Representation of the logo of METASYS Medizintechnik GmbH

METASYS GmbH replaces exhausting search in Windows folder structures with full text search

“We used to work mun­da­nely with Win­dows Ex­plo­rer in the fol­der struc­tu­re. But it was be­co­ming in­cre­asing­ly dif­fi­cult to find one’s way around it. To­day we work with con­trol­led do­cu­ments, di­gi­tal re­lease pro­ces­ses and a full text search like Goog­le, among other things. The di­gi­tal do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment sys­tem works in an un­com­pli­ca­ted way and frees us from a lot of time-con­sum­ing, ex­haus­ting work. We are very sa­tis­fied with the en­ti­re pro­ject and would de­fi­ni­te­ly re­com­mend the sys­tem to others.”

Dr. Florian Meischl - Head of Innovation- and Project Management - METASYS Medizintechnik GmbH
Dr. Flo­ri­an Meischl
Head of In­no­va­ti­on- and Pro­ject Ma­nage­ment (METASYS Me­di­zin­tech­nik GmbH)

En­vi­ron­men­tal to­xins such as mer­cu­ry sim­ply do not be­long in was­te­wa­ter: at the end of the 1980s, this thought was both clear and pro­gres­si­ve. With this idea, METASYS Me­di­zin­tech­nik GmbH be­gan in 1989 as a small “tinkerer’s com­pa­ny” to de­ve­lop tech­no­lo­gies for amal­gam se­pa­ra­ti­on for den­tal prac­ti­ces. And with suc­cess. To­day, the com­pa­ny near Inns­bruck in Aus­tria has around 80 em­ployees and se­ve­ral sa­les part­ners worldwide.

Avo­i­ding en­vi­ron­men­tal da­ma­ge was the main mo­ti­va­ti­on for Bru­no Pre­gen­zer and Wer­ner Tra­wö­ger to found METASYS in the 80s. Pre­gen­zer, an ex­pe­ri­en­ced den­tal tech­ni­ci­an, de­ve­lo­ped an amal­gam se­pa­ra­tor that is now used world­wi­de to re­mo­ve and re­cy­cle amal­gam fil­ling re­si­dues from den­tal prac­ti­ces wastewater.

Me­an­while, METASYS of­fers many pro­ducts and ser­vices from den­tal equip­ment and hy­gie­ne pro­ducts to the coll­ec­tion, se­pa­ra­ti­on and re­cy­cling of to­xic was­te and me­tals from den­tal practices.

Cost for regulatory requirements increased

With suc­cess co­mes growth, and for most com­pa­nies that me­ans not only gro­wing sa­les and em­ployee num­bers, but also the cos­ts of re­gu­la­to­ry re­qui­re­ments: bu­reau­cra­cy. Espe­ci­al­ly for com­pa­nies in the Eu­ro­pean Uni­on, this of­ten adds up to se­ve­ral hours of work for for­ma­li­ties. Trend: increasing.

This sub­trac­ted va­luable working hours of crea­ti­ve ac­ti­vi­ties also at METASYS GmbH. And the exis­ting, evol­ved in­fra­struc­tures were less and less ca­pa­ble of pro­vi­ding a re­me­dy over time. Dr. Flo­ri­an Mei­schl, Head of In­no­va­ti­on and Pro­ject Ma­nage­ment: “We used to work mun­da­nely with Win­dows Ex­plo­rer in the fol­der struc­tu­re. The re­qui­re­ments on bu­reau­cra­cy are not get­ting any less across Eu­ro­pe or around the world, so it has be­co­me more and more dif­fi­cult to find one’s way around it.”

In prin­ci­ple, the­re is not­hing wrong with sto­ring files in Win­dows fol­der struc­tures. But the de­vil can hide in the de­tails. Em­ployees need cer­tain do­cu­ments at the same time for dif­fe­rent ap­pli­ca­ti­ons, such as for the ap­pr­oval of new tech­no­lo­gies as well as for pro­duct-spe­ci­fic do­cu­men­ta­ti­on, for ex­am­p­le. A di­lem­ma: In which fol­der should the do­cu­ment be stored? In both? In that case dif­fe­rent ver­si­ons threatened.

