Coopesa’s Digital Transformation Takes Flight

The digital transformation of the aviation industry continues to create new ways for airline carriers, leasing companies and aircraft service organizations to compete.

While aviation has traditionally lagged behind other industries in digital innovation, Coopesa RL — a provider of service and skilled personnel to the aviation industry since 1963 — has prioritized investing in new technology to transform its business. Most recently, Coopesa used Laserfiche to digitize and automate its documentation processes, which has resulted in a reduction in employee hours spent on updating and tracking down paperwork, better oversight of documents and processes, and a boost in productivity. Additionally, the improvements have shortened the average time planes are grounded for service, enabling Coopesa to offer more value to clients.

“Every day, more and more airlines, competitors and suppliers are transitioning to a digital environment,” says Herbert Cabrera, IT director at Coopesa. “Additionally, many of our mechanics are millennials; they are very willing to work in a sophisticated digital ecosystem. We recognize the need to provide the tools that will empower them to be as effective and productive as possible.”

Safety and Compliance in the Cockpit

Based in Costa Rica, Coopesa offers major maintenance, inspections, modifications, upgrades, refurbishments and painting for the world’s aviation fleets and leasing companies. The company has three hangars, and plans to open a new facility that will accommodate additional offices, back shops and the service of even more narrow- and wide-body planes. As the company evolves its offerings, Coopesa has also embarked on a journey to digitally transform its business as well.

Coopesa’s IT team identified an opportunity to digitize the process of documentation, which is required for every task involved with aircraft repair and maintenance. Documentation enables the company to comply with numerous regulatory requirements from more than 13 aviation regulatory agencies in the region — plus requirements from clients’ countries. Traditionally very manual and paper-heavy, documentation for a single service could take up to three days.

Some of the challenges Coopesa faced as a result of manual, paper-heavy documentation processes included:
  • A lack of transparency and accountability, and an inability to assess the status of projects.
  • Significant amount of manual effort involved with finding, reviewing and approving documentation.
  • Limited ability to make informed business decisions about resource allocation and other strategic concerns.

The company sought a user-friendly, customizable solution that could help employees digitally and securely document service activities and purchases, as well as reduce the manual tasks involved with managing and updating documentation.

“In order to keep up with our growing clientele while continuing to honor our commitment to quality, safety and compliance with regulatory requirements, we turned to Laserfiche digital document management and business process automation,” Cabrera says. “Laserfiche helps us to meet one of our biggest challenges: complying with civil aviation control entities in each of our clients’ countries as well as our own.”

Laserfiche Takes Coopesa to New Heights

Using Laserfiche, Coopesa digitized critical documents related to services and automated many of the tasks related to reviewing, approving and updating documentation. The company also automated the process of material purchase documentation, which must be kept for two to five years for auditing, depending on material type and client requirements.

“Digitizing these processes allows us to avoid manual review of thousands of documents, and mitigated the risk of lost documents that previously had to be physically transferred between offices. We also have a full audit trail for all documents; everything is completely traceable. This digital experience puts us on par with the largest repair shops in the world.”

—Herbert Cabrera, IT director at Coopesa

The company has plans to integrate Laserfiche with other internal systems, to centralize information and enable employees to more easily locate certificates and other critical documents, no matter where they are stored. Another project on the horizon is the digitization of personnel files, which also require strict controls and security.

“For many years, the aviation maintenance industry was reluctant to adopt technological solutions, but now there is a new digital ecosystem,” says Cabrera. “Laserfiche has enabled us to not only participate but act as a leader in the digital transformation of the aviation industry.”

Offering First-Class Customer Experience

Coopesa’s Laserfiche initiatives have significantly reduced costs related to the printing, storage and transportation of paper documents. More importantly, the documentation process — which previously took up to three days — now only takes one to two hours. Clients automatically receive notifications immediately when they have corresponding tasks to complete.

“Streamlining this process is incredibly valuable,” says Cabrera. “We can shorten our turnaround time, while our clients can quickly schedule the return of their aircraft to operation. This has a positive effect on our revenue as well as the customer experience.”

The increase in transparency across the organization also allows for better planning. Staff are empowered with information regarding hangar space, technician and other resource availability to fulfill clients’ service and maintenance needs in the most efficient manner possible. Managers are also better able to measure performance and productivity by examining process data.

Another important benefit: Employees have reclaimed time from tedious, manual processes to be dedicated to more specialized tasks related to quality control and customer service.

“Our biggest satisfaction is seeing aircraft take off from our facilities, and operating safely and reliably,” adds Cabrera. “We will continue to invest in the technology solutions that enable us to be our clients’ partners in maintenance, and to meet their needs with high-value and competitive solutions for service.”

Learn more about why digital transformation is key to success in this white paper – download “Leading for Innovation and Growth: Five Strategies for Driving Digital Transformation.”

What is Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?

Optical character recognition (OCR) is a technological process which converts text in a scanned or photographed image into text that can be edited, stored or searched for electronically.

OCR is an important tool for businesses working to digitize information gathered from documents or photographs into an electronic system, and it’s especially useful for processing information in large quantities of documents.

What is OCR Used For?

OCR is used across industries and departments for a variety of business processes due to its flexibility and efficiency as a scanning tool. In the context of digital content management, OCR has two primary functionalities that are applicable to any business: eliminating data entry and capturing information.

The newly captured information can then be searched for and even be used to initiate or fill in data as part of a business process workflow.
OCR takes data directly from imported or scanned documents, then makes it searchable and usable within your business processes.

OCR Eliminates Data Entry

Data entry is a standard part of many job roles — but it doesn’t need to be manual task. OCR eliminates data entry by recognizing characters (letters, numbers and symbols) in a scanned document or photograph, and pulls the information from those images into your computer or mobile device. That information can then be dealt with on a digital platform, and even stored in a digital repository for ease of search and retrieval.

One such example of OCR’s powerful capabilities is within local government administrative tasks, such as historical document preservation. Tompkins County, NY scanned over 9,000 boxes of important documents and records from 1817 to present day. Meeting agendas, deeds, citizen records and more were digitized, saving the county over $5.5 million in storage costs alone. When scanning these historical documents, employees at Tompkins County used OCR to pull important information into their electronic records management system, making the history of the county easy to access for county workers and citizens alike.

