A Model for Company Document Digitization (CODED) : Proposal for a Process Model for Digitizing Company Documents

Abstract: There exists many companies which wish to transition toward a more digital workflow. However, many of these companies lack the technical expertise required to undertake such an endeavor. To assist companies in this area, a digitization process model could be used as a stepping-stone toward successful digitization. Currently, however, there exists no such digitization process model. The purpose of this thesis is to suggest such a digitization process model. The goal is to help companies in digitizing their documents and their workflow. The research question used to reach this goal pertains to how a digitization process model should be structured. Due to the lack of currently existing digitization process models, different process models within the field of software engineering where analyzed as a basis. The research was qualitative and explorative in its nature, and it followed design science as its research paradigm. An extensive literature study was conducted before development of the model began. The model was evaluated using interviews together with action research. These interviews focused on evaluating the model based on five criteria which had been defined: (1) interviewee credibility, (2) semantic correctness, (3) syntactic correctness, (4) usefulness, and (5) process flexibility. The results of this thesis is the company document digitization process model (CODED), which, as the name suggests, is a proposed process model for document digitization. This model has been based on information gathered by, partly the literature study, and partly the interviews. The literature study proved the model to be unique, since no similar model existed prior to this thesis. While the interviews proved the model to be valid, since it accomplished all evaluation criteria which had been defined.