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AKN cut its processing costs by around 20% with ELOprofessional. All contracts and the related documents are fully available to the company in ELO. Automatic monitoring of deadlines, payment dates, etc. is no problem thanks to ELO. Plus, an invoice processing system was set up for the existing SAP R/3 system, enabling fast processing and increased transparency for invoice status. The existing Lotus Notes communication system is also linked up with ELO.
All aboard... this train will be departing shortly! For over 100 years, train travellers have known when they are about to set off. And that’s no different at AKN. The AKN rail network covers a length of 255 kilometres in the south of Schleswig-Holstein. The company takes its passengers to a total of 66 stations in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. And AKN operates in the freight sector too. It provides 357 employees with attractive technical and administrative jobs. But the pace is picking up in the rail sector. Speed, punctuality and train frequency determine the timetables, and are the key factors in the competition that decides over success and failure in local rail transport. If the trains don’t arrive just in time, the company loses out to the competition. Be it passenger transport or freight – it’s absolutely essential to reach each destination reliably and punctually. Today’s new benchmarks are mobility and environmental compatibility. To make sure it stayed just in time, AKN Railway AG regarded automatic processes as the basis for competitiveness and sustainable success. And what better solution than setting up an archiving and document management system (DMS)?
AKN manages some 7000 contracts. However, the contracts and the related documents were not always fully available at all times. The company lost a huge amount of time in locating the correct contracts and documents. Some 14,000 invoices were received each year on paper. Deadlines and payment dates were not automatically monitored, leading to mistakes and thus higher administration expenses. To optimise these processes, the company wanted a contract database linked to SAP/R3 and an automatic incoming invoice processing system. The aim was firstly to make all contracts fully available in the company for fast and structured access, and secondly to make the workflow for invoice processing more efficient. Using ELOprofessional achieved all the company’s targets. AKN has now linked further departments to the DMS/archive system.
AKN first thought about implementing a document management system in spring 2003. Alongside the contract database for the legal department, they wanted an invoice processing system for the accounts section, which could be linked to the existing SAP system. SAP was also to remain the leading system after introducing the DMS/archive solution. Further relevant factors were the integration of the company’s Lotus Notes communication system and the Windows operating system.
In October 2003, AKN started the pilot systems with ELOprofessional 4.0. And operative use kicked off in February 2004, scanning and archiving the incoming invoices and taking over the data from the contract database into the archive. Less than a year later, the system went live for further areas. In the first half of 2006, ELOenterprise was migrated to the Java-based content management solution – including the ELO module for server-side email archiving from Lotus Notes. The platform independence and the scalable system architecture convinced the project team to switch to ELOenterprise. Future-oriented options were a key factor behind this decision. Firstly, there is an option for dividing the server processes between several independent server units. This not only results in improved performance across the entire system, but also allows a dedicated recovery of a partial function in the overall system. Secondly, asynchronous processing is also possible, ensuring that a single problem does not bring the whole system down.
Using ELOprofessional, key processes were optimised during the creation of the contract database. All contract documents are stored in a process-oriented register. Contract duration is monitored through dynamic tagging masks, automatically placing the contracts in the staff’s to-do-tray at the correct time. Invoice administration was also optimised through ELOprofessional and the creation of a process chain, from opening post to entering in R/3. The ELO workflow ensures the correct designation and further processing of bills. The daily incoming documents are administered entirely in ELOenterprise after migration, and accounting is fully depicted and archived, including all tasks. The company now processes some 10,000 invoices per year with ELO.
The original targets have been reached – and AKN has now linked up further departments such as Purchasing and Controlling with the DMS/archive system. AKN anticipates a further rise in data volume, particularly due to the necessity of compliance-conform email archiving. To tackle these challenges, the has company decided on a modern storage system with high accessibility. The IBM DR550 storage system has been in use since the end of January 2007. This is a storage system on a hard-disk basis, offering additional protective mechanisms for data security. The DR550 is controlled via a certified interface from ELOenterprise to the IBM Tivoli System Storage Archive Manager DR550. AKN is also planning to completely digitalise its accounts department. In future, outgoing invoices will be automatically digitally archived in ELO on printing, and simultaneously booked in SAP.
"Through the entire switch, we have achieved a cut in processing costs of about 20%. That’s an impressive figure for us. Plus, the processing time has also been considerably reduced." Frank Dubberke, Project Manager, AKN Eisenbahn AG
"The first thing that influenced the decision in favour of ELO was certainly the operation, but the open architecture and the available interfaces were also key for the project group; plus, you can realise individual needs quickly and easily via scripts." Frank Dubberke, Project Manager, AKN Eisenbahn AG
"By introducing ELOenterprise, we have slimmed down and considerably optimised our working processes." Veit Tausendpfund, Commercial Manager
"ELO opens up countless possibilities for us - we’re only just discovering them all." Frank Dubberke, Project Manager, AKN Eisenbahn AG
