Microsoft Solution Brief - TÜV NORD

“We plan to use the collaboration and document management capabilities in the 2007 Microsoft Office system to improve our audit and certification processes. We anticipate these improvements will enable us to better serve and retain customers.” — Hans-Günter Seewald, Managing Director, TÜV NORD Group

Leading technical service provider in Germany to centralize document management with the 2007 Microsoft Office system

which may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe

or reflect the software product when first commercially released. This document is provided for informational purposes only and

Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to this document or the information contained in it. Microsoft,

the Office logo, and SharePoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States

and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Document published September 2006.

Situation

The TÜV NORD Group (TÜV NORD), one of Germany’s largest technical service providers, specializes in technical safety, environmental protection, and conformity assessment of management systems and products. It performs inspection tests as well as audits and assessments to verify compliance to respective safety and quality standards. As customers achieve compliance, TÜV NORD issues them domestic and/or internationally recognized certifications. For TÜV NORD, the nature of its business calls for accurate and detailed documentation throughout the service process. An employee may work on several projects for various customer certifications at any given time, and different certifications require different sets of templates that must be used.

TÜV NORD faces a number of challenges in the audit preparation process, including difficulties in refreshing locally stored templates with centrally made changes, storing common information for reuse, and selecting the right report template from over 300 available options. Additionally, the company is not satisfied with the current solution for maintaining and managing both audit templates and completed reports. TÜV NORD’s reliance on paper-based forms and manual data entry results in processes that are time consuming and prone to errors, and employees frequently use incorrect forms and templates, requiring audit documentation to be updated and resulting in lost revenue for the company. TÜV NORD wants to eliminate these document management inefficiencies so its staff will have more time to better service existing and prospective customers.

Solution

As a participant in the Microsoft® Rapid Deployment Technology Adoption Program, TÜV NORD is extending its use of Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to create a central enterprise content management system where its employees can access, view, and store certification templates and documentation used for customer audits. To simplify the process of locating the right document template from a wide array of options, TÜV NORD will store all templates in a central repository with accompanying metadata that specifies which standard, audit, and audit step each template applies to. Employees can then use the powerful Enterprise Search capabilities within Office SharePoint Server 2007 to find all relevant documentation. Once audit reports are filled out, users will find it easy to store and reuse all completed templates in customer-specific document libraries. Finally, to help employees ensure they are using the latest template version and that locally stored templates are updated with changes made on the server, TÜV NORD will take advantage of document workspaces in Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Information Rights Management (IRM) to set expiration dates, assign versioning controls, and protect information.

While TÜV NORD’s audit documentation process currently relies on a combination of paper-based documents and files created in Microsoft Office applications, the company anticipates that future integration with the new Microsoft Office Open XML File Format will enable auditors to quickly retrieve customer details from back-end systems such as SAP and Microsoft SQL Server™, reducing the need to enter data repeatedly. TÜV NORD is hopeful that its new solution will significantly improve the accuracy and timeliness of its audits and certification process, resulting in lower costs and higher customer satisfaction.

Benefits

To greatly reduce risk of errors or time delays with auditing and certification processes by creating a centralized repository of templates and documentation
To ensure employees use current audit templates and receive updates to locally stored templates by implementing versioning control features with IRM
To make it easier to find and reuse information during audit preparation by creating customer-specific document libraries and using new file formats to pull information from customer databases

which may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe

or reflect the software product when first commercially released. This document is provided for informational purposes only and

Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to this document or the information contained in it. Microsoft,

the Office logo, and SharePoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States

and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Document published September 2006.

Fast Facts

which may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe

or reflect the software product when first commercially released. This document is provided for informational purposes only and

Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to this document or the information contained in it. Microsoft,

the Office logo, and SharePoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States

and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Document published September 2006.

Microsoft confidential

The information contained in this document relates to prerelease software product which may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe or reflect the software product when first commercially released. This document is provided for informational purposes only and Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to this document or the information contained in it.