We have a client who was what I call "paralyzed by paper." Their manufacturing process was paper driven, and before a work order could be launched, copies of the work order and all of its supporting documents (drawings, photographs, sales order, notes, emails from their customer, etc.) had to be photocopied for all production departments that would be involved in the job. This process could take a day or more, and with some jobs requiring a short turnaround, the paperwork delay was just murder. Especially to the customer relationship.
With electronic document delivery, no photocopies are required - in fact, no paper is distributed. The Work Order and its supporting documents are linked together electronically in the Electronic Document Management System (DMS) and the set of documents is electronically distributed (made visible) to the relevant production departments. An alert is simultaneously sent to the department managers, and the distribution is done! If a manager needs to print a document, it is printed locally. This entire process takes less than an hour, and job turnaround can now be less than a day - to the delight of their customers!
Another customer of ours surveyed their customers to determine how many would prefer to receive invoices electronically rather than mailed, paper invoices. The result? More than 90% preferred to receive their invoices by email or by fax, citing savings of time plus filing and labor costs. With electronic document delivery, their customer can immediately use electronic document storage to file the invoice, without ever printing the invoice to paper.
Implementation of electronic document delivery of email and fax invoices saved our customer thousands of dollars annually. They eliminated expensive pre-printed invoice forms, they eliminated envelopes and they eliminated postage. Plus, since their customers received their invoices a few days earlier than by mail, they also paid them a few days earlier, improving our customer's cash flow!
And to put the icing on the cake, their customers were happier! Now that's a win-win story all around.
Wherever the documents need to be delivered, it's faster and less expensive to deliver them electronically rather than by paper.