|
contents | business | |||||||
| Crownlea Group Installs Filestream's EDM Software, Kodak Scanners Eastman Kodak Company announces that Crownlea Group is installing the latest version of Filestream's electronic document management (EDM) software, along with 40 simplex Kodak i30 workgroup scanners at its 16 locations throughout the country. In a deal worth £30,000, this has created a centralised storage system for all business paperwork generated by the various operating companies within the group, resulting in improved staff and organisational efficiency and faster response to customer queries. With turnover in excess of £30 million, Crownlea Group employs 500 staff and is made up of various companies in the UK, Ireland and France specialising in servicing specific areas of the construction industry throughout Europe. Crownlea Group selected Filestream because it was easy-to-use, Microsoft Windows-based and offered value for money. Running on a mid-range HP server located at head office in London, staff access the Filestream data base from around the country using a secure VPN connection and Filestream client software on their desktops. Some 40 employees are responsible for the scanning of documents into the system, with 100 in sales, accounts and management using Filestream day-to-day. Today, one person is employed in an auditing role to visit depots and ensure that Filestream is being properly populated, and older documentation scanned into the system with paperwork then shredded. The 40 simplex Kodak i30 scanners are installed throughout the business at 16 depots including 3 main branch locations (London head office, Braintree and Liverpool) with one duplex Kodak i60 also deployed at head office. Crownlea Group first installed Filestream in Q1 2005, with the company now upgrading to version 4 of the software in a project expected to be completed by July 2008. Over 500,000 documents have been "back scanned" which has given staff a fuller picture of client accounts over time, plus allowed bulky paper documents to be shredded and office space released. Moving forward, Crownlea Group is looking at installing Filestream in its French business, and integrating it with its UNIX-based Insitu 6 accounts, ordering and stock control system from MCS. Currently, staff take invoices produced in Institu and scan them into Filestream, so integrating the two systems will clearly be more efficient and allow invoices to be sent to clients based on their specific requests, in other words via email, EDI or fax. write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Computing News :: home page |