An Electronic Supply Chain Management and Accounts Payable Case Study
Unify Tendering, Procurement and Payment Processing: Easy access to information lowers costs
ProcessFlows recognise the importance of supply chain management within a business. Any company that fails to manage its supply chain efficiently across every area of their business will find it hard to meet objectives and maintain a competitive advantage.
Streamline the request, requisition, delivery and payment of spares and sundries
Our integrated processes are designed to ‘link’ the various functions of the supply chain and interconnected businesses electronically to smooth the flow of valuable information; making it easy to find and share documentation throughout the entire organisation.
Electronic images of documents are stored in a centralised underlying document management repository which is integrated with incumbent line of business systems – CRM, accounts etc – so it is easy for staff to access information from their familiar desktop interface.
Centralised electronic storage maximises the effectiveness of your processes. It removes the paper bottle necks that take up valuable resource to ‘sort’ and slows down the flow of information between departments and tasks.
Reduce costs for yourself, your clients and your suppliers
With a ProcessFlows solution, all your information is available ‘at the click of a button’. The job of managing and coordinating the movement of materials, information and funds across the entire supply chain flow is bi-directional, which improves efficiency and saves time for everyone.
- Managers have full visibility of the entire supply chain for reporting, what-if’ scenario planning and cash flow forecasting
- Every department has access to the most up to date electronic information – from customer requests through to delivery and invoice details
- Customers and supplier queries can be dealt with in a timely way as all information is easy to find, regardless of what stage of the process the document is at
No more paper
Removing paper maximises the effectiveness of existing processes. The eternal search for paper information in ‘travelling files’ files will be a thing of the past, which all adds up to a better level of customer service, staff morale and profitability.
Northern Marine’s Electronic Supply Chain Management Story
Workflow processes using Hyland OnBase Enterprise Content Management software (ECM) were developed and implemented at Northern Marine Management Limited (NMM) to manage their entire tendering, procurement and payment process for ship owners and operators.
The ProcessFlows document management solution helped NMM streamline their operations and reduce their costs.
We have been able to accelerate our procurement and payment process by reducing the volume of paper we send around the world.
Dominic Fernandez, Senior Finance Manager
Global ship management services for ship owners and operators
Northern Marine Management Limited [NMM] provides global ship management services to the Stena Sphere Shipping divisions. Technical management, crew management purchasing, vessel commercial management, accounts and new build consultancy are examples of services provided.
Request, requisition, delivery and payment of spares and sundries
Ship Managers regularly need to order spares and sundries and these have to be delivered within agreed timescales and when the ship is in port.
There is a set process
- Requests to the shore based Purchasing Officer from vessels are received by mail
- Goods have to be tendered to three suppliers and the preferred supplier selected and approved by a shore based Ship Manager before any contract is placed
- Orders approved and faxed to the supplier
- Received goods are checked for quality and quantity
- Delivery coordinated to ensure that the items ordered are made available at a convenient port.
Manual methods were not working efficiently
NMM have a high dependency on fax business processes and paper mountains had built up in offices and on ships, which slowed down the entire process.
- NMM receive 40,000 – 50,000 invoices a year from global suppliers
- Invoices were manually indexed and attached to a sheet, which accompanied the invoice throughout its journey for payment – a journey often lasting several weeks, taking it through continents, seas and time lines!
- NMM also has to provide regular reporting of all costs to vessel owners, which required the collation of relevant invoices
- All invoices are received at the company’s Glasgow office, but purchase invoices have to be authorised for payment by the Ship Manager and if necessary by a Director, irrespective of where they are.
These processes were causing huge paper flows throughout the organisation – the world” said Dominic Fernandez, Senior Finance Manager “so we needed to find an alternative way of dealing with it.
An OpenText RightFax solution sped up the entire faxing process
Electronic networked fax had vastly improved the situation by enabling users at any location to send and receive faxes from their PC, without the need for fax hardware. But the procurement function and accounts payable was still paper intensive.
Building on the success of the fax project to deliver global content management
Implementing an electronic document and workflow solution for the purchasing and accounts payable process, which integrated with RightFax, was the next challenge.
It was essential that documents could be accessed from remote locations via the web so the paper files could be made redundant and the paper mountain reduced.
OnBase enterprise content management software met the criteria
- OnBase is integrated with RightFax
- ProcessFlows developed complex and bespoke workflow within OnBase to manage the entire tendering, procurement and payment processes
- Paper invoices are scanned and indexed into OnBase
- The OnBase repository can be accessed via a Citrix application in ‘real time’, allowing users instant access for lookup from anywhere in the world
- Documents are held in RTF (Rich Text Format) so amendments and notes are easily added – an electronic post-it note.
Operations have been streamlined and costs reduced
We have been able to accelerate our procurement and payment process by reducing the volume of paper we send around the world.
Compliant
OnBase is also helping NMM meet the Sarbanes Oxley criteria for compliance with USA Financial Rules and Regulations; necessary because NMM’s parent company Stena AB is required to comply as a result of raising finance in the US markets.
Finance Integration
Further integration of OnBase with NMM’s financial system and Microsoft Infopath enables efficient Purchase Requisitions to be made from vessels at sea.
Lower costs and improve customer satisfaction
Getting rid of the paper has reduced costs throughout the entire chain and improved efficiency, allowing NMM to be more responsive to their customers’ requirements.
Companies that have effective supply chains are the most successful.
More information
For information on any of our solutions or products, please call us on 01962 835053 or email sales@processflows.co.uk.