OCR Enables Intelligent Capture and Search

OCR is important to intelligent capture, or the process of retrieving specific information from a scanned or digitized image. “Intelligent capture with OCR is not just taking in all the characters on an image, it’s recognizing which words you need and grabbing the exact information you need,” says Tessa Adair, Technical Product Manager at Laserfiche.

Take, for example, you’to receive a reimbursement from your AP department. Rather than manually typing out information from the scan, OCR can pull the characters from the receipt for you. Intelligent capture with OCR takes it a step further by only targeting and saving the information you need on the receipt, such as the date and total, and ignoring the sections for the receipt you don’t need, such as the phone number or the “thank you for your business” note at the bottom. With this technology, OCR is applied in a way that enables employees to take action only the most relevant information for your business.

Once information is imported with OCR into a computer or mobile device, that data can be stored and routed to fellow employees via an electronic document management system. When users within an organization search for specific keywords within their digital repository, that information can be made readily available with the click of a mouse.

For more information on how OCR technology enables improved search and retrieval of documents and records, click here.

OCR is Powering the Future of Work

In addition to improving file searchability and speed of data entry, OCR is also enabling developing technologies like machine learning to improve the jobs of employees dealing with information-heavy business processes. In the context of document management, machine learning is an important and evolving tool for eliminating redundant and time-consuming manual tasks.

OCR is an important component of evolving tech across industries and business functions. In addition to aiding in machine learning, OCR is a keystone element of:
  • Intelligent character recognition (for handwriting).
  • Sentiment analysis.
  • Object recognition.
  • Data privacy protection.

As the digital workplace continues to grow, OCR will continue to enable businesses to automate and simplify tasks across departments to help employees do more of the work that matters.

OCR Empowers Digital Transformation

OCR is an important component in an organization’s digital transformation journey. Phase 1 of a successful digital transformation involves digitizing documents for proper storage and access across an organization, and OCR enables businesses to gather information from non-digital sources like meeting notes, agendas, photographs, letters and more for use within a digital content management system. From phase 1, the benefits only increase.

“Storing and sharing the information in an ECM system isn’t the only benefit of OCR. The bigger benefit is getting the necessary inputs needed to kick off workflow automation, inform AI-powered decision making, and enable insightful reporting,” says Tessa Adair, Technical Product Manager at Laserfiche.

Ready to learn more about the benefits of OCR and intelligent capture? The Guide to Improving Capture and Document Imaging Management provides strategies for going paperless in your organization.

Researching OCR software? Check out the G2 grid to compare top vendors.
G2 Grid® for OCR Software

Merichem Increases Efficiency and Control in the Fast Changing Oil and Gas Industry

Merichem is a global company that serves the oil and gas industries with focused technology, and chemical and service solutions. Its proprietary impurity removal processes increase the quality of refinery products and oil and gas streams, and the company beneficially reuses spent caustics and other byproducts from oil and petrochemical plants around the world.

Merichem used Laserfiche to automate a number of approval processes, centralize information and improve information governance. The result has been a decrease in the burden on employees for meeting all of the requirements of ISO 9001, ASME and other documentation requirements, an increase in information accuracy and productivity, and faster turnaround times for customers—all critical improvements for an organization focused on operating safely and efficiently in a fast-changing, highly regulated industry.

“There has been a lot of change in the oil and gas industries,” said Amy Magee, project controls manager at Merichem. “It used to be that hiring a bunch of people wasn’t a big deal because the industry was making a lot of money. It’s never going to be the way it used to be—cost savings have become more important. Everyone in the industry is working to better understand how they are using money and how they are operating, so we can do things differently and more efficiently.”

Putting Quality and Safety First

With three U.S. offices and over 1000 treating units in refineries in 53 countries, Merichem must comply with a multitude of safety standards including those of the ISO, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and other organizations related to pressure vessels and refinery equipment.

“Quality and safety are extremely important to us,” said Amy Magee, project controls manager at Merichem. “We need to ensure our systems are built to the right standards. Data sheets are needed for equipment; drawings for construction; plus a lot of testing has to be done. And anyone who operates any of our equipment or the equipment we purchase needs to know what they are doing.”

The company initially needed a new centralized repository for documents, but Magee also realized that the company’s needs went beyond digital storage. “We need the ability to manage licenses with customers and give them access rights to individual folders,” she said, adding that employees previously had to manually track access to specific folders via spreadsheets or on Word documents. “We also have to track versions of documents, and when we disseminate information or updates, we need to know if and when documents are received and reviewed.”

Another essential component of Merichem’s operations, data books, were time intensive to compile, and were often still printed on paper and sent to customers. When a project was completed, employees had to compile anywhere from 10 to 20 books—with about 750,000 pages in each book—in a short time frame. PDFs were manually uploaded, and any time a change is made, it must be carefully tracked and sent to the customer as well. This resulted in increased overtime hours at the end of every project. “Data books were being printed, and employees had to manually mark up the individual copies,” Magee said. “They then had to scan the page back in, and there was no way to know if a customer had opened or looked at it. It was just a monotonous process. You had to check that you didn’t duplicate efforts. A lot had to be done to ensure the information was correct.

“Our cycles are very fast, and a lot of projects are fast-tracked,” Magee added. “Manual work was delaying our processes, and employees had to work overtime to get things done within our time frames.”

The company ultimately turned to Accelerated Information Systems, a Laserfiche Solution Provider, to implement a Laserfiche system that would enable access control, provide tracking capabilities and automate manual processes, including data book compilation.

“Safety is serious business at Merichem,” said Zaheer Master, president of Accelerated Information Systems. “With Laserfiche we’ve automated a critical but monotonous task, freeing employees to work on more important projects.”

Control, Automate, Transform

Today, Merichem uses Laserfiche for document management; Laserfiche provides granular security control so that individual employees are no longer tasked with tracking access to information. Project assistants previously spent on average 750 hours—about half of the hours charged to a typical project—uploading and transmitting documents to multiple outside parties. Today, they have reduced that by about one-third, or 250 hours.

The centralized system also allows employees enhanced search capabilities, saving additional time finding information. “One of the biggest complaints we had about the previous software we were using was that you had to know the exact name of what you were searching for,” Magee said. “Being able to use Laserfiche and do partial or fuzzy searches, and search through OCR and metadata has been huge for us.”

