A Case Study on Digitizing Operations for a Manufacturing and Exporting Company
The Challenge: A 25 year old manufacturer had witnessed a spike in Customer Orders and found it challenging to manage a busy order book. It looked at improving its PPIC (Production Planning & Inventory Control) and Logistics to provide better lead times to its customers. The teams were struggling to cope with the scale-up, and were also not able to respond in-time to the Customers. Approvals were based on signing on print-outs which moved from desk to desk and frequently caused delays. This was a critical issue especially when an order was bound by LC (Letter of Credit) which mandated strict timeliness for finished goods delivery. Unfulfilling of which would lead to stiff penalties. They needed a solution that would make the cross-functional teams work collaboratively and also accountable for speedy decision making. They approached ViDoc to digitize these functions.
Specifically our challenges included:
- Reduce the use of paper and print-outs
- Implement automated workflows to replicate current process flow
- Get all relevant documents archived for fast retrieval
- Reduce duplicate storage of information
- Seamlessly fit the solution in the current working environment without compromising productivity
- Build user confidence to move from paper to digital
Centris implemented the following process:
- Implemented the solution on cloud, to ensure fast go-live and higher storage visibility.
- Current document approval workflow was emulated in the system
- Setup the functional and cross-functional archival structure for the teams to easily collaborate
- Each document type was configured with appropriate metadata for faster retrieval
- Documents that were received regularly in standard formats were identified for OCZ zoning, for automated metadata capture.
- Adequate training provided to users
The Results:
- A new ecosystem to manage all documents and information
- Due to automated workflows, considerable time and effort was saved in document approvals - and the issue "on who's desk is the document lying?" was resolved overnight
- Audit trail was available to understand where the documents were stuck and why so.
- All documents that were uploaded in Centris were avoided to be printed, saving major print and paper costs.
- Employees (users) appreciated that all information could be found at one single place
- A positive attitude change was observed in the employees (users) toward adoption new technology and proactiveness to use the system was seen.
- Overall Centris initiated "go-paperless" culture in the organization
