folder structure was confusing and personal, you sometimes don’t figure that out. It is also difficult to clean up and keep track. For example, email about subjects could not be found in a structured way. Furthermore, there were untold numbers of spreadsheets, and we lost overview”.
"FileLinx is mostly an information management system and a knowledge management system, where other packages were mostly just a document management system."
“It was clear,” says Goorden, “that we needed a Supplier Information System. We wanted to be able to store information in all possible forms. And on top of that, we also wanted to be able to better manage numerical information and distil it from a system.
Of the software we looked at, FileLinx is mostly an information management system and a knowledge management system, whereas other packages were mostly just a document management system. Those other packages weren’t bad. But what couldn’t be done, simply couldn’t be done. So yes, we were by far most impressed with the FileLinx solution. That had to do with flexibility, accessibility and also the way of searching, not a tree structure, but the Google way. FileLinx suited us best and the presentation also showed that the people behind FileLinx understood our problems best.
The first group to use it was the contract management section. The application management department, as well as the people from purchase strategy want to use it now, with enough enthusiasm to do so!” notes Louis. “The next step is that we are going to involve the management ‘Data’ in this. The organisation is very much on the move and Filelinx is moving along with it”.