Beyond improving the management of information, Merichem used Laserfiche to automate the process of data book compilation. Today, employees simply need to follow a naming convention for files and an automated workflow compiles the data book in 30 minutes to two hours—a process that used to take a full week.

“I’ve gotten a lot of feedback that Laserfiche makes our employees’ lives easier. It’s had a positive impact inside and outside of my department, across the rest of the organization. It helps all of our employees and alleviates stress related to deadlines, and we are able to expedite the turnaround time for preparing and submitting data books to customers. The end of a project is always a stressful time period, but it’s much easier now since very little manual work has to be done. We don’t have that rush at the end, where everyone’s putting in overtime hours.”

—Amy Magee, Project Controls Manager at Merichem

Continued Improvements, New Efficiencies

Merichem continues to explore new uses for Laserfiche and increase efficiency across the organization. Next, the company has plans to implement Laserfiche for specifications review, another time-intensive and paper-driven process. Magee explained that employees will also use Laserfiche in shipping and receiving, allowing employees to use tablets to take pictures of materials before they are shipped, so that they can upload them to the Laserfiche mobile app. This will assist employees in ensuring the company has records of the exact condition of items before they leave the premises, helping to fulfill requirements of ISO 9001.

Magee encourages her team members to obtain Laserfiche Certification and get involved with process improvement. “Laserfiche has helped in a lot of aspects,” Magee added. “It’s helped to keep everyone on track, and now as we are overseeing and facilitating work, we are able to make sure that people have the tools they need to get important information to customers in a timely manner.”

Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures Transitions Corporate Operations to Laserfiche Cloud

Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures (MLCV), created by the tribal government of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, manages the business affairs of the Band. This includes oversight of two casinos, Grand Casino Mille Lacs and Grand Casino Hinckley, which employ nearly 3,000 people and welcome millions of guests each year. The casinos, as well as the rest of the Band’s portfolio, use Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) to automate and streamline key business processes.

Over the years, the casinos in particular have achieved great economic success thanks to a strong operations infrastructure powered by Laserfiche. That steady growth, however, has led to a very large and complex business environment that is catered to sustaining the needs of the casinos. The MLCV leadership team knew that they needed to create a separate business environment for corporate operations to maintain performance, so they made the decision to migrate MLCV content and processes to Laserfiche Cloud in order to create a more accessible and agile environment for corporate operations.

Transitioning Key Business Processes to the Cloud

For the last 10 years, Laserfiche has been instrumental in supporting the Band’s mission of building a sound economic future for generations to come by enabling the Band to standardize, automate and optimize core company processes. Having initially deployed Laserfiche on-premises, the MLCV team was confident that they could leverage Laserfiche Cloud to build an accessible corporate business environment quickly, with the added bonus of familiar technology.

“The digital workplace is constantly evolving, and the obvious next step for us was to start transitioning operations to the cloud,” said Angie Litchy, CIO of Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures. “We selected Laserfiche Cloud because we already had a successful on-prem solution, which means we could easily migrate key workflows and ensure business continuity while we made the transition.”

“Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures has always been at the forefront of using technology to create efficiencies,” said Ned Weizenegger, COO at Laserfiche Solution Provider Minokaw Technologies. “Moving operations to the cloud was a natural next step, and aligns well with MLCV’s vision of improving businesses and communities by infusing passion and ideas.”

Among the first workflows that Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures migrated to the cloud was the contract management process.

“Before our initial Laserfiche solution was implemented, contracts were impossible to get a status on because the process varied from person to person, which created bottlenecks and lost information,” said Andrew McElrath, strategic project manager at Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures. “Laserfiche introduced uniformity and a clear line of authority, which ultimately expedited the entire process from weeks to just hours. It was a priority to ensure that this process wasn’t interrupted as we transitioned operations to the cloud.”

The contract process was migrated to the cloud with few alterations. Today, associates can start the contract process by submitting a Laserfiche Form with the contract for review. The information is automatically routed to the submitter’s supervisor, contract coordinator, COO, CFO and legal counsel for review and approval. The document is then sent to the legal coordinator who prepares the document for final signature by the vendor, and then the countersignature of the MLCV CEO. The legal coordinator also stores a final version in the Laserfiche repository.

“In Laserfiche Cloud, it’s easier for us to determine where requests are in the process at a glance,” McElrath said. “And the transition itself was fairly easy. Our Laserfiche Solution Provider mocked up the forms and process for us, then we would review it and suggest changes. The most important part of the process is to communicate clearly and test thoroughly so that your solution fits your needs once it has been launched.”

Reevaluating Business Needs

Another major benefit of transitioning to the cloud was that it created an opportunity for MLCV leadership to reevaluate the organization’s established processes and make adjustments if needed.

“We have been using and building upon our Laserfiche Workflows for a number of years, and the way our business operates has evolved since that initial implementation,” said McElrath. “We wanted to introduce more efficiency into our processes, so we took a hard look at what we were doing and how we could do it better.”

For example, during the transition, the MLCV team realized that the purchasing process was cumbersome and it could be streamlined further. Migrating to the cloud provided the chance to take another look at the process and simplify it.

Today, associates can access Laserfiche Cloud in order to submit a purchase request. After logging into the online system, the employee navigates to the purchase request page, fills out required fields (such as the purchase amount, purchase order number and vendor IDs), attaches required materials, and submits the request. From there, the request is routed to an approver depending on the cost of the purchase. The appropriate reviewers will then approve or reject the purchase order through the system. If approved, the information is submitted to a purchasing agent who can then follow through with the request.

“The entire process is completed in the cloud,” said McElrath. “Every individual that is included in the workflow can complete their portion of the process from the comfort of their home, from a conference or on an airplane. All they need is a mobile device and access to the internet.”

Looking ahead

Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures has migrated many business processes to Laserfiche Cloud including contract management, purchase order requests, annual appraisals, direct deposits, system access requests, tuition reimbursement requests and more. This has been especially helpful since all the company officers now have remote access to one common business platform, enabling the organization to standardize, streamline and expedite major business processes.

