More time less paper
Since going live with an implementation of IFS Applications 2001 in 2003, Associated Rubber Company has realized significant savings in time and paper. Among other deliverables, the Tallapoosa, GA–based supplier of custom rubber compounds was able to use the document management functions of its new enterprise software suite to streamline ISO compliance measures. The company—a leader in custom rubber compounding for customers in the automotive original equipment, printing, oil field, aerospace and roll covering industries—has been ISOcompliant since 1997, and currently is on ISO 9001 2000. “We used IFS Document Management™ to turn our ISO documentation system paperless,” Associated Rubber Controller Anderson Benefield said. “Just in paper alone that was a substantial savings. We had piles and piles of threering binders everywhere.” “We estimated we had seven or eight sets of manuals in multiple
three-ring binders that everyone had to have access to,” Benefield said. “Every time we made a change we had to reprint every bit of that.” The move to paperless ISO compliance was an unexpected bonus of Associated Rubber’s migration to IFS from a legacy system that isolated the plant floors at the company’s four locations from inventory and financial record keeping. Greater efficiency from back office to shop floor
“The main things we were after were better inventory control and a better accounting period closing procedure,” President Ramey Thompson said. “We wanted real time shop floor reporting and a modern accessible database for sales and product information. Before the implementation, closing monthly was a lengthy process and we would have to run blind for several days. That was a problem.” “It was all a manual process, and a lot of it was paper form transmittal with centralized posting of that data, whereas now the IFS system has moved ownership of that responsibility to the shop floor,” Benefield said. The fact that data is now updated in real time and is accessible to multiple departments across multiple locations is significant, according to Thompson. “Whether it is an order that has been placed, an invoice sent or a payment made, everyone can view that activity—credit control, collections, purchasing,” Thompson said.
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