Managing the data of PDF documents is often a challenge in everyday business life. In this blog post, you will learn how the Wechselgau warehouse in Hartberg (Austria) was able to achieve significant productivity gains by using Semadox's PDF data management software.
In theory, it would actually be very simple: the exchange of business-relevant documents between companies should ideally take place electronically. Almost every company, regardless of size, is now managed with software support.
So far so good — were it not for the challenge of exchanging data between companies. As long as the data exchange takes place between companies in the same industries and of a similar company size, the problems can be solved — thanks to comparable processes, infrastructure, compliance and automation requirements, etc.
The larger a company, the more it strives to automate the exchange of business data. Manual interventions and controls should be eliminated as far as possible. That is logical, as it saves time and helps to reduce errors. The prerequisite for establishing such automated processes is that documents such as offers, orders, delivery notes or invoices are available in a structured, machine-readable data format.
“But there's also EDI — and it's been for 40 years!” , you'll probably say by now. Yes, you are fundamentally right. The use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) enables direct, automated data exchange between machines, which results in effective process automation. But now comes the big “but”: EDI is not widely used by many small companies due to its comparatively high costs.
This is exactly the situation that the Wechselgau Hartberg warehouse in eastern Styria is also confronted with. “We are supplied by hundreds of suppliers. Many of these companies are small companies. The typical, wide range of products in a warehouse requires such a supplier structure,” says Roman Ehrenhöfer, head of warehouse IT in Wechselgau and therefore responsible for digitizing business processes.
There are a total of eight divisions that serve customers in the Wechselgau warehouse. In addition to trading in home, garden and agricultural products, local agricultural products, a car and agricultural machinery workshop and a gas station are also operated.
This unique and extensive mix of products and services is perfectly tailored to the requirements of customers in rural areas — and poses major challenges for business processes. “The use of complex and expensive IT solutions, such as EDI or ERP systems, is not feasible for many of our suppliers. But we also cannot and do not want to do without the products that are important for our product range and our customers,” says Ehrenhöfer. This is where document management PDF comes in. The warehouse itself has, of course, been using an ERP system for corporate management for many years. A solution from Softline is used.
As with many other companies in comparable situations, the warehouse uses a pragmatic approach to data transfer. To the “PDF” document format. Roman Ehrenhöfer: “Even our smallest supplier can easily create a PDF document. We exchange the data required for business processes from order confirmations, invoices, delivery notes or orders with many of our smaller suppliers, i.e. in the form of PDF documents.”
The resulting volume is considerable. For example, order confirmations in the mid-five-digit range are received every month. But even the best ERP system can only work as well as the quality of the data it works with allows. But through which interface does the data from the warehouse's purchasing activities reach the warehouse's ERP system?
The answer: So far, via the human interface. The reason for this was the lack of precision in the solution used so far. “The software we had used so far had one major disadvantage: it could only read header data from the PDF documents.” In order to read out the data at item level, including quantity information, article numbers, exact item names or prices, the submitted PDF document had to be typed out.
An expensive, slow and not always error-free procedure. Even a very fast employee needs at least three minutes to collect data from a PDF document. It is logical that a small typing mistake can also happen. You do a quick head calculation: With 5,000 order confirmations, this results in a workload of around 250 hours - every month (!).
“In order to achieve these enormous productivity gains on our side and still be able to work with our suppliers as before, we chose Semadox. The software collects data from PDF documents at position level. The data is automatically validated and checked for consistency. This is extremely important because we must ensure that the data that enters our ERP system in an automated process and is further processed there is also correct,” says Roman Ehrenhöfer, describing the Semadox process at the warehouse.
“It is also very positive to note how quickly and easily we were able to integrate Semadox into our existing IT infrastructure. For us, Semadox is a real milestone on the path to process optimization.”
The example of the Wechselgau-Hartberg warehouse clearly shows how critically effective Data management PDF can be for increasing productivity and automating business processes. With the right tools, data management of PDF documents is not only possible, but also revolutionarily efficient.
Would you like to find out how Semadox can also improve data management with PDF in your company? Reserve your non-binding demo appointment right now!
Image source: Lagerhaus Wechselgau
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