Automated Document Management for HVAC product: An Excel VBA Approach

Abstract

This study develops an automated document management system for HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) products using Excel VBA to solve problems with the current manual processes. The Manufacturing Engineering department handles over 5,000 documents for ten different product types. Each product needs five types of documents: Engineering Technical Standard (ETS), Working Standard (WS), Process Flow Chart (PFC), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), and Control Plan (QPCC). The current manual system causes many problems such as taking a long time to process documents, making mistakes when entering data, and having trouble finding documents when needed. The objectives of this research are to develop a document management system for the master list of HVAC products using Excel VBA and to reduce data processing time, minimize errors, and prevent data loss in the manufacturing engineering department. The research applied the ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) as a systematic framework for application development design. The new VBA-based system automatically handles data entry, tracks document revisions, creates hyperlinks, and provides search functions. This system effectively eliminates repetitive manual processes and reduces errors, while improving document accessibility and data accuracy. During the evaluation process, the system was tested in a real working environment, focusing on measuring document processing time and data accuracy. The results show significant improvements: processing time dropped by over 60%, data accuracy improved from 95% to 100%, and lost documents were eliminated. These results prove that Excel VBA is an effective and affordable solution for improving document management in companies.