“Laserfiche’s compliance tools in the cloud, and knowing that Laserfiche takes security very seriously have been important factors in our decision making.”

—Andrew McElrath, strategic project manager at Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures

Other benefits to transitioning to Laserfiche Cloud include:
  • The organization easily migrated key business processes to Laserfiche Cloud without introducing a learning curve or creating a gap in business continuity.
  • Employees no longer need to be on-site in order to complete work, which has reduced bottlenecks, improved efficiency and bolstered productivity.
  • MLCV simplified operations since Laserfiche Cloud requires no physical hardware and users receive instant updates.

“Once you’re invested in Laserfiche as a platform, you start to unlock a lot of the value,” said Litchy. “Now that we have the system, we are invested in leveraging it to its full potential to reach our business goals.”

Find out more about the benefits of managing content and automating business processes in the cloud. Click here to visit our Laserfiche Cloud page and get a free trial. 

American University of Beirut Uses Laserfiche to Take Fundraising to New Heights

In January 2017, the American University of Beirut (AUB) launched the most ambitious fundraising campaign in its region’s history. AUB needed to streamline and automate many key business processes, including gift processing and donation management. Using Laserfiche to automate many of the manual tasks involved with receiving gifts and acknowledging donors, the university has made the process faster, more transparent and more efficient, while also helping to keep any confidential information secure.

Supporting BOLDLY AUB

Founded in 1866, the American University of Beirut (AUB) is a private, independent institution of higher education. Lauded as a transformative leader in academia, the university has substantial impact on the region and the world—from its graduates’ contributions to the active research, community outreach and medical care the institution provides. In order to continue attracting top scholarly talent, enhance its current programming, and build and maintain world-class facilities, AUB launched BOLDLY AUB—the university’s largest-ever fundraising campaign—with the goal of raising $650 million in five years.

Along with an influx of donations, AUB also anticipated an influx of the paperwork related to those donations. The university needed a way to efficiently process and track funds, and thank donors, even when the volume increased dramatically.

AUB’s Advancement Services department is responsible for receiving and processing gifts, as well as acknowledging donors. Before implementing Laserfiche, this entire process was manual and paper-driven, requiring multiple photocopies for staff review, and additional copies for a master file. Once gifts were reviewed and approved, the gift processing team would issue an acknowledgement letter to the donor, which also must be reviewed by multiple people before finally being mailed to the donor.

The AUB team knew that the process had to change: Advancement Services receives an average of 5,000 donations per year. The tasks involved with processing each gift and acknowledging their donors could take anywhere from seven to 10 days per donation. At the same time, all of the hard copies required by the paper-based process resulted in the use of around 40,000 pieces of paper per year.

Automating for Efficiency and Achieving New Goals

Using Laserfiche, AUB re-engineered this process by creating a workflow that allowed the university to digitize donation information and automate many of the tasks involved. Now, information about gifts is automatically sent to the relevant reviewers. Managers and their staff are able to track the documents throughout the entire process, increasing accountability.

Additionally, because Laserfiche automatically names and files documents into a repository, staff can more easily locate records when they are needed. Documents are no longer misplaced, and the entire process has been streamlined.

The time needed to process a gift and issue a letter has decreased to just two days. Employees in charge of gift processing now save two to three hours’ worth of manual work, resulting in nearly $30,000 in savings. As a result of implementing Laserfiche, staff members spend less time on manual tasks and have increased the university’s donation processing capacity.

AUB has also reduced paper use by 75 percent, further helping the university reduce costs and its environmental impact.

As a result of the successful workflow automation in the Advancement Services office, other AUB offices have begun using Laserfiche solutions at various levels as the primary content services tool. As the institution continues to digitize and automate processes, it will continue to serve students and further AUB’s mission of providing excellence in education in the Middle East and beyond.

Modernize your campus for student success through secure records management and process automation. Click here to learn more.

Tecnoglass Powers Collaboration to Deliver Industry Leading Products and Services

Tecnoglass is a leading glass and window manufacturer, and the first Colombian company to be listed on the NASDAQ. Since its beginnings in 1984, the company has gained recognition for delivering high-quality products, competitive prices and timely delivery. In more recent years, Tecnoglass experienced tremendous growth, doubling revenue since 2014 thanks to the company’s vertically integrated business and strong, innovative product offerings.

To remain on the forefront of the industry and continue to meet customer expectations, Tecnoglass introduced automation to its operations. This transfomation has affected not only the fabrication of products, but also core business processes across the enterprise.

At the heart of Tecnoglass’s digitization and business process automation initiatives is Laserfiche, which the company uses to store critical documents, manage records and enable collaboration between employees and with external suppliers. This Laserfiche-enabled digital transformation has benefited the entire organization, increasing accountability, improving compliance and accelerating business across all units. Today, Tecnoglass continues on its growth trajectory using Laserfiche to eliminate repetitive, time-intensive manual tasks, and enable employees to maintain focus on fulfilling customers’ quality and service expectations and remaining competitive in the marketplace.

Positioned for Growth

In December 2013, Tecnoglass debuted on NASDAQ. Shortly after, the organization sought a better way to manage documents, since the company’s legacy system was no longer robust enough to meet the demands of a rapidly growing business and could not be integrated with other core technologies.

“Records were disorganized, and stored in warehouses making them difficult to find,” said Plinio Florez, document management coordinator at Tecnoglass. “This led to high storage costs and labor costs associated with searching for documents. It was almost impossible to consult files for decision-making, which delayed critical processes.”

Tecnoglass also faced challenges collaborating with suppliers. The legacy supplier registration process was manually driven and paper-based, which led to lost documents, and difficulties with authorizing suppliers and making payments.

The Tecnoglass team found that Laserfiche could meet the company’s document management needs as well as enable the automation of key business processes such as supplier registration and accounts payable. The Laserfiche platform was also easily integrated with Tecnoglass’s ERP system, helping to centralize data and operations.

Tecnoglass also enlisted the help of Colombia-based Laserfiche Solution Provider, Gestech, for the implementation. “Having local support was another important part of our decision making process,” said Florez.

“Laserfiche was the perfect choice to take Tecnoglass into the next phase of growth and expansion,” said Jaime Barrios Perez, CEO of Gestech. “By using Laserfiche to centralize information, and digitize and automate processes, Tecnoglass created a more seamless experience for employees and suppliers that is closely aligned with the company’s modern, global vision.”

