Business Process Automation (BPA) Solutions Case Study

How document scanning enabled a leap towards the e-government of the future

"Despite all the promises of the 'paperless office', we all recognise that it will remain with us - but it can be reduced. This system forms a first step towards the 'e-business' of the future, achieving a highly automated and well managed electronic solution that converts boxes of documentation into instantly accessible data."

Pete Smith, business support manager at Nottingham City Building Works (NCBW) has stated that investing in a document scanning, storage and retrieval system will achieve a remarkable pay-back.

He has overall responsibility for the maintenance and development of NCBW's £75,000 investment in a 20-user Seecheck intelligent character recognition and Documation Image and Retrieve system for the processing of work tickets, customer satisfaction questionnaires and electronic storage of invoices. This is integrated to the ROCC Uniclass™ contract management system.

NCBW maintains the City's housing stock of 35,500 properties plus approximately 2000 education and corporate buildings. It employs 730 full time equivalent staff and undertakes some 219,000 jobs per year, of which 134,000 are for the housing department. Turnover was £35 million in the financial year 2000/2001, from maintenance, refurbishments, adaptation works, burglar alarm installations, gas servicing and new build.

Says Pete Smith: "There were many reasons why we needed scanning: to reduce data input errors; to enable staff to make more appointments and so improve customer service; to release agency staff and allow others to play more productive roles within the business and to remove heavy processes on the current computer system. Accessibility to data held on paper was also critical; it was slow and labour-intensive with the old methods - easy, instant retrieval of information, of works orders, invoices and customer satisfaction cards is vital to enable us to improve service standards.

"We are currently scanning approximately 2300 works orders per week. The system enables automatic calculation of the operative's pay for the work undertaken based on the schedules booked, produces extended tickets and other trade tickets where required, calculates and invoices the client, all in one simple operation. No surveyors or bonus clerks are required, the operative hand writes the work undertaken on the works order and the scanner reads both the typed and hand-written text.

Concludes Pete Smith: "The project has been a success releasing the operations staff to concentrate on the service provided to the customers and has brought an exceptional level of benefits to the business."