Corhart Refractories,
a Saint-Gobain company
Manufacturer eliminates storage buildings and streamlines
business processes to better serve customers
Industry/Solution
Manufacturing
Challenge
Stored paper costs ceramics facility too much time and money - Corhart Refractories Corporation is part of the Saint-Gobain Ceramics group, a worldwide manufacturer in specialty refractory products for the ceramics, metallurgy, foundry, chemical, petrochemical, power generation, waste processing and glass-making industries.
Background
Corhart was interested in eliminating storage facilities for paper documents. When Corhart closed a facility located in another state, the accounting and sales groups were relocated to a smaller office building with limited storage space. This motivated Corhart to examine electronic
document management as a potential solution to the time and money wasted on generating, managing and storing paper.
Corhart’s document retention obligations were growing and its paper-based processes were prone to procedural bottlenecks. In the journey from accounting to customer service, a customer file could languish on someone’s desk or multiply into yet more copies that required more paper and more storage space. The potential for problems increased whenever multiple signatures or a number of participants were involved with a single customer file.
Corhart wanted to put these inter-related paper-based difficulties to rest with an easy-to-use electronic document management solution that also offered a secure and effective way to manage information lifecycle requirements.
Solution
CNG-SAFE workflows improves business processes - Corhart evaluated a number of electronic
document management companies but found only Cabinet NG to be responsive, straightforward, and immediately available to answer questions. The firm’s choice was validated when Cabinet NG’s system proved to be a user-friendly, easy-to-learn electronic file system that both experienced and novice computer users familiarized themselves with quickly.
Cabinet NG's Shared Access Filing Environment (CNG-SAFE) document management software was a perfect fit for Corhart’s need to simplify, streamline and speed up inter-departmental communication. Compatible with virtually any type of document format, CNG-SAFE consolidates all information into one organized and easy-to-use system.
For example, Corhart’s accounting and customer service departments work closely together to communicate with new customers about a variety of business issues including payment terms and contracts. Using CNG-SAFE’s ability to consolidate documents into one master file devoted to each customer, rapid back and forth communications and document sharing between these departments has become much more efficient. CNG-SAFE is now being expanded into sales and marketing, and plans are underway to incorporate other file intensive departments such as Engineering, HR, and Planning into the CNG-SAFE environment.
Christy Turner, Customer Service Representative at Corhart, noted that, "Cabinet NG is flexible enough to support multiple departments within an organization, yet can be customized to serve the unique needs of an individual department. The document revision and workflow features, for example, will be perfect for Corhart’s engineering department where standard operating procedures require multiple signatures for any one change." Christy also looks forward to stemming the growth of the twenty-odd filing cabinets that currently house the engineering department’s original documents.
Benefits
A strategic gain of CNG-SAFE at Corhart is contributing to Saint-Gobain’s corporate 5S goals (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain). Since deploying CNG-SAFE, Corhart’s focus on waste reduction has made measurable progress in decreasing paper usage along with saving time spent creating, retrieving and storing documents. In fact, Cabinet NG has become so integral to Corhart’s lean manufacturing goals that CNG-SAFE will be presented on behalf of Corhart to Saint-Gobain as a leading strategic tool in the fight against paper piles. Corhart is eager to show Saint-Gobain how eliminating paper at its source led to savings and efficiencies only Cabinet NG can deliver.
Cabinet NG helps manufacturers realize a more efficient and productive workplace - By implementing CNG-SAFE first in departments with heavy file activity, Corhart immediately realized productivity gains via improved business processes. With a centralized data repository, companies can manage large volumes of documents, optimize workflow, enforce privacy, and improve business process efficiency.
By knowing where files have been and where they are going, Corhart eliminated the guesswork that wasted time and cost money. As a result, the firm is able to increase the speed with which documents move throughout various departments as well as comply with retention and other regulatory policies.
Corhart found that streamlined order entry resulted in a much faster and accurate shipping and invoicing process. Further business process benefits occurred with the automatic routing of shipped and invoiced documentation. Today, a single document replaces the many documents that were necessary to serve a single customer.
As Christy Turner noted - "With Cabinet NG, we not only know where the file is, we know what the problem is as well. This helps Corhart immediately respond to customer inquiries." Instead of running down the hall to the file storage area, Christy just brings up from her desktop a single unified view of every action taken in regard to a customer.
Corhart’s satisfaction with the time and money saved through Cabinet NG’s electronic
file management solution is a compelling example of how CNG-SAFE can flow through an organization offering better business processes through fewer paper piles. Cabinet NG is well suited for deployment firm-wide as the document management solution that works well with existing third party applications and other customized software programs. The product’s information lifecycle management (ILM) capabilities and ability to enforce document retention policies helps address compliance concerns. CNG-SAFE’s scalable central repository of business information was just the right engine Corhart needed to power a more productive and effective business process.
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