Getting Ahead by Going Digital-First

The most immediate change Tecnoglass made was to digitize documents and store the electronic files in a Laserfiche repository, making information easier to process and share with outside parties when needed.

“We had to change the mentality of employees, which was that documents are only safe if they’re ‘physically available,’” said Florez. “To the contrary, by digitizing paperwork, we have enhanced controls and mitigated risk of information loss.”

Digitization made an impact across the company, especially in the foreign trade department, which manages significant amounts of Tecnoglass’s transactions and activities. The company was able to save nearly $73,000,000 Colombian pesos in costs related to shipping and processing paperwork alone. Today, the company’s Laserfiche repository houses more than 10 million files, all easily searchable by authorized employees.

Moving toward a digital-first environment also made collaboration with outside parties easier. The paper-driven legacy supplier registration process was replaced with a Laserfiche electronic form and automated workflow. By digitizing and automating the process, the company eliminated lost paperwork and accelerated registration, improving the experience for both Tecnoglass employees and the company’s suppliers.

Using Laserfiche, Tecnoglass employees can now easily search and retrieve documents without having to step foot in a warehouse. This has resulted in faster decision making, as well as a faster response times to internal and external audits — such as those related to Sarbanes-Oxley Act, ISO standards and the company’s Authorized Economic Operator certification, for which Tecnoglass has committed to both physical and IT security and safety standards throughout its supply chain by meeting requirements set forth by the Colombian Tax and Customs National Authority (DIAN).

“Laserfiche has helped tremendously with the company’s compliance with legal and industry requirements. Having the search functions at our fingertips has eliminated headaches for many of our employees, and automating processes has eliminated repetitive, error-prone manual tasks like data entry, allowing employees to focus on more productive work.”

—Tecnoglass General Counsel Andrea Zambrano

Accelerating Across the Enterprise

The company’s success with Laserfiche continues to spread throughout the organization since initial implementation. Additional departments have automated key processes including accounts payable, supplier updates, correspondence management, user profile confirmation and document loan control.

“Departments that have benefited from the implementation of Laserfiche include: purchases, treasury, accounting, document management, foreign trade, warehouse and internal control, all of which mainly needed a solution that allowed them to optimize time, space and the fulfillment of obligations to third-parties,” said Zambrano. “We have created and opened up new channels of communication with third parties, such as our suppliers. We’re now able to notify suppliers when we have an issue with a document or bill — prevent billing errors and delays — and we give our suppliers more convenient methods for updating data online.”

Tecnoglass’s Laserfiche implementation has created a more integrated work environment, where processes are standardized and transparent, enabling the company’s management team to more easily optimize resources and personnel. Employees and departments are accountable, which has led to better collaboration and better communication, even with third parties.

“Adopting Laserfiche technology opened up new possibilities for our organization that were previously dismissed,” said Zambrano. “It turns out we just did not have the foundation and practices in place that would enable more innovation. Once we started implementing automated workflows, we eliminated silos and our operations became more connected. We continue to work on integrating workflows and centralizing data and processes. Laserfiche is an extremely powerful tool for our organization.”

Ready to scale up and drive digital transformation enterprise-wide? Download our white paper, “Leading for Innovation and Growth: Five Strategies for Driving Digital Transformation.”

Technology Helps Frisco Independent School District Manage Unprecedented Growth

Frisco Independent School District (ISD), located about 30 miles north of Dallas, Texas, has grown over 800% in the last 20 years. A focus on providing strong academics and outstanding opportunities for students has made the district a destination for families moving to the area. In order to continue providing students with personalized high-quality education, however, the district needed to address staffing needs and the administrative growing pains that coincided with a high enrollment rate.

The district assessed that it would need to double the number of educators on staff — a challenge made even more formidable with legacy manual, paper-driven HR processes. To accommodate a short hiring season of approximately four months, the district turned to Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) to automate the employee onboarding and resignation processes. Using electronic forms and an automated workflow created in Laserfiche, Frisco ISD’s onboarding process can now be completed in a matter of days rather than four to six weeks.

Staff and faculty members have since expanded their use of Laserfiche beyond human resources, in departments such as accounting, operations and student services. Laserfiche now streamlines more than 50 key processes throughout the district, enabling faculty and staff to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time focused on the success of the district’s growing student body. Additionally, when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Texas, Frisco ISD was able to seamlessly transition to remote and hybrid work environments, and easily adjust its electronic forms and automated processes to address the needs of its staff and students.

Onboarding Employees at a Record Pace

Frisco ISD has almost 64,000 students, 73 campuses and 8,000 employees. The HR department is tasked with onboarding approximately 1,600 employees every year.

The legacy employee hiring process depended almost entirely on paper, and district leadership knew that it would not support future growth. The resignation process was similarly paper-based, and driven by manual, ad hoc tasks. As a result of delays in both processes—which often had to be completed simultaneously during a short, four-month period—it would take four to six weeks to onboard a single employee.

“The biggest challenge the human resources department faced with this level of growth was not having enough time in each day to get things done,” said Bob Allen, director of business applications and process at Frisco ISD. “The sheer volume of growth hindered our ability to keep up with not only the hiring process, but also real-life situations. Whether it’s a campus issue, an employee need, or just trying to get a project completed, time becomes a challenging factor.”

To manage the influx of incoming employees, Frisco ISD worked with DocuNav Solutions, a Laserfiche Solution Provider, to digitize and automate its HR processes.

First, Frisco ISD used Laserfiche to automate the new employee onboarding process and now, nearly 100% of the process is streamlined with electronic forms and workflow.

Today, when a candidate is recommended for hire, the HR department receives an electronic notification from the hiring manager that kick-starts the process. An employment-offer email is sent to the candidate, who can accept or reject the offer via a Laserfiche Form. If they accept, they can complete and submit all necessary paperwork online. The automated workflow then sends the information to the relevant personnel for reviews and approvals.

New hires also receive important information, such as the employee handbook and an overview of benefits, through Laserfiche. All of these activities can be completed remotely—which was not possible before digitizing and automating the process.

