Tel: 208-914-1248
DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
& DELIVERY SYSTEM
Project Category:
Company Type:
Process Improvement / Development
Private Equity Backed
Operating Cost Savings:
Increased Valuation:
$1.2 million per year
$9.6 million
THE BACKGROUND
This client was a private equity backed company that was preparing for an exit within the next couple of years.
They were in the business of creating various documents in the Environment, Health and Safety industry in order to keep their customers in compliance with the latest rules and regulations. Technical writers closely monitored all necessary regulatory agencies in order to ensure all documents remained compliant with current requirements. These documents were then printed in-house and shipped directly to customers. Customers could opt to receive ongoing product updates whenever documents were changed.
We were retained to perform a business process review and suggest any process improvements. The primary objective was to gain efficiencies leading to ongoing cost savings.
THE PROBLEM
After interviewing the staff and reviewing current processes, we identified the following three primary areas of inefficiency:
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Lack of a Document Management System
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Outdated Document Assembly System
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Lack of Digital Document Delivery
Document Management System
Although all team members had access to the same shared company drive, there were no strict rules created or enforced related to the naming, versioning, or saving of documents. Therefore, there was a lot of confusion as to who had the latest version of a document--and where the latest document was located. As a result, old documents that were out of compliance were often being printed and shipped to customers.
Document Assembly System
The company had a custom document assembly system developed several years earlier. While it did save the company time, it lacked some essential features, including the ability to: (1) track which customer documents needed to be updated, (2) edit customer documents without having to re-enter all customer information, (3) integrate with the source documents without having to re-upload each modified document, (4) provide the ability for a customer to preview the document online prior to shipment, and (5) upload the documents automatically to the locations necessary to be printed. These deficiencies resulted in additional overhead and the inability to accurately deliver on company promises.
Digital Document Delivery
Printed documentation is clearly going the way of newspapers and phone books. With competitors already making the change, the company risked losing future deals due to their inability to deliver on customer expectations. Additionally, running a printing shop added a tremendous amount of labor, overhead, inventory and shipping expenses.
THE SOLUTION
Since the company had an existing subscription to Sharepoint, we customized that to be used for the Document Management System.
We then custom developed a new Document Assembly system using a LAMP stack and hosted it on the AWS network.
Finally, we customized the company's existing Learning Management System (that we had developed for them on a previous contract) as the vehicle to deliver the documents digitally to their customers.
We integrated each of these systems to further reduce wasted time and human error.
THE RESULT
These processes and systems we developed and deployed were integrated to eliminate wasted time and human error. These improvements decreased operating costs by over $1.2 million per year--which increased company value by about $9.6 million (given their 8x multiple on EBITDA).