iDatix Helps Carter Grandle, Inc. Change Their Culture One Scan at a Time

November 10, 2005 -- Carter Grandle, Inc. (CFI) is a leading American manufacturer and supplier of casual outdoor furniture, cushions and umbrellas. CFI’s facility is located in Sarasota, Florida on a 13-acre site, with over 280,000 square feet of manufacturing, administration and dealer showroom space. The Carter Family tradition continues as it has since 1988 by providing the casual furniture industry with superior products, delivered on time, and at a fair price – all brought to you with personal customer attention and service.

Carter Grandle continues to earn a solid reputation of enduring designs, quality construction and knowledgeable service. The Company successfully combines design and the superiority of die-casting and custom extrusions to meet the highest criteria of fit, form and function.

Carter Grandle Quick Facts:

• 200 – 300 Employees (depending on season)
• 750 – 800 Customers – Specialty Retailers, Nurseries, Garden Centers, Decorators, etc. in the United States and abroad
• 19 Independent Retail Sales Representatives
• 14 Independent Contract Sales Representatives

CFI’s antiquated paper-based order entry process required their staff to print all electronic sales order documents, copy them multiple times, file and re-file documents at least three times. Then, upon fulfillment, all of these documents were pulled from the file cabinets, placed in boxes and loaded on pallets, which were moved to CFI’s warehouse and stored indefinably.

CFI’s eight Customer Service Reps (CSR’s) who answer all customer service calls from any of 19 Outside Sales Reps, 14 Independent Contractors and 800 customers is very challenging. Customer Service is a time crucial environment and response time is paramount. CSR’s had to physically go and find the right documents, while customers, sales reps and contractors were holding on the phone waiting for answers about order status or help with issues.

Sales Orders and supporting documents are received via fax, mail, email and sometimes even on napkins. However the vast majority of the paper they accumulate is generated by their own internal order entry system. CFI processes about 250 orders per day. An average order includes a 19 page order form along with many other supporting documents of varying size, quality and colors.

With such a labor intensive paper based process CFI found it virtually impossible to resolve customer service issues with a single call. Therefore, maintaining an exceptionally high customer service rating had become cost prohibitive. CFI had to streamline their process, get rid of the paper and increase their staff’s ability to handle more work while reducing the overall turn-around time to process an order.

CFI knew they had to make a quantum leap using technology to meet their objectives. However, to change their company’s culture and truly achieve their goals, they would have to carefully choose a technology provider that could clearly demonstrate that they understand more than just code, more than the bits, bites and blinking lights jargon. They needed a technology partner that could clearly comprehend their unique business requirements, demonstrate an end-to-end solution that is both stable and intuitive with the capability to integrate with their home grown order entry system, and a proven track record for solving complicated business problems with practical solutions that foster a successful evolution in company culture.

CFI chose iDatix Corporation and their flagship business process automation solution, iSynergy Enterprise. They chose iDatix because iSynergy’s easy to use end-to-end browser-based interface was designed from the ground up as a complete end-to-end solution including integrated document capture, character recognition, content addressable document repository, comprehensive integration tools, ERM and built in browser-based ADHOC workflow. In addition to iSynergy’s features, functions and simple integration capabilities, CFI was very impressed with the knowledge and experience of the iDatix team and their philosophy on educating prospects.

iDatix philosophy is simple, an educated consumer is able to make informed purchase decisions, and informed decision makers have the confidence that their choice is the correct one regardless of whether they chose iDatix or a competitor.

“Traditionally in the Content Management space, Manufactures and VAR’s don’t share any real valuable information with prospects, at least not until after securing the business. This theory is based on the assumption, that sharing valuable or proprietary information with prospects only serves to educate them on how to buy a competitor’s solution. We do not subscribe to that theory because the value of any solution has to be recognized in order to win the business. Most decision makers are intelligent therefore they recognize this as well. If they do not recognize true value, then perhaps they should purchase another solution. Mike Kuhnsman Vice President/COO iDatix Corporation.

The iSynergy Solution

CFI implemented the iSynergy solution less than a year ago and they have already captured more than 450,000 documents into the iSynergy repository. They deployed a Canon 9080c High-Speed scanner for production scanning and a Fujitsu 5650c scanner for supporting documents, as well as HR and Accounting documents. iSynergy’s easy to use interactive scanning interface, iScan, is used to automate manual data capture of both paper and fax documents. iScan reduces long-term operational costs and delivers advanced and powerful scanning and fax manipulation controls. iScan also includes embedded ODBC integration and a command line interface providing for a seamless scanning solution integrated directly into client applications. CFI also generates their outbound documents with barcodes identifying the sales order number and document type. Using xTractor, iSynergy’s character recognition engine, CFI successfully automated the labor intensive manual indexing process and provided a significant improvement in productivity by eliminating costly manual data entry errors.

CFI also implemented iDatix’s ERM module called iDox to “print to iSynergy” all electronic documents and automatically index to the iSynergy repository. CFI reduced paper consumption by approximately 44 cases per month by eliminating the printing of reports, statements, invoices and other system-generated documents.

Shortly after implementing iSynergy, CFI realized many significant cost savings. For example:

• Eliminated 1.5 FTE’s and re-tasking those FTE’s from their previous duties of collating, filing and re filing of orders that are now digitally managed.
• Eliminated one FTE through attrition, but no replacement has been required.
• Daily volume of calls per CSR is much higher and the first time issue resolution rate is virtually 100%.
• iSynergy eliminated the need for CSRs to put the customer on hold, get up from their desks, find the customers file or worse, not find the file due to misfiling, and have to recreate the entire order again.
• Eliminated enough filing cabinets to create workspace for three people

In fact, when asked for a quick comment, Brenda Noellert, Customer Service Manager said, “I will give you a couple, 'It keeps the CSR’s in their seats,' 'No longer have a staff with paper cuts,' 'The staple manufacturer is laying off staff since we aren't buying staples,' 'The stress level for the CRS staff has been significantly reduced.' They can now take a call, stay in their seats not having to look for a paper file, handle the customer’s complaints/concerns and resolve everything in one single call."

The improved efficiency has also impacted other departments. Shipping Manager Doug Trine oversees a department that fills 30 trucks and 17 LTL containers full of product each month. He used to stop what he was doing and walk to customer service and conduct order research several times a day. Doug said “I miss visiting the gals in Customer Service but now I can see everything right from my desktop while I’m on the phone. It’s great."

The best evidence of success has come from the many comments from reps and customers commenting that information that used to take days or weeks is instantly available helping them win more business in the field, thus satisfying one of the major objectives set by CFI before agreeing to move forward with the project. Since the initial implementation, Accounting is using iSynergy to access the sales fulfillment application. Plans are now being made to continue the evolution to a paper free environment by deploying iSynergy in HR and also to satisfy United States Customs requests for information on scheduled audits.

Linda Spann, RGA and Scanning Administrator recalled a conversation she had with Owner Webb Carter, “As I was leaving work one night he asked about the imaging system. I told him how much I liked it and how much time I thought it would save us and he said 'I've been trying to get this done for 10 years.'"

Press Contact:
727-441-8228
PR@iDatix.com