New document management system should work with ERP software

“That was no lon­ger fe­a­si­ble,” says Dr. Mei­schl, “it made it dif­fi­cult to keep track of things, be­cau­se it was no lon­ger clear to judge whe­re new do­cu­ments should be fi­led.” Con­se­quent­ly, METASYS em­ployees were loo­king for a new so­lu­ti­on – pre­fer­a­b­ly a soft­ware that would also work well with the en­ter­pri­se re­sour­ce plan­ning (ERP) soft­ware of the com­pa­ny Asseco.

Th­rough a re­com­men­da­ti­on, METASYS GmbH es­tab­lishes cont­act with Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces GmbH. The com­pa­ny has been a sought-af­ter spe­cia­list for GxP-com­pli­ant do­cu­men­ta­ti­on so­lu­ti­ons sin­ce 2007. The key­word “GxP” re­fers to gui­de­lines for good working prac­ti­ces that are par­ti­cu­lar­ly im­portant in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and me­di­cal industries.

Af­ter a pre­sen­ta­ti­on, METASYS GmbH was con­vin­ced by the func­tion­al ran­ge and the pri­ce-per­for­mance ra­tio of the dls | eQMS of Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces GmbH.

Document control and Training Management

Th­ree so­lu­ti­on are­as were cru­cial for METASYS:

  • Di­gi­tal do­cu­ment control
  • Em­ployee qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on ma­nage­ment (Trai­ning Management)
  • Tech­ni­cal documentation

In Ja­nu­ary 2021, the start­ing si­gnal was gi­ven for the pro­ject to mi­gra­te the exis­ting data from the Win­dows fol­der struc­tures into the di­gi­tal do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment sys­tem of Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces GmbH. “We were able to go live as ear­ly as the last week of April”, de­scri­bes Tors­ten Hei­se, Head of Con­sul­ting and Pro­ject Ma­na­ger at Di­gi­tal Life Sci­en­ces GmbH. “This has al­re­a­dy been an ex­tre­me­ly fast pro­ject. We had the ad­van­ta­ge that the METASYS pro­ject team was also gi­ven the time to work on the mi­gra­ti­on and that the spe­cia­list de­part­ments co­ope­ra­ted optimally.”

The core of the do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment sys­tem is do­cu­ment con­trol. It en­su­res that qua­li­ty ma­nage­ment (QM) do­cu­ments, work in­s­truc­tions, stan­dards and qua­li­ty gui­de­lines in par­ti­cu­lar are al­ways ea­si­ly ac­ces­si­ble di­gi­tal­ly from all work­sta­tions. All em­ployees al­ways work with the same do­cu­ment ver­si­on and can crea­te new do­cu­ments ba­sed on tem­pla­tes, for ex­am­p­le new stan­dard ope­ra­ting pro­ce­du­res or work in­s­truc­tions (SOP).

In ad­di­ti­on, do­cu­ments get at­tri­bu­tes. This is me­ta­da­ta that shows, for ex­am­p­le, to which area a do­cu­ment be­longs. “We used to store this in­for­ma­ti­on in Ex­cel ta­bles”, de­scri­bes Flo­ri­an Mei­schl, “in which it was then pos­si­ble to see, for ex­am­p­le, which do­cu­ment be­lon­ged to which product.”

Thus, the re­gu­la­to­ry af­fairs de­part­ment can get, among other things, all pur­po­se state­ments for all pro­ducts with a few clicks. Other de­part­ments can quick­ly re­trie­ve the pur­po­se state­ment for a par­ti­cu­lar pro­duct by sear­ching for the pro­duct in ques­ti­on in the do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment sys­tem. Mei­schl: “The full-text search is also a huge ad­van­ta­ge, kind of like Google.”

Digital process orders and speeds up release processes – sometimes to one hour

Di­gi­tal pro­ces­ses are also part of do­cu­ment con­trol. For ex­am­p­le, re­view­ers can place an­no­ta­ti­ons di­gi­tal­ly and re­turn ever­y­thing to the aut­hor in the sys­tem. This avo­ids, among other things, sear­ching for the la­test ver­si­on wi­thin e‑mail fol­ders. The re­lease also works “much fas­ter and with less ef­fort now”, de­scri­bes Mei­schl, “in the past, em­ployees had to run across the buil­ding and get si­gna­tures, now that works with a di­gi­tal process.”

