Kaeser & Blair minimizes document management time and costs
Ohio-based retailer Kaeser & Blair processes about 120,000 orders per year for promotional items such as pens, clothes and mouse pads. That many orders creates a lot of paper. Fortunately, the company found a document management solution that helped make a mole hill out of what could have been a mountain.
Paper bottleneck
Orders arrive at Kaeser & Blair via the Internet, telephone, fax and mail. Data from orders are entered into the company’s systems, but often source documents are needed to answer an inquiry. This paper handling created a bottleneck in the company’s business processes.
High labor and productivity costs
Paper’s greatest drawback is that it’s a physical medium. Documents needed to be printed, filed, found, delivered, and then filed again. Documents got lost or misplace, and customers were left waiting for answers. Paper also needed to be stored, resulting in hefty facility costs.
The paperless workplace
With WebDocs, most paper documents are now scanned and stored electronically instead of being stored in filing cabinets. If a document contains a barcode representing an order number, the program automatically recognizes that barcode, captures the value and indexes the document accordingly. Documents without barcodes are indexed manually. WebDocs also stores e-mails and other computer-generated reports from the company’s Windows-based and System i5 servers.
Easy web access
Authorized users can access documents from the web browser of any networked PC. Once located, documents can be reviewed, shared, emailed or printed.
Reduced costs, improved service
Electronically storing documents has resulted in a significant decrease in printing, distribution and storage costs. And customers are more satisfied because, when they call with an enquiry, it’s no longer necessary to call them back or put them on hold while the information required to answer their questions is sought. Instead, Kaeser & Blair employees immediately access the necessary source documents online.
According to Ed Jessie, an IT consultant at Kaeser & Blair, all these benefits quickly delivered a positive contribution to the company’s bottom line. “We recouped the costs within a couple of months,“ he said.
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