The Advantages and Disadvantages of Going Paperless in a Manufacturing Plant

The tedious practice of ensuring the daily control and processing of records along with ensuring the actual accounting of nuclear material is tracked and managed efficiently becomes overwhelming in a fast paced manufacturing environment. Multiple tasks being performed simultaneously while completing multiple forms for accountability purposes can lead to potential tracking errors. Automating this process brings many advantages. The means of automating the daily processing steps is also tedious; however, if all steps are identified correctly and sequentially in the beginning, the Operator and Material Controllers (employee responsible for material control input) daily work will become more productive and accurate. The automation process also brings ease to Tamper Indicating Device (TID) coding and tracking to assist with detection/assessment of container integrity. There is a cost saving in creating electronic files for all forms used while processing. As with any new method, there are also disadvantages to the automation process. Computer back-up files must be addressed as well as creating searches/queries and trending for ease of accessibility to records.