About the Client

The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS) is a Kuwait based non-profit organization dedicated to fostering a progressive culture of science, technology, and innovation. KFAS promotes knowledge through books, scientific publications, research and development, and community focused events. To support these initiatives, private sector companies contribute 1% of their annual net profits. In 2017, funding for new research proposals reached KD 2.3 million (approximately USD 7.5 million).
Business Situation and Requirements
Organizations can face challenges when platforms become inefficient or overly complex, leading to higher maintenance costs and lower user adoption. Ensuring operational efficiency, scalability, and usability while keeping pace with evolving needs is a common challenge for knowledge and innovation-driven organizations.
KFAS relied on Task Space from the EMC Documentum suite to manage ECM and BPM operations. Over time, inefficiencies in process implementation, increasing system complexity, and rigid workflows reduced user adoption and made ongoing maintenance costly. Unused licenses further added avoidable operational expenses.
KFAS set out to modernize its applications, aiming for a flexible, user-friendly platform that simplifies operations, enhances usability, and reduces support and licensing costs. Key requirements included:
Improve User Adoption: Redesign poorly implemented processes to make the application intuitive, efficient, and easy for users to adopt.
Simplify System Architecture: Reduce platform complexity to enable easier enhancements, faster updates, and better system performance.
Lower Maintenance Costs: Eliminate technical debt and streamline support efforts to reduce ongoing maintenance expenses.
Optimize License Utilization: Identify and remove unused or underutilized licenses to eliminate unnecessary operational costs.
Modernize Business Critical Applications: Migrate legacy applications to a flexible, modern platform capable of supporting evolving business needs.
Enable Cost Effective Scalability: Ensure the new platform supports future growth while optimizing infrastructure, support, and operational costs.
Solution
After carefully reviewing KFAS’s existing system, Unthinkable recommended moving from Task Space to Documentum D2. D2 was chosen due to its responsive design, write once run anywhere ability, minimum navigation, profile based configuration, and several other benefits for enterprise content management.
Phased Legacy System Modernization Approach
Our team implemented a structured three stage modernization roadmap that began with replacing the existing legacy ECM platform, followed by optimizing business workflows, and finally modernizing content management across the entire organization. This phased approach ensured minimal disruption while enabling KFAS to transition smoothly to a more flexible, scalable, and user friendly system. The process also included synchronizing development, testing, and production environments to maintain consistency and reliability throughout the transformation.
Platform Optimization and Enterprise System Integration
As part of the modernization effort, we optimized the platform by refining the security model, object type model, and license usage, while eliminating unused products and configurations that were driving unnecessary costs. To further extend the platform’s capabilities and improve enterprise wide efficiency, Documentum D2 was seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, enabling better data flow and cross system collaboration.

Seamless and Compliant Data Migration Using Proprietary Tools
Migrating existing business critical data to the new platform was one of the most complex challenges. We addressed this by leveraging its proprietary Import/Export Utility, which enabled smooth transfer of both data and metadata between disparate ECM repositories. Prior to migration, all data was sanitized and aligned with new fields, processes, and compliance requirements, ensuring accuracy, security, and regulatory adherence.

Large Scale Document Digitization and Structured Content Organization
Alongside the ECM upgrade, our team digitized approximately 1 TB of physical records across key departments, including Finance, the Director General’s Office, and the Board of Secretary. This effort involved scanning hard copy documents, creating a structured folder hierarchy, applying metadata, and configuring role based access controls. The digitized content was then migrated into the Documentum D2 repository using the Import/Export Utility, enabling faster access, improved traceability, and streamlined document management across the organization.

The Impact
After upgrading its document management system, KFAS successfully digitized records from the past 10 years, significantly improving operational efficiency and reducing processing time. The implementation of the Documentum D2 platform allowed the organization to streamline workflows and ensure seamless access to critical documents.
The system’s adoption expanded across nine departments, including Finance, Legal, Tax, Advisory, Administration, and HR. By modernizing its ECM system, KFAS has been able to refocus on its core mission, fostering a culture of science, technology, and innovation, and supporting sustainable development initiatives in Kuwait.







