RJS Software Systems Case Study: DEMCO
Orders Flow More Efficiently and Visibly at DEMCO
WebDocs™ enhances order processing
.
and document flows.
Paper is the bane of many companies’ existence. It is bulky,
burdensome, prone to loss, and a sluggish medium. This is a
major issue for high volume sellers that must not only process
orders, but also invoices, bids, contracts, compliance
documents, and more. DEMCO, Inc., a leading supplier to
schools and libraries, operates in such an environment.
Madison, Wisconsin-based DEMCO has served librarians for
more than 100 years. It has grown considerably since its
founding. Today, the company employs more than 250 people
and earns revenues of approximately $70 million per year. The
company’s catalog now numbers more than 1,000 pages and
includes more than 50,000 items.
Challenge
Paper has never been an ideal medium for business
documents. It takes up considerable space; it has to be filed
manually and then retrieved when needed; it is prone to loss;
it has to be either copied or passed around when it must be
shared; and considerable time frequently has to be spent
searching for documents that are misfiled or on someone’s
desk.
The need to retrieve and possibly hunt for documents
threatens customer satisfaction. People who call with a
question or a problem that needs to be solved expect fast
answers. Rather than getting a callback or being put on hold
while someone searches for the necessary information, they
want their issues resolved immediately.
The inefficiency of passing around paper in a high-volume
business such as DEMCO is costly. The company processes
about 1,000 customer orders and 1,200 invoices daily.
Handling a single piece of paper is burdensome enough, but
when you multiply that by the number of documents that
DEMCO processes every day, the result can be a serious drain
on profitability.
Recognizing the drawbacks of paper documents, DEMCO
believed that there were opportunities to be realized by
implementing electronic document management. It is seizing
those opportunities with the help of WebDocs from RJS
Software Systems.
Solution
WebDocs, which is available in versions that run on Microsoft
Windows-based servers as well as IBM i servers, allows
organizations to electronically store and manage document
images and other files, such as PC files, emails and computergenerated reports.
The documents can then be accessed using up to 10 keys or
through a full-text search. When the documents are stored,
the keys can be entered manually or WebDocs can
automatically extract them from barcodes or textual data
appearing within the images. Once loaded into the system,
authorized personnel can use a standard Web browser to
access the images over the Internet from anywhere in the
world.
DEMCO chose WebDocs over the other products it considered
because WebDocs offered the lowest total cost of ownership.
In addition, because WebDocs runs on IBM i, it can be tightly
integrated with the company’s custom-developed, IBM ibased ERP system.
DEMCO uses WebDocs to manage a wide variety of
documents. Included in the mix are customer orders, invoices,
bids, contracts, supplier compliance documents, crossdepartment issue documentation, legal contracts, and board
of director documents. The company plans to add purchase
orders and customer quotes into WebDocs in the near future.
Looking at just order processing, DEMCO receives orders in
one of three ways: through the mail, by fax, or via its ecommerce Web site. When mailed orders arrive in DEMCO’s
mailroom they are opened, collated and scanned into
WebDocs. From that point, the order circulates electronically.
The paper never leaves the mailroom.
Orders then have to be entered into DEMCO’s ERP system.
WebDocs manages this workflow through its Routing Client.
The images of the orders are first routed into a pre-edit work
queue. In this pre-edit phase, the order is reviewed to see if
there are any special requirements.
Once the pre-edit task is complete, the order image is placed
into the order-entry queue. One of DEMCO’s 35 order-entry
operators then processes the order. For faxed orders, DEMCO
uses a networked-based fax solution that, rather than printing
the orders, sends them electronically into the same pre-edit
work queue as is used for mailed orders. Both types of orders
then follow the same workflow.
Orders that arrive through DEMCO’s e-commerce Web site
don’t normally require document images. However,
sometimes the order contains a question in the comments
field or some information may be missing.
Because a human must deal with these issues, DEMCO’s
system creates an order document image that goes into the
same workflow as mailed and faxed orders.
All of DEMCO’s order-entry personnel have two monitors on
their desks: One monitor displays order documents and the
other provides the interface into the company’s ERP system.
After entering the order information into the ERP, the dataentry person pushes a button to automatically transfer the
order metadata to WebDocs. That metadata is then associated
with the document images and it can be used as search criteria
when someone needs to find the document.
Results
Moving from paper to electronic document management that
is tightly integrated with the company’s ERP system provided a
significant efficiency boost for DEMCO. “We’ve seen a 15
percent productivity improvement that can be attributed to
the impact of WebDocs,” said Mark Anderson, vice president
of business development & I.S. for DEMCO.
WebDocs also provides a benefit that the company didn’t
anticipate when it started using the solution: Increased
visibility into order workflows. In the past, mailed and faxed
orders weren’t visible to the company’s managers until the
orders were entered into the ERP. Now, mailed orders are
immediately scanned into WebDocs and faxed orders are sent
there directly. WebDocs then places the orders in work
queues that can be monitored online.
“It always used to take a lot of effort to count how many
documents were sitting on people’s desks,” explained
Anderson. “The visibility that we now have into documents
that are upstream to our enterprise system is very nice.”
DEMCO is considering using WebDocs to manage yet more
documents in the future. Possible additions include CAD
drawings, purchase orders, contracts and other documents for
capital furniture products in libraries and schools. This will
create an electronic project folder that can be accessed by all
authorized staff whenever they need it and wherever they
are.
The ability to store documents on either IBM i-attached
storage or low-cost SAN disks contributed further to WebDocs’
lower total cost of ownership compared to other products.
DEMCO stores documents on SAN drives, but it keeps the
document index files on IBM i-attached disks for performance
reasons.
The savings extend beyond productivity improvements and
lower disk costs. WebDocs also allowed DEMCO to reduce its
space costs. “We used to have filing cabinets with lots of
drawers of documents—the equivalent of several cubicles
worth of space—and we no longer have that,” said Amy
DeBoer, application services manager at DEMCO.
DEMCO has also improved security with the help of WebDocs.
In the past, paper-based orders, some of which include credit
card numbers, flowed through the company manually. Today,
WebDocs restricts access to only authorized personnel.
The Web-based interface to WebDocs provides another
advantage. It makes it possible for DEMCO to easily allow
people to work from home. “We’re in the upper Midwest,”
said Anderson. “Web access will come in handy when we have
our couple of snowstorms this winter. And hopefully we won’t
get hit with a major flu outbreak, but we’ll be better able to
deal with it if we do. We’re even looking at setting up some
customer service micro-sites staffed by university students. We
can do that thanks to VOIP and WebDocs.”
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© 2011 RJS Software Systems