Leading Global Publisher Improves Supplier Relationships by Installing Document Management System

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A leading Global Publisher has a circulation of 27.5 million readers worldwide and publishes 48 editions in 19 languages. They also create and sell books, music, home videos, special interest magazines and a growing number of multimedia products via direct mail, television and interactive online services.

Established in 1922, The Global Publisher has two sites in the United Kingdom, each with commercial buyers who are responsible for ordering all supplies used in publishing. The UK operation is the largest outside the US and covers everything from production, distribution, marketing, etc.

With millions of people relying on them to produce and deliver internationally the various products they offer, it makes excellent business sense for The Global Publisher to make every effort to ensure EVERY step of the production process is as efficient as possible. The Finance Department is no exception.

The Finance Department manages all accounts payable applications for the UK operation, including processing supplier invoices due for payment. Invoices sent by suppliers to the finance department were previously stored on microfiche. Although this method of storage was preferable to a paper-based filing system, the images produced were not readable, were difficult to locate, and had to be viewed by special equipment.

improving efficiency

Looking to increase their efficiency and productivity, as well as improve supplier relationships, The Global Publisher selected components of Optical Image Technology, Inc.’s (OIT) DocFinity® Suite of Document Management Software: DocFinity Imaging, DocFinity HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management), and DocFinity Print/Fax Server.

Purchased from and installed by OITUK, OIT’s European Business Partner, the document management software is designed to streamline The Global Publisher’s invoicing procedures and allow all of their buyers access to supplier invoices scanned to optical disk from their workstations. The Financial Controller at The Global Publisher, comments, "We realized the limitations of our existing microfiche system and decided to install a client/server-based document management system, which was modular and flexible enough to be expanded in the future.

OITUK and Optical Image Technology have provided us with a solution whereby we are able to meet this criteria."

There are 15 users accessing the system at any given time, two of whom are at The Global Publisher location about 100 miles away from their main office in London. The efficiency with which order information can now be retrieved, matched against invoices and queries answered, is also helping improve supplier relationships.

Through use of the document management system, they have eliminated microfiche. Original invoices (around 2,000 invoices per week) are now scanned into the document management system via a Bell and Howell Copiscan II scanner with a Kofax 9250 interface board then stored on a Hewlett Packard 42-gigabyte optical jukebox with backup onto a single Hewlett Packard drive.

The document management system is running on Sybase SQL Anywhere configured as an NLM (Netware Loadable Module) on their Novell server. The cost of the system and hardware was approximately $75,000. The Global Publisher’s Financial Contoller explains that the cost was easily justified by the savings on clerical filing staff, elimination of bureau microfiche costs, improved productivity for finance staff through faster query resolution, and access to documents.

"On the whole, these benefits have been achieved. It has also given us the platform to use the system in other areas of the business, such as human resources, without the high entry costs that would have meant it could not have been justified by that department alone," comments The Financial Controller. "Also, we have recently moved offices and document imaging is one way in which we were able to reduce storage space requirements."

meeting their indexing needs

OITUK has installed a document management system configured to meet The Global Publisher’s specific requirements, including the use of bar-code aided automatic indexing, which OITUK developed specifically for them to minimize the chores of indexing and improve system robustness.

This program looks at the OIT imaging tables for new documents, retrieves the TIFF images and scans them (via the Kofax board) to find and interpret the bar code which contains a unique number for each purchase invoice. The program then validates this number by looking it up in a table, which holds data downloaded from their accounts payable system. On finding a match, it inserts the unique code PLUS other index keys into the OIT tables and essentially completes the index operation.

Says Vijay Magon, Technical Director of OITUK, "It is a model site for us. The project is a fine example of customer-supplier partnership to implement a solution that met all of the customer’s requirements."

"The bar-code automation is one of the ways forward in minimizing the indexing bottleneck found in most other systems. Since The Global Publisher implementation, we have added new features into the bar-code module to enable users to apply it to multiple applications," adds Magon.

Apart from scanning, the rest of the operation is automatic.

expanding the system

The Global Publisher is currently in the process of extending the use of the document management system within other departments by adding OIT’s DocFinity COLD-ERM (Computer Output to Laser Disk) module and by increasing the number of user licenses.

DocFinity COLD-ERM has been added to the finance department to archive and store business reports, which will add approximately 20,000 pages per week entering the system. These reports reflect accounts and ledger data. In addition, the Human Resources Department has been recently added to the system to help them archive documents related to personnel.

Future developments also include adding OIT’s DocFinity Workflow and DocFinity IntraVIEWER® (Browser Access). The workflow module will automate and improve upon their daily business procedures, eliminating the possibility of reports getting misplaced on someone’s desk.

DocFinity IntraVIEWER will offer The Publisher global access and distribution of information via the World Wide Web. Suppliers and off-site associates will be able to retrieve important information for themselves, using a standard web browser, such as Netscape or Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Explains Magon, "DocFinity IntraVIEWER opens up the other options for The Global Publisher staff to access data held in the OIT system via low-overhead client PCs, potentially from around the globe."