Publisher for Content Suite

Transcription

1 Case Study Publisher for Content Suite Assembling complex Manufacturing & Engineering documents in minutes For the manufacturing and engineering industries, completing a project means more than supplying the physical product. A critical element is also supplying the product documentation. This is typically a complex and time-consuming task to locate and collate thousands of pages of specifications, drawings and certifications into one professional document for the client. This case study outlines how Content Suite clients solved this challenge with Publisher for Content Suite, reducing hours of work to minutes and accelerating the review and approval process, to achieve an ROI of less than 5 months. In industries such as Energy, Aviation and Heavy Manufacturing, the supplier typically provides the client with a detail document that certifies the product specifications, quality and much more. This documentation, usually known as a Databook, MRB ( Manufacturing Record Book, Materials Record Book ) or Project Book can take weeks or even months to locate and assemble, with numerous reviews to This documentation, usually known as a Databook, Manufacturing Record Book, Materials Reference Book or Project Book can take weeks or even months to assemble and review

2 ensure accuracy and completeness. These customers, high-tech suppliers of heavy engineered products to the Energy industry, saw the considerable workload on their Document Management Team and the significant time required, often with the risk of late payments or even liquidated damages for late delivery of an MRB or Databook. Realising that a significant amount of their data was already being managed by Content Suite, they started to look for solutions that could rapidly produce these complex documents. Defining the MRB/Databook essentials: This data was stored in many formats: paper, pdf & word documents, image files. It was particularly time consuming for the team to collate all these formats into a single document The client project team summarised how they currently assembled and reviewed an MRB/Databook to identify which steps were critical in reducing time and increasing accuracy. Assembling information was the most time consuming task and typically consisted of locating and collating: Bills of Material ( BOM), Assembly drawings Multiple Certificates such as Compliance, Application, Calibration, Recertification etc Multiple Procedures such as routine testing, transport and storage Multiple test reports This data was stored in many formats: paper, pdf & word documents, image files and engineering drawings. It was spread across multiple folders and subfolders. It was particularly time consuming for the team to assemble the correct versions all of these document and ensure they were complete. In addition to the Document Controllers time, the Engineering team were spending significant time handling this information and this was complicated by the fact that many of them were now working on other projects. Both teams felt that the process was error prone and hence spent additional time crosschecking documentation, conscious of the potential damages arising from incorrect information in the Databook.

3 Following the assembly step, the document controllers manually notified reviewers and then used spreadsheets to track the approval process. It was difficult to get an up to date view of all documents and potential delays. As a result of this lack of visibility, prioritisation was difficult and delays occurred leading to liquidated damage payments. Electronic signatures were already in place. Another area that the team were keen to automate was that of change control to existing Databooks/ MRBs and having an audit trail for these updates. This was especially important where the changes were requested by the customer and could potentially be billed back. With their existing system, requests could not be tracked effectively and hence they were unable to fully bill the work. We could see similarities across all the different vendor applications and knew that it would be straightforward to save time on the assembly step. However, getting the integration to other enterprise functions was a huge factor, especially as our volume of work increased The team then examined the standard solutions being offered by vendors for assembling complex documents and defined a list of essential requirements for accelerating the process while ensuring the completeness and accuracy of the data. Their requirements were: An application that the whole team could use i.e. the Document team but also for example Engineering and Quality Ability to be used by off site colleagues, for example Engineers working at client locations or Document Management teams in other Regions. Automated workflow to send the databook for review, with built in notifications to reviewers. Complete Audit trails. Real-time collaboration and reports so for example, the Document Management team could instantly check who had reviewed what. Also discuss a common document with an off site colleague Integration to other enterprise functions. For example, ability to attach documents to multiple SAP objects such as Bills Of Materials, Inspections or to Quality documents such as SOPs. Capacity to roll it out quickly i.e. within months due to the high workload. Needed training to be staged so most users could get started quickly

4 At the end of this specification phase, the team were satisfied that they had identified the key functions that would make most difference to their everyday workload. Leveraging existing platforms The team then looked at vendor options in more detail. We could see similarities across all the different vendor applications and knew that it would be straightforward to save time on the assembly step. However, getting the integration to other enterprise functions was a huge factor, especially as our volume of work increases. We wanted a system that would fit seamlessly with Content Suite and our ERP (SAP). With this in mind, the team looked at what could build on their existing enterprise information system, Content Suite, and examined its Publisher application in more detail. Integration to the Enterprise was seamless. Publisher could be integrated to SAP via xecm, including the SAP Engineering solutions. Publisher could assemble and collate any data they required and it also included version control. The team also liked the flexible templates and automatic Table of Contents. The workflow would accelerate review by automatically sending notifications to reviewers and providing real-time tracking of progress. No additional coding was required and Publisher could be administered from the Content Suite Administrator interface. Only 1 server licence was needed. What s been the impact of Publisher for Content Suite? The client has estimated that savings from Publisher mean that the ROI will be approximately 5 months from implementation. Key benefits delivering this 5 month ROI include: Significant reduction in Document Controllers time and elimination of need for contract resources Reduction in Engineering hours required as Document Controllers now have all the information in Content Suite, with estimated gains of >30% Improved visibility and ability to estimate completion date with 50% reduction in the costs of liquidated damages Gain in billable work of >20% The team also consider the project a significant success from a qualitative perspective: It s transformed

5 the way we manage these MRBs. We can quickly pull together the information we need and we can easily track how the MRB is progressing without all the phone calls. Its been a huge relief to the team. If you would like more information on Publisher for Content Suite, please contact About KineMatik: KineMatik is a Technology partner of OpenText and has been developing products for OpenText customers for over 17 years. We have an in-depth understanding of OpenText Content Suite and are a full service company with successful implementations for customers in a wide range of industries world-wide. If you would like more information on KineMatik solutions for your business or to discuss how we can help you please contact us at