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Thanks to ELO, Mink is one of the first companies in Germany to send invoices via fax or email on a fully automatic basis, using the legally required qualified electronic signature. 90,000 subscriptions have been scanned into ELO, and delivery notes, orders etc. have been taken over from the ERP system FORMAT (e-bootis) into ELO. The staff now have instant access to customer information at the touch of a button.
" All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come." This quote from Victor Hugo is the motto of August Mink KG. Mink Brushes has a 160-year company history marked by tradition in conjunction with an apparently inexhaustible power of innovation. Mink Brushes not only produces more than six million technical brushes per year; the company also regards itself as a service provider focusing on its customers’ absolute satisfaction.
So the idea behind introducing a document management system (DMS) was mainly to enhance customer satisfaction, resulting in lightening the workload for the company’s staff. If a customer can call and get instant information about an order placed several years ago, the rest of the call automatically takes place on a very pleasant and professional basis. And now this is an everyday scenario in Mink’s service department, thanks to the ELO DMS. The staff use the order confirmation numbers as search criteria, and the order is immediately available on screen. Another goal for introducing the DMS was to save double workloads, which automatically arose when customers placed follow-up orders after a long period. Due to the wide range of standard brushes and the individual manufacture on the basis of customer designs, staff had to locate, copy and re-file the technical drawings every time. Now, these steps are a thing of the past.
Daniel Zimmermann is a senior manager at Mink, responsible for introducing the DMS across the company. ELOprofessional won him over very quickly, with its high performance. The other systems he looked at were not suitable for medium-sized companies, says Daniel Zimmermann. It was ELOprofessional’s user-friendly design that tipped the scales in its favour. 80 workplaces were equipped with ELO. "There’s nobody in the company who can’t work with the system now," comments Daniel Zimmermann, "and nobody wants to go back to paper! The system has been fully accepted."
The pilot project started in October 2003, scanning in the entire 90,000 technical drawings and archiving them in the DMS. The key requirement at this point was to have to enter as little information as possible. The customer and item numbers sufficed, and all the other data was put into an Excel sheet at a later point, so that these two attributes were enough to ensure clear identification. Shortly afterwards, all delivery notes, orders, etc. were taken over from the ERP system (FORMAT from e-bootis) and migrated into the archive via the COLD interface.
In April 2004, the focus was on invoice dispatch via fax or email. As all invoices were already automatically archived from the ERP system FORMAT in ELO after issue, the company wanted to build up an automatic dispatch system. They wanted to send their 150-200 invoices per day out by email rather than by post. That made jobs such as printing out, enveloping, franking, etc. obsolete, saving on administration tasks, postage costs and paper. And the senior management also anticipated improved customer service. The resulting positive reaction to this change surprised even such an innovative company as Mink Brushes. Mink was one of the first companies in Germany to send out invoices on a fully automatic basis by fax or email, already using the legally required qualified electronic signature! Only 6 % of all its customers do not use this service.
The benefits of introducing ELOprofessional are perfectly clear: Mink Brushes has added advantages through:
"We can only advise any sales-oriented company to archive by customer and order structure. The advantage for us: if a customer wants to re-order from us two years later, our employee has the complete order process on screen in a matter of seconds – from the enquiry to the quote, the order, the delivery note to the invoice. That really impresses our customers. Before, customers called us and wanted to order the same thing as two years ago. Then our employee had to arrange to call them back, look in the files and copy everything. That was very time and cost-intensive," says Daniel Zimmermann.
Mink Brushes has no manual filing system any more, neither in Purchasing nor in Sales. Although the volume of incoming paper documents has not been reduced, using ELOprofessional means it doesn’t have to be archived in huge paper archives. "Everything’s running perfectly" Daniel Zimmermann sums up. All processes have been optimised in the administration department – apart from HR and Accounts. And all the leasing documents are already in the archive. In the production department, it is conceivable that the instructions for machine adjustments and operating instructions could also be archived.
"Information is on screen at the touch of a button. The benefits of ELO for our customers are huge." Daniel Zimmermann, Controlling/Project Manager, Mink KG
"ELO and the ELO Business Partner were even interested in individual areas of our company, to make sure everything was depicted correctly. Then they provided proposals and we decided together how to continue. It was a good offer, combined with reliability and perfect project planning. Everything went according to plan. We wanted to introduce the system very quickly, and we did." Daniel Zimmermann, Controlling/ Project Manager, Mink KG
