Transportation and Warehousing Case Study
Client ~ A National supplier of medical gases and hospital services to the Canadian hospitals marketplace.
Problem ~ The Accounting department at Canadian corporate head office was using a manual process for the tracking, filing and retrieving of their paper based Proof of Delivery Note (POD) documents categorized as 3 different document types including Bulk Gas Delivery Note, Pre-printed Delivery Note and Manual Delivery Note.
On average, several thousand pages of POD documents are created each month for shipments of medical gases and respiratory products to their Institutional (hospitals, clinics, labs) customers across Canada.
The client recognized challenges in their existing business process including managing the movement of paper-based POD documents back to their head office as well as the filing, retrieving and making these documents easily available to their Accounting staff resulting in delays in issuing invoices for accounts receivables, collections and overall increased costs to their business.
Opportunity ~ The client was looking to improve this process by replacing paper-based Proof of Delivery Note documents with electronic images and consolidating these documents so they could be accessed quickly, accurately and securely via a web based search and retrieval archival software solution resulting in increased productivity and reduced costs.
Deliverables ~ In the spring of 2009, Octacom implemented a complete document conversion solution for the client’s Proof of Delivery Note documents which included the daily receipt of scanned documents from 11 medical Fill Plant locations across Canada, and the processing, indexing and uploading of these electronic documents to an Octacom developed web based document management solution for the archiving, retrieval, approval, viewing and distribution of documents within the organization. Utilizing this software, the client now has complete access to their Proof of Delivery Note documents electronically, anywhere, anytime.
Outcome ~
- Significant improvement in turnaround time for information to be available to Accounting staff
- Reduction/elimination of lost or damaged proof of delivery notes
- Improved access time as information is available online anywhere, anytime
- Significant reduction in the timing for issuing invoices for accounts receivables
- Better consolidation of the proof of delivery note files
- Improved confirmation and approval process of product delivery across Canada