Designing an automated management system for the archives at national water and sewerage cooperation (nwsc).

Abstract

Automating archives outlines the ways involved with using information technologies to manage archival materials in an organization. This research project was conducted at the National Water and Sewage Cooperation (NWSC) and the purpose was to find out the types of archives at the National Water and Sewage Cooperation (NWSC), The study was guided by four specific objectives, that is; to find out the types of archival materials at National Water and Sewage Cooperation, to examine the existing system for managing archives at National Water and Sewage Cooperation, to identify the challenges facing the existing system for archives at National Water and Sewage Cooperation and to develop an automated system for archives at National Water and Sewage Cooperation. The methods of the study used to collect data were qualitative in nature and they included; interviews guides and observation guides. Data was presented in tabulations, graphs and in an essay form, it was concluded that National Water and Sewage Cooperation (NWSC) requires an ideal Automated Management System. The study was motivated by inadequate computer terminals and difficulty in archival retrieval in the government institution especially in National Water and Sewerage Corporation which affected the running of different activities at the organization since the accumulation of archives was taking a lot of space and time. The system components were integrated to form a fully functional system and integrated testing was carried out to locate and delete errors from the automated system to ensure that all forms work simultaneously and that are compatible. This was done by passing data through the new automated management system which involved entering the users name and password in the system and the items were checked in and out to find out whether the new automated system was fully functioning as required. Basing on the findings that have been established in the course of the study, the researcher concluded that in order to manage the archives properly staff should design an automated management system to manage the archives. And finally, it was recommended that NWSC should adopt and implement the proposed automated management system as it will be able to locate records easily, save a lot of time and they can be easily managed.