There are few places you can go today without being reminded about “going green.”

From a corporate perspective, we hear about companies taking on “green” initiatives that involve the physical location, such as solar panels or other plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These are certainly leading organizations toward “sustainability,” but what about the internal business processes reflected through methods most employees use to get their day-to-day work done? How does that fit into sustainability?

Looking at most organizations’ internal departments, it is amazing the amount of paper that is not only consumed, but then stored – and in many cases, difficult to retreive. Moving away from manual processes to electronic document management processes can be a cultural change for many organizations. The opportunity to ‘go green” in the office environment can many times off-set these difficult “cultural-change.”

A report published by the North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance titled “A Checklist for Office Sustainability,” outlined five main areas within the office to consider in any sustainability initiative:

• Paper usage,
• Equipment usage,
• Recycling and reuse,
• Utilities, and
• Office sustainability practices.

So where do most companies begin?  By evaluating how your organization uses paper. In fact, begin with how each specific department uses paper as an easy starting point. Streamlining manual paper-based processes and moving toward an automated process for will not only provide an opportunity to introduce green practices in the office, but also increase operational efficiencies and reduce a lot of non-value activities.

A smart, strategic enterprise content management solution can help companies realize these goals.

Our lean office (document management) workshop last week helped reinforce a few ideas.  Here were a few of my notes:

• 85% of issues related to document workflow are related to the process not the person doing the work!  I may have mentioned this before, but I feel that it is worth repeating.  When it comes to looking at a business process don't be so hasty to blame the people involved.  As a business grows the processes adapt and gain weight.  Lean business practices will allow to you step back and redesign.
• Look at business process the way you would look at a manufacturing plant.  Incomplete paperwork is a defect.  Repeatedly picking up and putting down paper (over processing) is also a defect.  Where are your defects?  What can be done to eliminate them?
• More than 60% of the cost to produce a product is attributable to the administrative process.
• Don't think of your process as the "Cost of Doing Business".  There are always ways to improve.  Lean is more than just software.  It is about continuous improvement.
  

Over the past several years in looking at document management and business process one thing has remained true.  Back office document management projects are repeatable.  What I mean is that across all organizations money comes in and money goes out.  The traditional AP process goes something like this:

• PO Issued
• Product & Packing List Come In
• Invoice Delivered and Matched with PO and Packing List
• Invoice Routed for Approval

From there the project eventually gets filed away.  And the process happens over and over.  If you live in this world you understand what I mean.  We have helped organizations streamline this process.  Looking at document management is not always a difficult process.  We have proven results helping organizations achieve efficiency in the back office.  Check out this link to find out more about how we can help you. 

Has your company spent a lot of time and energy negotiating terms to agreement s and contracts, but failed to inform the people who are affected by these negotiations or those who are responsible to meet those obligations?

Do you know if the contracts you have in place right now are meeting the obligations you committed to, or if Vendors you have contracted with are meeting their obligations to you on services and pricing?

How would you know – or prove it – if you can’t find the contract?

By implementing an Electronic Document Management solution (EDM) or Enterprise Content Management solution (ECM), you will have the ability to automate processes that allow you to easily store, retrieve, and route them to the appropriate people.  A document management solution that addresses Contract Management can go even further by tracking a contract through its entire life cycle, alerting the right people to terms that go beyond renewals or terminations.

What would it meant to be able to take advantage of potential discounts and renewal incentives before contracts reach expiration.  The right ECM solution can address can address contracts enterprise-wide from facilities management to IT contract management and more.  Anyone with rights to access can view contracts in minutes with just a few simple mouse clicks, so it’s clear what vendors’ responsibilities are, what your responsibilities are and if pricing structures are being adhered to.

Today on the NSI website I read "The average organization makes 19 copies of each document, spends $20 in labor to file each document, and loses one out of every 20 documents. There is no doubt that manual document driven business processes are expensive, inefficient and time-consuming."

I frequently hear different statistics, but regardless of the data, the idea is the same.  The faster you get documents electronic the better off your organization will be.  Whether you are looking at this software or another the basics are the same for document input.  The three steps are capturing, processing and routing.  Here are a few possible options when looking at an NSI or similar solution:

This is just one approach.  We partner with several vendors that tailor specifically to our customers environment.  If you are looking to streamline your process and want to strive to get more paperless, let us help. 

We have written many times about why you should look at document management and lean office in the workplace.  Today I decided to write about why it doesn't work and why in some cases the project totally fails.

There are many reasons why a document management project can fail but here are a few issues that I have seen that might help you avoid a few headaches:

1. No Advocate.  As with any big project you need to have someone to champion your document management project.  Often times an organization will buy a ECM software package and not fully implement it.  You need someone that will see the project through to the end. 
   
2. Information Silos.  Organizations often want to tackle scanning in one department at a time.  "We only want to look at HR for the time being."  Often this leads to a solution that is not scalable across the organization.  We see information end up in silos when the whole goal of the content management project was to increase collaboration across the enterprise.  As Stephen Covey would say, "Begin with the end in mind."
   
3. Unwillingness to Change.  I know that culture is a huge hurdle in all organizations, but document management is not the future.  Document management is now.  Get the process owners to take an honest look at the way they do things.  Let us help with a process map.  It can be eye opening. 
   
4. Choosing the Cheapest Partner.  This goes hand in hand with all the challenges.  A document management solution that increases collaboration, is easy to use and is scalable across the enterprise is the way to go.  Unless you have a very basic electronic storage need I would recommend looking at the added return on investment more advanced solutions can bring.  They may cost a little more, but you won't be stuck in the long run.
   

Hopefully this list is helpful.  For more information on how others have successfully implemented document management projects, click here. 

Today’s workshop in Kalamazoo was one of the most interactive workshops we have conducted by our Applied Imaging team.  The audience consisted of current customers who have been facing growth with increased stress to current process.  After a brief introduction to Lean-Management, we began by discussing the importance of identifying Business Goals before we could take our first step in discussing process.  The ability to Identify Goals and truly understand the Goals of your organization are critical to the formula for successful process mapping.

With our flip-chart filled with Business Goals, we saw a common thread referencing “Customer Satisfaction” through greater use of existing resources (growth without the addition of people) and efficiencies.

This introductory workshop is designed to get people thinking about process and the effects it has on the overall organization.  We are looking forward to our next workshop in Grand Rapids on April 26th.  For more information about it or to register, click here. 

We have two more dates set up for our Broken Process workshop.  In Kalamazoo on March 22nd we can help you start the Lean Office conversation.  In Grand Rapids the workshop is set for April 26th.  Click here for more information on how you may be able to improve your business process.  Look forward to seeing you at the workshop.   

Can we really go paperless?  I read an interesting article that talked about the shift of the output from the producer to the consumer.  Although I agree with many of the statements in this article I think there is more to it.  I feel that the biggest obstacle is our culture.  We print because we are used to seeing a hard copy.

I find it hard to believe that an email really needs to be printed.  I find it hard to believe that an invoice needs to be printed just to be filed away.  If it can be reproduced there is no reason to have a hard copy.  And that does not even include the time that it takes to file it away.  The technology is there.  It is possible to move to a more electronic world.

One of the team members here likes to say, "document management is not the future.  It is the present."  I could not agree more.  A Totally paperless office may not be possible, but I think everyone should evaluate their culture and see where they can make changes to impact the bottom line.