The Role of Archive Arrangement in the Smooth Running of Administration at the Pekanbaru Trade and Industry Office

Abstract

This article examines how archive arrangement supports smooth administrative work at the General Affairs Subdivision of the Pekanbaru Trade and Industry Office. The data come from a two-month internship (29 June to 29 August 2026) and were collected through participant observation, a written interview, document study and a literature review, then analysed descriptively. Sixteen activities, from recording outgoing letters to arranging inactive archives from 2010 to 2025, were grouped into five stages and read through three aspects adapted from Soekanto: the rules behind the work, the work itself, and its contribution. Archives sorted by year, field, document type, classification code and letter number were easier to trace, and letters recorded in a spreadsheet could be checked without opening the physical files. Staff guidance, complete documents, staged work and a fixed storage place supported the process, while few archive staff, limited facilities, a large volume of records and the time sorting requires slowed it down. The effect on retrieval speed was observed by the author and not measured.