“The flexibility and convenience of being able to complete tasks from home expedites the entire process and creates a great experience for both the new employee and HR representative,” said Dr. Duana Kindle, managing director of human resources at Frisco ISD.

All employees involved also receive email updates every time a task is complete, or a deadline is missed. Onboarding documents are automatically filed and saved in Laserfiche, helping Frisco ISD maintain secure, consistent and accurate records management without placing additional burden on staff.

Automating the employee onboarding process benefited the district in new and unexpected ways when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Texas. Before COVID, the collection of the I-9 employee eligibility form and proof of identity was intentionally completed face-to-face, to personally welcome employees and provide a form of engagement. The district had to swiftly shift to virtual, however, when in-person interactions could put people at exposure risk. This overnight change was made possible by Laserfiche.

“Laserfiche streamlines the entire onboarding process from beginning to end,” added Dr. Kindle. “New employees are completing paperwork, receiving deadline reminders, and receiving new-hire documents through the system while we are receiving critical information in one centralized location.”

Today, Frisco ISD is in the midst of hiring new teachers and staff for the coming school year, with the aid of the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ARP ESSER Fund) aimed at supporting educational agencies in addressing the impacts of COVID-19. The electronic forms and automated onboarding process are more important than ever before in supporting the district’s hiring needs while navigating uncertainty about the upcoming school year.

Taking a similar approach to the onboarding process, Frisco ISD has a Laserfiche automated workflow that routes the information to the appropriate managers for approval and notifies relevant employees along the way. In addition, the resigning employee is prompted to complete a questionnaire about their reasons for leaving Frisco ISD—providing valuable feedback for improving employee retention and organizational culture.

“Today, the resignation process is just as quick as the new onboarding process, which means we are no longer scrambling to free-up space for our new employees,” said Anna Koenig, managing director of human resources at Frisco ISD. “It’s all one seamless digital process.”

The new employee onboarding and resignation processes have improved tremendously since implementing Laserfiche. Today:
  • Onboarding an employee can be completed in a matter of days rather than four to six weeks.
  • Frisco ISD employees have the flexibility to complete tasks remotely.
  • The HR department has eliminated many repetitive, manual tasks, enabling employees to redirect time to addressing staff and student needs.
  • Employee records are stored digitally, in a central location using standardized filing practices.

Frisco ISD’s Journey Continues

Since these initial successes, Frisco ISD and Laserfiche have formed a strong partnership, and the district has continued to automate dozens of processes across the organization, including, but not limited to:
  • Invoice processing in accounts payable
  • Employee benefits document management
  • Compliance records management
  • Custodial, transportation, and general employee handbook acknowledgments
  • Employee address changes
  • Performance review acknowledgement and archiving
  • Employee transfer requests
  • Finance document management
  • Independent student mentoring registration
  • Student Gifted and Talented enrollment processing
  • Teacher certification tracking

Automating processes and eliminating repetitive, manual tasks has enabled the school district to scale as the student body continues to grow. In the district’s accounts payable department, for example, the staff is able to process 40% more volume with 25% less resources. Also critical to a fast-growing organization, the district now maintains a central location for records that is accessible to authorized personnel, improving information accuracy and governance district-wide.

Most importantly, however, Frisco ISD has established a culture of efficiency and automation. By streamlining the majority of its processes, the district can move quickly to respond to changes in policies or procedures, regulatory requirements and — perhaps most importantly — employee and student needs and expectations.

“We always talk about preparing students for the future,” Dr. Kindle added. “If we are not future-ready as educators, we can’t expect the same of our students. Laserfiche has supported us in being future-ready.”

District leadership knows that with this approach to processes, the organization will be able to gather data-supported insights into operations and make more informed decisions about allocation of resources.

“Our ultimate goal is to implement automation throughout the district so that we can collect process data and improve operations based on those analytics,” said Allen. “Laserfiche is an integral part of this strategy, and we look forward to implementing creative solutions that will ensure student success.”

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Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce Supports Economic Growth Through Online Services

Barranquilla is a cosmopolitan city and one of the largest ports in the northern Caribbean Coast region of Colombia. Rapid urban growth and economic development has transformed the region into a tourism hub and an active business community.

The Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce provides its services to over 72,000 companies that operate in northern Colombia and is tasked with fielding thousands of registry-related requests annually. To help support the area’s dynamic development, the chamber used Laserfiche to digitally transform its operations by giving affiliates the ability to access key services online. The initiative met government requirements and initially eliminated approximately $50,000 in annual costs related to document scanning. Additionally, the chamber’s use of Laserfiche created new opportunities to offer affiliates more convenient, faster online services by automating other core processes.

Changing With the Times

While the Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce prides itself on promoting the competitiveness and economic prosperity of the region, in 2015, the chamber’s processes were not keeping pace with the area’s accelerated growth. That year, the Colombian government mandated that chamber services must be made accessible online in order to meet modern business expectations and enable the country to compete in today’s global economy.

“One of our biggest customer service challenges was to take our traditional services on-site and make them available over the internet,” said Jorge Andon, public registry lawyer for the chamber. “We needed a platform that could satisfy the registry related requests of our more than 70,000 affiliates in a fast and safe way.”

The chamber’s services include enabling citizens to make requests related to the legal creation of businesses, modifying and renewing company information, and dissolving companies.

Previously, to access these services, citizens were required to travel or mail in the necessary documents to the chamber’s office in Barranquilla. For example, to create a company, citizens need to file documents—such as statutes of incorporation and standardized forms—which are received and reviewed by a lawyer who ensures they meet legal requirements. If they do, the documents are registered and the company is created. If information was incomplete or did not meet legal requirements, the process was delayed—documents had to be returned to requesting party, revised as needed and re-submitted to the chamber.

“Document returns constituted around 20% of our operation, which added up to many working hours,” Andon said.

In addition to streamlining these requests, the chamber also needed to make certain documents available online as part of the government’s initiative to increase access to public information.

After assessing a number of solutions, the chamber selected Laserfiche, which would enable the organization to digitally transform how it provides services while offering a centralized place to manage documents and make them available to the public. “Laserfiche met our expectations in regards to information security and integration with other core applications,” Andon added. “We also found that Laserfiche is characterized by innovative solutions in the field of document management software. Having a certified Laserfiche Solution Provider located in Barranquilla was another strong determinant.”

