CaseStudy

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 20 No 05 - September/October

Utility companies process a large amount of information on a daily basis, which, given the need for strict regulatory compliance and their high customer numbers, needs to be easily and quickly accessible..

EDF Energy is one of the UK's largest energy companies and the UK's largest producer of electricity. A wholly-owned subsidiary of the EDF Group, one of Europe's largest energy groups, they generate around one fifth of the UK's electricity, employ around 2,000 people, and deliver electricity to around 8 million customer homes and businesses through their public networks.

EDF as we know them today was born in 2003, but their history actually began during the years leading up to 2002, when three energy companies - SEEBoard, London Energy and SWEB - were brought together. Since then, they have grown steadily, integrating and streamlining their operations to become responsive and effective in a fast-changing marketplace with their latest acquisition being British Energy in 2009.

LONG TERM PARTNERSHIP
EDF Energy has a clear set of goals, to become the UK's leading energy provider. The partnership with ORS for all of their document and data management requirements is seen as a significant enabler towards achieving those goals.

Finding the right partner for a long term relationship was critical to EDF as they were seeking a company that would work in partnership with them, rather than just being a supplier. This is how ORS works best, being always willing to listen and work collaboratively with organisations such as EDF.

EDF and ORS now have a history going back to 2004, when ORS was first engaged by EDF to provide an electronic document management solution with supporting scanning services to the Pensions Department of EDF located in Energy House, Crawley.

This solution allowed EDF to ensure that its integral business areas and staff were working as efficiently and effectively as possible. It was also imperative to match the streamlining of their customer facing services and solutions by having instant access to business critical documents and associated data.

In April 2009, following the implementation of a new document management system earlier that year, EDF Energy began looking for a partner company to assist them with the delivery of their 'DIM2' Scanning Project which would integrate their document management requirements across their Human Resources, Payroll, Finance and Pensions Shared Services operation based at Crawley. It was therefore only natural that EDF turned to ORS for advice and guidance on the best methods in which to capture all of their business critical documentation, and then upload it into the ImageNow EDM system.

COMPLEX CHALLENGE
Following the implementation of ImageNow EDF Energy was faced with the challenge of capturing over 1.5 million documents across numerous departments.

The Treasury Department was set up to scan and index their hard copy documents into ImageNow locally, but it was clear that the remainder would need to be scanned and indexed by a third-party scanning provider.

EDF would, due to the complexity of their requirements, need to produce batch headers for each document type that clearly defined the key index fields that they required the documents to be classified against. This would then be captured by the scanning provider and then the images and index data would need to be loaded into the ImageNow EDM system, all within a timeframe of just four months.

TWO-PHASE SOLUTION
ORS evaluated EDF's requirements and designed a bespoke process map that matched the required output format. They then set up a project team within their main production site, which was dedicated to processing all of the EDF work from a secure area of the bureau to the strict requirements of the EDF Service Level Agreements.

ORS implemented a two-phase solution. Once received, all EDF document types were logged into the production control system using each unique batch header. The documents were then scanned and data extracted from the headers such as; document type, invoice number, unique reference, employee name and many more. This captured data was then passed through a conversion programme written for EDF that enabled the images and data to be seamlessly transferred and uploaded into ImageNow, via an encrypted SFTP transfer process. The ongoing requirements for EDF are now managed by ORS through a weekly collection of batched documents from various EDF locations that ensures a clear desk policy is maintained within these buildings. This weekly service is provided via the ORS Digital Mailroom Solution with all scanned images and associated indexing data loaded directly, via SFTP, into the EDF ImageNow system within 3 days.

BENEFITS IN SUMMARY
  √ All documents can now be viewed from any of the EDF offices (London, Exeter or Crawley)
  √ Business continuity plan now in place - all documents have been backed up
  √ he EDF offices have been modernised due to reduction in storage requirements
  √ More space in the offices has increased desk space available for future staff.

Phil Kaczmarek, HR Team Leader, Employee Services, EDF Energy (Company Shared Services & Integration) commented on the smooth implementation and flawless ongoing support: "ORS have continually provided support, flexibility and high levels of customer service throughout our initial implementation, our storm period and to date have worked closely with us to continue to develop and improve the process to benefit us both."

More info: www.orsgroup.com

CaseStudy