Information Management - Goodbye Occupancy Tourism

When cars need fuel, households and companies need electricity, and industry and commerce use gases, the Westfalen Group, headquartered in Münster, is there.

The company, with over 1,700 employees and a total of 23 subsidiaries and associated companies, is active internationally. This success story also has to do with the "Westfalen Way to Win" of the owner-managed family company: the striving to constantly put processes in production and administration to the test and make them ever more efficient.

This maxim also led to the introduction of an electronic archive and document management system in the Westfalen Group. It pursued several goals:

Central access to documents without time-consuming mailing was to be created in order to drastically reduce processing times. The desired system should enable close integration with SAP, but at the same time also function independently of SAP.

The structure of the Westfalen Group, with its headquarters in Münster and international locations, required a stable yet flexible system as a central solution with versatile expansion options to which the branches could be successively connected.

Deep SAP integration

The Westfalen Group uses Doxis4 from SER as its company-wide ECM platform for information management. Since the start with an electronic document archive almost 20 years ago, SER solutions have been continuously expanded at the Westfalen Group.

The ECM solutions implemented today include the central electronic archive, a separate personnel archive with connection to SAP HR, DMS and Invoice Management in accounting, and connection to the Westfalen customer portal.

The prerequisite for company-wide use of the ECM was deep integration with the SAP system. The Westfalen Group uses the SAP modules for financial accounting, human resources, materials management, production planning and maintenance (HR, MM, FI, CO, AM, PP, PM), among others. Not only are the documents and data from SAP archived, but also reorganization data from the SAP databases.

There is close communication between the SAP modules and the ECM client. Automatisms simplify and accelerate document storage, for example, and avoid incorrect indexing.

If, for example, a document is to be added to an existing, already archived contract, the contract number entered when the document was stored is used for a check against the SAP system.

The metadata stored in SAP is then used to index the new contract document. The initial project at the Westfalen Group aimed to eliminate "document tourism" in invoice processing.

Due to the spatially decentralized structure of the group of companies, with distributed branches and a central invoice receiving department in Münster, paper invoice documents used to be sent through the country by mail for checking.

A digital SER archive with corresponding workflow significantly shortened the throughput times for invoice verification. Later, the further processing of incoming invoices was also optimized.

After archiving the invoice documents, the invoice-relevant data is automatically read from the scanned invoices with SER's Invoice Management solution and transferred to SAP for further processing until the posting is released.

PDF invoices that reach the company by e-mail also go through this process. Today, employees no longer need to spend time searching for invoices and the associated transaction, but can call up all documents in digitized form from SAP.

The solution was received correspondingly positively in accounts payable. The work processes have become considerably faster as a result. Inquiries from suppliers have also decreased, as the department's ability to provide information has improved noticeably.

Personnel archive with SAP HR integration

Westfalen Group personnel documents are digitized and stored securely in a separate client within the electronic archive. Only employees in the HR department have access to them.

The archive is connected to the leading SAP HR. The search for the archived personnel documents is carried out conveniently via the Windows client of the ECM system using the employee names.

The digitized personnel records contain various headings for employment contracts, wage and salary components, application documents, etc., as defined by the HR department.

The reduction in workload for HR administrators is clearly noticeable since they no longer have to rummage through folders. Data is stored in the SAP system, and all additional documents are stored in the associated archive.

A deletion function enables compliance with the legal requirements for deletability of certain documents. For example, warnings can also be removed from personnel records after the retention period has expired.

Automated counter cards

The inbound management component of the ECM system is also used for the automated processing of meter cards. With the InboundMaster, the reported meter readings for the gas consumption of Westfalen's customers are automatically read from the meter cards and transferred to the leading SAP system.

Without software support, manual data entry was very tedious and error-prone. Using the barcode on the meter cards, the meter cards are also automatically indexed and assigned to the correct electronic customer file.

Customers can log in to the Westfalen Group's customer portal using their log-in data. There they can access their order and delivery data as well as product information such as safety and product data sheets at any time.

For Westfalen, this type of information provision means a great reduction in workload, as the documents would otherwise have to be sent to customers as paper printouts, by fax or by e-mail.

The SER archive is integrated with the Intrexx customer portal and serves as a content repository for the content provided via the portal. All incoming documents destined for digitization, such as invoices, delivery bills, purchase orders, customer files, meter cards, inventory documents, etc., now arrive at Westfalen's headquarters in Münster and are forwarded by mailroom staff to the scanning department.

There, thousands of document pages are scanned every day and automatically forwarded to the electronic inboxes of the specialist departments for further processing.

The ECM platform is integrated with SAP. The documents stored in the archive are available in all SAP applications directly at the push of a button. This provides optimum support for the Group's business processes, and all areas work extremely efficiently.

"Doxis4 makes us particularly performant and responsive to both customers and suppliers."

states Ingo Köster, Head of IT Application Management at the Westfalen Group. Over the past 20 years, the SER system has been continually expanded.

"We have now equipped almost all departments and divisions with the ECM solution, from maintenance and production to sales, which, for example, makes intensive use of the electronically stored, customer-related documents."

says Ingo Köster.

All of the Westfalen Group's business units and divisions use the archive system's functions both nationally and internationally in all companies.

The project at a glance

Subject: From automated document reading and paperless transaction processing to customer portal connection

Branch: Gases, energy supply, service stations

Employees: Circa 1700

Collaboration: SER customer since 1998

ECM solutions: Doxis4 iECM suite, including archive, DMS and invoice management in accounting, personnel archive and connection to customer portal

SAP modules: SAP HR, MM, FI, CO, AM, PP, PM, etc.

User: 500 Westfalen employees, up to 100,000 customers via the
Customer portal