The American Records Management Association (ARMA) has just released a draft Assessment and RFP checklist for those engaged in physical records storage—a.k.a. Records and Information Management (RIM). In its final form, the document will be an authoritative guide for the evaluation of storage facilities for business records in physical form such as paper, microfilm, backup tapes and media.
Sarbanes-Oxley
The ARMA document does not make particular reference to the oil industry and avoids the IT side of data storage. But in these days of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, the checklist should be of use to those embarking on a physical asset management project. On the topic of compliance, the ARMA Assessment includes a list of the many regulatory bodies involved in records management—from various ANSI standards, the ‘Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act,’ ISO 14001, the Uniform Commercial Code to good-old Sarbanes-Oxley.
Practical
The document is designed as a practical tool for the evaluation of business practices and will help organizations decide whether to outsource records management through the identification of key criteria such as records security and protection, service levels, contract terms and cost.
Check list
The checklist should help organizations answer questions like: Should you store everything on the same site? What retrieval mechanisms are most appropriate? What is the value of your assets? What is the disaster plan?
Template
The guide includes a form-enabled Microsoft Word template that can be used to profile corporate requirements and to author custom RFI/RFQs. More from arma.org.
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