OEM & Lieferant Ausgabe 2/2019 - OEM & Supplier 2/2019 by VEK Publishing

142 IT and Automotive Moving Along with DocuWare at EBB Truck Center Information Flows without Speed Bumps By Siegfried Dannehl, freelance journalist in Munich Founded in 2004, EBB Truck Center quickly established itself as a specialist in the commercial vehicle sector. The company‘s business includes the sale of commercial vehicles as well as the service repair and construction of custom vehicles. Today, EBB Truck Center has three locations and numerous service partners. The company has ambitious goals regarding its IT infrastructure. EBB Truck Center have been working with DocuWare since 2017. They also worked with ADDISON to develop custom-made finance and accounting soft- ware in-house. The key factors for choosing DocuWare’s software were its adaptability and scalability, while the comprehensive knowledge of the DMS provider proved in- valuable. Thomas Hayder, IT Manager at EBB Truck Center, also appreciates how us- er-friendly and easy-to-manage the Web interface is, particularly for administrators. The first step was the complete digitization of incoming AP invoices. DocuWare was integrated into ADDISON and their ERP software, FILAKS.PLUS, which is specially designed for the automotive and commercial vehicle industries. Together with users from EBB departments where DocuWare was to be implemented, workflows were created to address various scenarios for processing in- coming invoices. Huge Savings Processes were analyzed and then optimized. This resulted in the creation of highly com- plex workflows with up to 50 queries and branches. For example, there are workflows that flag certain invoices for disputes and then automatically check the ERP system to see whether a matching purchase order ex- ists. A reminder workflow opens an incom- ing invoice for checking after a given period of time, without holding up the booking process. The company’s digital AP invoice processing went live in March 2018. By stay- ing practice-oriented and providing a high level of automation, the digitization process was met with a high level of enthusiasm among the 70 or so employees who now use DocuWare solutions. Because their corporate structure is quite decentralized and contains several branch offices, documents were often en route for days and sometimes even got lost along the way. Today, handling times have been re- duced by 66% and the entire process is much more secure. ITManager Thomas Hayder says “We were able to reduce the processing times for incoming invoices by two-thirds in some cases. We are now seeing savings in the five digits because we can take advantage of early payment discounts.” Digital Sales Process The next step is to digitize the entire sales process. EBB Truck Center sells between 600 and 700 commercial vehicles annually. The sales process involved storing more than 100 pages of paper documents and records in tradional paper folders. The move from paper to digital involved transferring these to digital folders, making them easily accessi- ble and thereby supporting the sales process right from the start. The company also sees a great deal of long- term potential for DocuWare to support their mobile EBB Truck Center service teams (who help truck drivers in the event of a breakdown) and as a way to optimize their customer communication. The EBB IT team is confident that any technical challenges can be addressed. The large pool of technical documentation and online tools and re- sources such as the Knowledge Base and the FAQ are very informative. When direct contact with technical support is needed no questions go unanswered. Thomas Hayder expressed his satisfaction when he stated: “The central document pool is an absolutely worthwhile investment, which benefits the customer. The return on investment (ROI) was already achieved after one year of pro- ductive operation.” DocuWare GmbH https://start.docuware.com Website Image: © EBB Truck-Center DocuWare GmbH infoline@docuware.com eMail