The Importance of Global Communication
Volvo Motor Graders, located in Goderich, Ontario, Canada, a division of Volvo Construction Equipment, produces motor graders (construction vehicles) used in a wide array of construction scenarios throughout the world. With customers and other Volvo group companies stretched across the globe, it was imperative that Volvo Motor Graders could effectively communicate with all of these partners in real-time.
Volvo Motor Graders uses SAP (an enterprise resource planning system) to manage all the transactional aspects of the business – everything from purchasing to account management. One of the key documents Volvo Motor Graders uses to communicate with other Volvo group companies and customers is the ‘Customer Account Statement’. With a company-wide mandate for constant improvement set in place, our Reform Business Platform technology software was enlisted to improve communication speed and accuracy, as well as reduce the amount of time and effort required to deliver these business communications.
Understanding Their Old Processing System
In the legacy process of generating and sending out customer statements, an accounting clerk would first print hard copies of the statements generated by SAP. Then the statements were sorted and grouped together by hand. Next, a clerk would then take the sorted statements to a network photocopier and scan each and every page of every statement and e-mail the resulting PDF file back to their own email account. After completing these tasks, the clerk would then return to their desk, review and forward each statement to the appropriate customer via e-mail. As one could imagine this was a very time consuming and labor intensive process that did cost a great deal of man power to execute. Volvo Motor Graders went ahead and implemented our Reform Business Platform to remedy this outdated form of document processing and delivery.
An automated, seamless document workflow was created through Reform in order to intelligently route customer account statements to the right destinations. Each of the manual steps involved in delivering a customer document in the above workflow were eliminated by allowing our Reform engine to identify each type of document, and distributing it to its proper destination, fully indexed and ready for business use. Now, an accounting clerk simply has to print the customer statements to a new print queue setup in SAP and their job is finished. All sorting, processing and e-mailing is handled in the background by Reform autonomously, or in other words, without direct involvement from an end-user.
The Benefits
In a matter of a couple weeks, Volvo Motor Graders saw their total document processing time reduced from 3 hours to 5-10 minutes with Reform’s new workflow automation solution. Now, employees could focus on the completion of other important office tasks, instead of going through the repetitive process of indexing the same type of document and manually routing it to its correct location. In addition, there has been a decrease in the occasional clerical errors that took place with the old processing system, since previously, pages were scanned incorrectly or the statements were unintentionally mixed up resulting in inaccurate and unprofessional-looking documents. Last but not least, the exchange of information, as it concerns customer statements, is far more seamless and accelerated than before, which means an enhanced collaboration experience for the entire Volvo Motor Grade company.
If this customer’s workflow challenge sounds familiar, reach out and speak to one of our solution specialists to chart the best course of action for your business.
About FabSoft:
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