“As a Colombian-based business with many customers, we understand the challenges the Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce faced,” said Jaime Barrios Perez, CEO of Gestech, the Laserfiche Solution Provider that supports the chamber’s implementation. “Laserfiche is a great platform for the chamber since it meets the organization’s current digital transformation needs, while also enabling them to create new solutions and maintain scalability for future growth.

Streamlining Services for Affiliates and Employees

The chamber brought its paper-based registration process online by building a Laserfiche public portal, where affiliates can submit electronic forms to register for business licenses, update operational information and submit other requests.

Rather than having to fill out pages of paperwork and produce physical copies of documents for chamber employees to scan, affiliates can now log into the chamber’s online portal and complete a Laserfiche Form to request the desired service. There, affiliates can also upload documents related to their business’s public registry—such as articles of incorporation and bylaws; appointments of directors and administrators; or bankruptcy or liquidation documentation.

To streamline the process for chamber employees, the chamber used Laserfiche to design an automated workflow which routes information to a public registry lawyer for review. If documents meet legal requirements, the lawyer will approve them and Laserfiche will send the affiliate a tax and service bill, which can be paid online or on-site.

“The ability to request services online has brought an array of benefits for users, such as reduction in travel expenses, and reduced service response times,” Andon says.

Once payment is made, documents are inscribed in the public registry (performed by an application that is integrated with Laserfiche) and available to the public online through a Laserfiche portal. As part of the workflow, Laserfiche sends a notification letter to the affiliate once documents are inscribed. If documents don’t meet legal requirements, however, Laserfiche will notify the affiliate, and the system allows the affiliate to then upload corrected documents using the same filing number within one month.

“By reducing document returns, we also reduce reprocessing requests. As a lawyer, if I have a filing and I return it, then the chamber has to receive it again, and review it again, and scan it again,” Andon says. “Being able to reduce the percentage of documents returned is saving us time, effort and money.”

The automated process has dramatically accelerated the chamber’s response time, enabling better customer service.

“Some chambers of commerce take up to 10 to 15 days to process some registration requests and we take less than 24 hours to process them. Other chambers are now starting to look at us to see what we’re doing to solve these problems and deliver such fast service.”

—Jorge Andon, Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce Public Registry Lawyer

Growing Opportunity for Colombian Business

As a result of the Laserfiche solution, organization-wide savings include a reduction in employee time spent receiving, scanning and returning documents. The chamber has also enabled users to correct large documents without returning them by using Laserfiche’s version control function—which allows the organization to modify documents while keeping a record of changes as well as the intact originals. Improved process management has reduced the risk of complaints and consequential fines imposed by the regulatory commission.

Since the chamber’s success with affiliate service requests, it has implemented Laserfiche in almost every department, including accounting/finance, human resources, legal, operations, sales, executive, information technology, marketing and records management.

“The chamber saves approximately $50,000 per year as a direct result of our online services,” Andon says. “We have also seen increasing ROI at the organization-wide level that is yet to be determined.”

The automated processes have also enabled the chamber to become more data-driven. Using reporting and analytics features in Laserfiche, the chamber creates real-time reports on process health that have led to faster decision making, and improved customer service even further. This has led to reputational improvement of the organization at the national level.

“We implemented Laserfiche in the chamber for two particular reasons: to offer registration services online and to publish our public documents online so people could access them,” Andon explains. “But the benefits we received were much more than just that. Problems we’ve had in the chamber for years—we could solve them in just a couple of weeks. Designing and implementing processes in Laserfiche is so easy. If you can imagine it, you can do it.”

To learn more about implementing technology for enterprise-wide change, click here to download a free eBook, “5 Strategies for Driving Digital Transformation.”

Keller Independent School District Builds a Culture Focused on Students

Everything that Keller Independent School District (ISD) employees do is focused on providing an exceptional educational experience for students, whether it be teaching in the classroom, maintaining the facilities, or offering support and guidance for students and staff alike. This commitment to student success is evident in all of the school district’s business processes, many of which have been automated and streamlined using Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM). The school district now uses Laserfiche in almost all of its departments, increasing efficiency. This has resulted in staff time being redirected to address students’ needs, while also building stronger interpersonal relationships among staff members.

Championing Change

Keller ISD serves more than 35,000 students across Tarrant County, Texas, and employs more than 4,000 staff members. During a recent period of rapid growth, it became clear that there was a lack of uniformity across major business processes. Each department was leveraging a different ECM solution, and each team had their own way of managing core business processes and procedures. This created information silos, which delayed processes and built a culture of mistrust due to a lack of accountability.

New employee onboarding was one process in particular that lacked consistency. “Before Laserfiche the process was essentially a bunch of phone calls and hand-waves,” said Clinton Mehta, systems integration architect at Keller ISD. “It could take weeks, even months, before the process was complete because the process was different depending on the person or department involved.”

Previously, the onboarding process included more than 30 pages of paperwork that needed to be filled out manually. Once new employees completed the paperwork, they would have to physically mail in the documents or deliver them on-site. From there, the process varied from case to case.

Today, the process is completely automated using Laserfiche. The district implemented electronic forms in order to enable new employees to submit their required information online instead of being handed a pile of paperwork to fill out and return. After submission, an automated workflow shepherds the documents through the necessary reviews and approvals. Onboarding can now be completed in a matter of days rather than months, and all parties involved are kept up to date on the progress.

“The HR onboarding process was a quick win that we could use as a selling point to promote adoption in other departments,” said Joe Griffin, chief technology officer at Keller ISD. “There was an initial resistance to adoption because the trust and understanding was not there. This successful implementation in HR was the catalyst for a district-wide adoption.”

Reimagining Student Records

With the success of automating HR onboarding, the Keller ISD team wanted to use Laserfiche to completely reimagine how the district manages student records.

“There is one story that comes to mind when I think about how student records were managed before Laserfiche,” said Mehta. “We had an employee who was transferring student files to another location, and she had placed the folders in her Gucci bag. She had made a pit stop along the way, left the designer bag in her car, and someone broke into the car and stole the bag! Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Today, the district leverages Laserfiche to manage enrollment documents, test scores, sensitive personal information, legal documents, special education records and more. Laserfiche has enabled the team to centralize student information, manage the lifecycle of documents and automate routine tasks related to records. Authorized employees have easy access to accurate and up-to-date student information, and can seamlessly process student transfers. The electronic records management system has also helped the school district to standardize filing and better enforce records management policies, supporting regulatory compliance.

