Digital Signatures Expedite Project Turnarounds at Black & Veatch

For a solution to be adopted at Black & Veatch, specifically one that would play a central role in as crucial a process as engineering sign-offs, it would need to meet a variety of security and compliance requirements. Additional requirements on Krafft’s “wish list” for digital signatures included compatibility with the applications engineers use most, such as Bentley® MicroStation® and Autodesk®. Furthermore, it was imperative that recipients of the digitally signed documents be able to easily validate the signatures without requiring proprietary verification software.

Krafft and the division engineers found that the CoSign® digital signature solution met these requirements, and offered additional features specifically designed for the engineering industry. For starters, CoSign digital signatures are compliant with federal, state, and institutional regulations pertaining to the use of digital signatures and the authenticity of electronic records. The solution is built on standard PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) technology, which guarantees that any third party will be able to verify the digitally-signed content for signer identity and intent, and content integrity – for years into the future. Additionally, a CoSign digital signature is automatically invalidated if any change is made to the drawing or document after it has been signed.

Meeting Krafft’s requirements for application compatibility, CoSign works seamlessly with a variety of popular document types including Adobe® PDF, AutoCAD®, InfoPath®, Microsoft® Word, and Excel®. This compatibility enables engineers to continue using the same applications they used prior to implementing digital signatures. Once an electronic document or drawing is prepared and reviewed, an engineer can easily add his or her professional seal and graphical digital signature.

Prior to implementing digital signatures, obtaining approvals from off-site engineers involved priority shipping of printed documents. Today, the electrical, civil, and structural engineers in Black & Veatch’s Telecommunications Division are able to approve and seal documents from any location with an Internet connection. With CoSign, they’re also able to deliver documents in Microsoft Word format without converting to PDF.

“We’re using CoSign with jurisdiction requirements and final deliverables to our customers,” said Krafft. “It not only shortens the overall sequence, it also helps people earlier in the cycle because they don’t have to print paper or chase anyone down.”

While digital signatures have enabled Telecom Division engineers to keep workflows moving forward and avoid delays, implementing CoSign also delivered an additional benefit stemming from the customer’s perspective:

“There’s a real driver in that our customers expect us to be cutting edge and new,” explained Krafft. “Once you have to print a document to sign and then rescan it, you degrade its quality. When a customer sends us a form to sign, it’s rewarding to be able to email them back a signed document that’s not scanned and looks exceptionally clean. I think our customers really respect that.”

Engineers and non-engineers of the Telecommunications Division received CoSign digital signatures so well that some began using the solution to approve additional documents circulating within the same office. Within two months of implementation, members of other departments including the Quality team became involved, too. “Everyone’s pushing towards paperless workflows, and also wanting to stay compliant,” said Krafft. For him, there remain other appealing ways to make use of digital signatures. “I’m looking forward to integrating digital signatures with SharePoint, and creating additional workflows to make it easier for teams to abandon paper.”