Development of Document Control System to Support ISO 14001: 2015 Standard (MFU Smart ISO)

Abstract

The Learning Resources and Educational Media Centre, Mae Fah Luang University, has implemented an environmental management system in compliance with the ISO 14001: 2015 standard. This initiative requires an effective document management system to ensure comprehensive storage of documents related to environmental management. The system is designed to facilitate systematic document management and control at every stage, allowing staff to access the required documents conveniently and quickly. This ensures that the obtained documents are consistently under control. In response to this requirement, the team has developed the "MFU Smart ISO" document management system. The system utilizes open source programming tools, incorporating the .NET Core framework for the Backend, MySQL for the database, and Angular Framework for the Frontend. The team has researched similar commercially available systems and customized the requirements and capabilities for the developed system. The in-house development of the system allows the team to align the design with the organization operations. The user interface can be tailored to meet the operational needs of the staff, facilitating document management for quick and efficient access. The study, which compared the developed document control system with commercially available systems, revealed that the developed system can manage and control documents with essential features relatively comprehensively. As a result, the Learning Resources and Educational Media Centre has been awarded ISO 14001: 2015 certification by assessment editors for the presentation of digital documents stored in the MFU Smart ISO system, which markedly reduces the reliance on paper resources for document printing. Furthermore, there are expectations that the developed document control system will be used in the future to support the establishment of a quality management system in accordance with ISO 9001: 2015 standards.