Among other things, in the do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment sys­tem is stored which em­ployee is aut­ho­ri­zed to re­view and ap­pro­ve a do­cu­ment. The sys­tem no­ti­fies the col­le­agues con­cer­ned in the de­fi­ned or­der. Once a do­cu­ment has been sa­tis­fac­to­ri­ly con­cluded, the re­view­ers can sign it di­gi­tal­ly and the do­cu­ment goes on ul­ti­m­ate­ly to the qua­li­ty ma­nage­ment de­part­ment. “Some re­lease pro­ces­ses now only take an hour”, says Dr. Meischl.

Digital employee qualification saves many a classroom training session

Once a new stan­dard ope­ra­ting pro­ce­du­re or work in­s­truc­tion (SOP) has been re­leased, it must of cour­se also reach tho­se em­ployees who have to com­ply with it in their dai­ly work. For this pur­po­se, METASYS uses the Trai­ning Ma­nage­ment. This pro­vi­des for a trai­ning ma­na­ger who re­cei­ves no­ti­fi­ca­ti­ons from the do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment sys­tem about new work in­s­truc­tions and then as­signs the new in­s­truc­tions to the re­le­vant employees.

The­se em­ployees also re­cei­ve a no­ti­fi­ca­ti­on from the sys­tem and must read and sign the in­s­truc­tion. “This sa­ves a lot of time be­cau­se you can do wi­t­hout a lot of class­room trai­ning ses­si­ons”, says Flo­ri­an Mei­schl. “This makes trai­nings run much more smooth­ly and ea­si­ly. And a big ad­van­ta­ge: In the over­view pro­vi­ded by the sys­tem, you can see at a glan­ce which em­ployees are miss­ing which trai­ning. That’s im­portant for the in­spec­tor du­ring an au­dit, among other things.”

Advantages of digital document management

The­se are the ad­van­ta­ges that di­gi­tal do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment of­fers METASYS com­pared to sto­ring files in Win­dows fol­der structures:

  • Quick re­trie­val of do­cu­ments, e.g. via full text search
  • Avo­id red­un­dan­cy – em­ployees al­ways work on the same ver­si­on of a document
  • Avo­id du­pli­ca­ted filing
  • Avo­id shadow ar­chi­ves (e.g. lo­cal co­pies of pa­pers on the re­spec­ti­ve com­pu­ters of users)
  • Shorter do­cu­ment run-times
  • Trans­pa­ren­cy about the pro­ces­sing sta­tus of do­cu­ments – whe­re is the do­cu­ment, who is curr­ent­ly re­vie­w­ing it, who is editing it?
  • Con­trol­led pro­ces­ses, e.g. for re­leasing documents
  • More time for core tasks
  • Pa­per saving
  • Trans­pa­ren­cy re­gar­ding trai­ning processes
  • Em­ployees can sim­ply sign di­gi­tal­ly that they have ta­ken a trai­ning course

Meischl’s con­clu­si­on: “We get a lot of po­si­ti­ve feed­back, and espe­ci­al­ly in the de­ve­lo­p­ment de­part­ment the­re is now much more time for crea­ti­ve things. The sys­tem works in an un­com­pli­ca­ted way and frees us from a lot of time-con­sum­ing, ex­haus­ting work. We are very sa­tis­fied with the en­ti­re pro­ject and want to up­grade the mo­du­les Per­son­nel Ma­nage­ment, Con­tract Ma­nage­ment and Ch­an­ge Con­trol in the near fu­ture.” We would de­fi­ni­te­ly re­com­mend the sys­tem, it all work­ed well from the beginning.”

Learn more about the training management

Get a ho­li­stic over­view of our ver­sa­ti­le Trai­ning Ma­nage­ment so­lu­ti­on now.

So­lu­ti­on: Trai­ning Management
Illustration of a notebook on which the Training Management of Digital Life Sciences is displayed