One of our Electronic Document Management customers relates their success.

In a recent blog that I posted, “Going Green in Boise”, I talked about the philosophy of utilizing EDM technology to promote green business practices. I thought that it would make sense to talk about one of our installations that has had some time under their belt and relate their success.

Wizard International is a mid-sized company located in Mukilteo Washington. (I know, I know, they aren’t in Boise but the case study is still applicable).  Wizard International designs and manufactures custom mat cutters. So when you look at that framed picture in an office and admire the matting, it is very likely that they made the machine that cut the mat.

There were several areas that were concerning to Jim Hill, Wizard’s MIS Manager. 38 lateral file cabinets full of the company’s history lined the walls of their corporate offices. In these files were invoices, customer agreements, communications with their customers, and anything else that was deemed to be pertinent. 

Many people accessed these files on a regular basis. For those of us who get into paper files, Wizard ran into many of the same problems that we all face. Files were lost, paper could be put into the wrong folder, and there was very often no back-up. Jim was concerned about time that was lost looking for information, and also he was very aware of the vulnerability of this information. 

We had several conversations and defined exactly what he was looking for in an EDM system. It was important that the system be able to interact with existing platform (Solomon for Accounting and SalesLogix for CRM). It also needed to be secure and easy to use. 

We finally agreed on a configuration which included Flexicapture software from ABBYY as a front end, and DocuWare’s Professional server for storage and access. The first week of December 2007 we made the trip to Washington, and in 5 days had the system installed, configured, and integrated.   We hopped back on the plane and returned to Boise.

I was up in Washington over Labor day and stopped in to see Jim and check on their progress. I was very impressed with what they accomplished in eight months. Here’s how Jim summed it up:

"The implementation of DocuWare to our accounting system, Solomon, has been very good for us. We've scanned and converted all of lateral file cabinets containing customer and accounting files over to electronic documents. Having instant access to this information has significantly improved our customer service. We also scan all current customer and accounting files which has increased our administration efficiencies."

Often companies ask how long, or how difficult is it go electronic. Wizard International proved that with a good plan, great technology, and a capable partner, it can happen faster than you might think.