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HOW
TOKOPEN HELPED EXEL INDUSTRIAL WIN "BEST BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS
SUPPLY CHAIN 2004" AWARD
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Using TokOpen as a proof of delivery application
Tokairo's
TokOpen document management and workflow solution has played
a key role in helping Exel, the global leader in supply chain
management, win the prestigious "Business-to-Business
Supply Chain of the Year 2004" award - www.exel.com.
The
award was achieved jointly with a major Exel Industrial client
who owns and operates water, electricity and wastewater networks
in the UK. The submission was for the integrated logistics
operation managed by Exel's Industrial Division, including
an elegant and low-cost TokOpen-based Proof of Delivery solution.
This was developed to support the purchasing, warehousing
and distribution of materials destined for a region-wide maintenance
and repair programme.
Modernisation
of IT - the introduction of Tokairo's DM technology - was
identified by the judges as one of the four key elements contributing
to success. These combined to reduce the Exel client's inventory
from £8m to £3m, increase the number of on-time
deliveries from suppliers from 30 to 80 per cent, and cut
depot manning costs by 70 per cent.
IT
advances included full document management in a crucial application,
internet ordering, track and trace of materials, and barcode
scanning to better manage materials throughout the supply
chain. A new reporting system has also been put in place,
with a full set of key performance indicators available to
management at the touch of key.
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In 1999, The global leader in supply chain management,
Exel has a turnover of £6.7 billion and
employs over 100,000 at more than 2,000 operating
locations. It has facilities in over 120 countries
and serves more than three-quarters of the world's
largest non-financial companies.
In the UK, Exel's Industrial Division provides
a wide range of specialist supply chain and logistics
solutions to companies in the industrial sector.
Main services in the industrial area are transport
management, engineering response, inventory management,
lead logistics partner (LLP), network restructuring,
and warehousing.
One particular ongoing integrated logistical
support programme - which has been running without
interruption for the last 12 years - is service
provision by Exel to one of the UK's leading utility
companies which owns and operates water, electricity
and wastewater networks in the UK.
To update and streamline its IT resources in
response to competitive tender to renew the contract,
Exel implemented the TokOpen document management
solution from Tokairo for a crucial Proof of Delivery
(POD) application. The results, in terms of cost,
time and other resource savings, and tighter control,
helped Exel and its client jointly win the prestigious
"Business-to-Business Supply Chain of the
Year 2004" award.
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"We'd
been providing service to the client since 1992,"
says Supply Chain Manager Iain Harris. "When the
contract last came up for renewal, on-line Proof of Delivery
was included in the specification. Previously, we'd been
operating POD with a traditional manual, paper-based system.
Basically, people who received deliveries signed a piece
of paper, the driver brought a copy back to head office
and we put it in a filing cabinet"
"There
it stayed for six months available for access to resolve
queries, after which we archived it in even bigger filing
cabinets. POD volume was around 1,000 a week - that's
24,000 documents in our current office file - and over
three million in the archive".
The
paperwork operation is not quite as straightforward
as might first appear. "The business involves heavy
use of contractors - with delivery of materials often
to remote sites where work is being undertaken on, say,
a water main," says Harris. "It could be in
the middle of a wood or field, miles from anywhere with
just a map grid reference. Our driver would bring back
a signed delivery receipt, but all too often the contractor's
copy goes into the back pocket of a pair of muddy jeans
and is never seen again. Come time to chase the unpaid
invoice; surprise, surprise, no-one can remember signing
for the delivery note".
"There is scope for contractors to use this to
their own advantage as it significantly extends the
payment cycle. Previously, we had to physically dig
out our copy of the missing POD note and associated
invoices and also physically post copies by recorded
delivery to the contractor. In some isolated events,
resolution has taken weeks"
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"Worse, if the client needed to re-invoice
a contractor for a particular job - not unusual
and possibly involving multiple deliveries - we
would have to trawl through the post-six month
archive. This was extremely time-consuming and
we usually hired temporary agencies staff to do
it, which was expensive".
"With on-line POD included in the competitive
tender contract renewal specification, we realised
the benefits that could be achieved but there
was a fine balance between the solution technology
and the price. We knew our client would go for
the best-value solution. Securing and performance
of the contract lay in applying proven technology
to an industry significantly less up-to-date than,
say, the automotive or IT sectors".
"Critically, such technology had to be 'value-engineered'
- made cheap enough for a cost-sensitive regulated
industry to buy. It also had to fit in with the
industry's culture - those actually receiving
and signing for deliveries - for example, retaining
delivery paperwork and scanning as opposed to
digital signature capture".
"We selected TokOpen because the system
has been used by other parts of Exel for a number
of years, including a POD application at Exel
Special Products, formerly Exel TankFreight, as
well as for an international Web-based Exel recruitment
system. It was regarded as a reliable, rugged
solution".
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"Importantly, because of the way it is presented as
a product, one can pick and mix application elements in a
very fine-tuned way. This enabled us to pare functionality
to a desired price. It also offers a high degree of integration
ability to sit comfortably with other applications. Consequently
we won the business".
Implemented in April, 2004, the system enables POD notes to
be scanned and indexed at Exel's Manchester site. The scanned
images are uploaded and stored at Exel's EMEA Data Centre
in Rotherham. Manchester can now perform on line interrogations
using a standard web browser to retrieve PODs. On line reporting
allows Exel to confirm deliveries by comparing received PODs
against dispatched deliveries managed by Exel's GEAC System
21. Once a delivery is confirmed Exel raise an invoice.
The benefits? "The baseline benefit was that the structure
of TokOpen allowed us to engineer a solution to a particular
price that enabled us to renew the contract," says Harris."For
example, the system can recognise an order number on a document
and automatically index it. Great but we didn't need it and
saved money by not using it - keeping instead to simpler and
more familiar techniques".
"There have been significant savings in data retrieval
time for PODs, and the client can resolve queries themselves
simply and easily via the Web. That saves time for us and
the client. The system also works to squeeze out the delays
that contractors use to prevaricate. In the fullness of time
it will reduce filing costs because we'll be scanning and
indexing on the screen with no need to sort them into numerical
sequence or match up to original orders. TokOpen is exceptional
value for money".
Tokairo Ltd
20 Linford Forum, Rockingham Drive, Linford Wood,
Milton Keynes, MK14 6LY, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1908 695 569 | Fax:
+44 (0) 1908 696 961 | E-mail:
info@tokairo.com
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© Copyright 2004 Tokairo
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