“Keller ISD is considered a pioneer in student records management, with other districts looking to them as the marquee example,” said Cody Bettis, CEO of DocuNav Solutions, the Laserfiche Solution Provider that supports Keller ISD’s implementation. “It’s exciting to see the district lead the way for tech innovation within the K-12 space.”

“It’s quite an accomplishment to have other districts mimicking our solution for student records,” said Griffin. “We have set up our system in such a way that if we were to ever change our registration system or process, we can easily migrate our workflows so nothing is lost and there isn’t a gap in performance. This has a major impact on student success, and it’s exciting to support our district’s mission through IT support.”

Looking Ahead with Laserfiche

Keller ISD has received a significant return on investment with Laserfiche. In addition to streamlining business processes and creating transparency throughout the district, the district has:
  • Replaced five different software systems with a single solution, initially saving the district $100,000, as well as an estimated savings of $70,000 annually.
  • Saved more than $11,000 as a result of reducing paper use in core business processes.
  • Met the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act, which imposes procedural requirements on agencies that wish to collect information from the public.
  • Created a culture of collaboration that has enhanced trust among district employees.

“Once we realized the full potential of Laserfiche, we were excited to expand the solution beyond the storage of digital documents,” said Griffin. “An added bonus was that the software doesn’t just streamline processes, but it also builds relationships by creating transparency and providing accountability. That was a major selling point for us.”

Today, Keller ISD uses Laserfiche in almost 100% of the district in departments such as human resources, finance, IT and student services. Looking ahead, Keller ISD has big plans for its use of Laserfiche in the future: With a successful district-wide implementation, the Keller ISD team is exploring how they can use the technology beyond administrative operations, and to improve processes for students and their families. Some of the student- and family-facing processes that the Keller ISD team plans to enhance with Laserfiche include student enrollment and registration, field trip permissions, and Career and Technical Education (CTE) practicum applications and processes.

“Eventually, we want to provide user-licenses to parents and students so they can be a part of the forms process,” said Mehta. “Right now, we are exploring how we can create a custom solution that would enable us to allow secure access to each parent. There is a lot more we can do in terms of use and integrations that go well beyond document storage. The options are endless.”

Reimagine Patient Care

Symbria—a leading provider of rehabilitation, wellness and pharmacy programs and services for senior living and post-acute care providers—recently reinvented the way it manages plan of care documents for patients. By using Laserfiche to digitally transform the process, Symbria eliminated repetitive, manual tasks once required of managerial therapists, creating more time for them to focus on providing the best possible patient care. The new, automated process is also scalable, a priority for the company which expects continued growth in the coming years.

Moving Away from Manual Inefficiencies

As part of its comprehensive programming, Symbria provides services to partners in various settings including skilled nursing, assisted living, independent living, outpatient and home health facilities.

Symbria’s rehab program managers—managerial therapists at these facilities—are required to have “plan of care” documents signed by patients’ physicians. Like prescriptions, these documents prescribe occupational therapy rather than medications.

Initially, Symbria was using a manual process to obtain physicians’ signatures. Once a patient was evaluated, the rehab program manager would generate the plan of care document, which must be signed by a physician within 30 days of the evaluation in order to receive reimbursement for services and avoid denials.

Symbria staff would subsequently use implemented therapy software to print the plan of care form. The document would have to be physically carried to the physician within the building, or the rehab program manager would have to search for a fax number online in order to obtain the signature.

After finally receiving the signature, the rehab program manager would scan the paper form and upload it back to the therapy software to be attached to the patient’s file. Additionally, he or she many times would have to email the document or physically carry it to the medical records department at the facility, since a copy was required there as well. The process was time-consuming, particularly for the rehab program manager, who could spend considerable time locating the physician, reminding his/her office repeatedly to sign the form, and more.

“Our old process was completely manual and exceedingly costly to administer,” said Mark Candiotti, national director-operations liaison at Symbria. “It’s a huge burden on our rehab program managers that detracts from their primary job.” Beyond simply being a headache, the process took time from therapists’ primary focus: providing therapy to patients.

Seamless Digital Tools

The Symbria team worked with Laserfiche solution provider Proven IT to implement Laserfiche and automate the plan of care process, eliminating almost all of the manual tasks associated with it for managerial therapists. Today, the rehab program manager generates the plan of care digitally, uploading it to Symbria’s corporate office using a Laserfiche Form. The electronic form is automatically read for the physician’s registration number and other vital information, so the document can be identified and disseminated with minimal human intervention.

The plan of care form also includes a barcode, so once the physician signs it and sends it back digitally, Symbria can quickly correlate it to the appropriate patient. A Symbria data entry staff member verifies the signature and date on the document, then uploads the signed document to the therapy software—essentially removing the rehab program manager from the process. Simultaneously, the document is digitally sent to the medical records department.

The therapist’s role during the process is solely to generate the plan of care form and upload it.

“Our teams has been extremely receptive to the new process since making the switch,” added Candiotti. “We’ve really freed up the rehab program managers so they are really embracing the change. As we continue to use this process and automate more, the expected ROI is high and we expect scalability, which is important to us.”

The new process has already resulted in impressive time savings for Symbria. Since implementing the new automated process, individual rehab program managers save approximately two to five hours each week. With Symbria servicing over 150 clients, this increased efficiency has been significant for the entire organization.

Additionally, Symbria has automated key HR and accounts payable processes. The new optimized, digital processes support the organization’s aim to surround clients and partners with the creative, future-focused solutions they need to thrive in a fast-changing healthcare landscape.

“Digital transformation is a priority for Symbria,” said Hien Do, software development manager at Symbria. “For any company of our size, you’ll have a lot of legacy systems, and all of these efficiency gains through technology, such as Laserfiche, are what we’re pushing toward. We continue to challenge our employees to help us automate any processes they have in mind.”

To learn more about how process automation can support healthcare staff working on the front lines of patient care while supporting compliance and patient confidentiality, visit the Laserfiche Healthcare Solutions page.