Technologies Simplifying Document Management System

Jonathan Wear, Digital Asset Manager, Flowers Foods & Subsidiaries

Jonathan Wear developed a successful digital asset and data management discipline through years of extensive experience driving technology advancements and efficiencies across a diverse set of industries. Jonathan has built systems involving award-winning broadcasting at NASCAR Media Group, billion-dollar big box retail at Academy Sports + Outdoor, ground-breaking research at California Academy of Sciences as well as streaming films and series for Imagicomm Entertainment. Jonathan’s current role entails building a new DAM and PIM program for Flowers Foods, expediting consumer packaging goods marketing collateral.

What are some of the challenges impacting document management system space? How, as a company, are you overcoming those challenges?

We've discovered that the majority of our brand teams work in a silo, and each keeps its own individual product records. As a result, it becomes difficult to create a single source of truth.

Flowers Foods & Subsidiaries has launched a data integrity program to address this problem. Before any data goes into our new system, we table all of the data from the different sources, look for discrepancies or missing data, and then pull the different teams together to discern and decide on one final set of truth. Additionally, as we are a consumer package goods company, weights, and measures are a huge component of data. And often, we find that the data is incorrect or the product was measured incorrectly. So, we’re also sending all of our products to be scanned in order to get the right size and weight measurements.

"Before any data goes into our new system, we table all of the data from the different sources, look for discrepancies or missing data, and then pull the different teams together to discern and decide on one final set of truth"

What are some of the technological trends impacting the document management system today?

The usage of technology tools has been extensive, and they have been a fascinating new addition to some of the management operating systems out there. Many robust workflow tools are available within the document management systems, which streamline the review and approval process. Moreover, these tools are also helping to pass the baton of work from one role to another and then get approvals through management levels.

What are some of your recent project initiatives?

We manage our documents using the DAM and treat the documents quite similar to any other rich media asset. Our system has OCR capability, so whether it's a PDF or a Word document, it can read what's in there, index that information, and make it searchable for us. We also have the ability to send that information in the field form different roles and get approvals on it. Overall, we have the ability to fold our document management right into our digital asset management system.

How do you envision the future of the space?

Moving forward, we will continue to see more integration in the document management space. There will be upstream and downstream integration piping in data from other systems as opposed to always managing the documents.

It's crucial for aspiring professionals to concentrate on metadata and taxonomies, comprehend what the assets are, and anticipate how users will hunt for and find them. Moreover, while managing documents, one should always keep that in mind how other people want to discover them