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Founded in 1839, the Irish family-operated business H&J Martin has evolved into a leading European provider of Facilities Management services. Putting the maintenance and administration of public buildings, retail spaces, office complexes or entire industrial plants in external hands requires a lot of trust. This is the kind of trust that specialised Facilities Management service providers build through decades of experience, a high level of commitment along with transparency in business processes and steady flow of communication. These requirements can no longer be met without the use of modern information systems. This became ever more apparent to H&J Martin as they sought to keep up with their success and develop efficient business and administrative processes, which were increasingly encumbered by growing mountains of paper.

On a monthly basis, around 12000 engineer service reports, 3000 suppliers' sales invoices, and numerous quantities of other paperwork are generated at H&J Martin. Long search and processing times for paper based systems affect the ability of employees to source the information they needed. In 2010 the team at H&J Martin Facilities Management decided it was time to replace their paper-based approach with an integrated document management system.

KEY CRITERIA
The requirements could be broken down into five key areas:

• Central document pool
• Document workflows
• Integration into the CAFM system
• Integration into ERP solution ('Mardak')
• Integration of portal solution

Transparency and efficiency in order processing were top criteria in choosing a software package. Both for economic and ecological reasons, the company sought to significantly reduce the high number of paper copies and enjoy savings in future archiving space.

Flexibility was another requirement, since the customers, sub-contractors and vendors with whom they exchange documents come from a wide variety of sectors. Staff located in remote offices also needed to access the central document pool. In addition, integration with leading enterprise applications was on their essential to-do-list.

The simple and intuitive operation of any future document management system also played a key role. "The aim was to implement a DMS that would require a minimum of training for both employees and service providers within our supply chain. This was important to lowering training costs and increase acceptance," explains James Sterling, Operations Manager in the Facilities Management Division of H&J Martin. After extensive analysis of various solutions, the company opted for DocuWare.

THE FLEXIBLE SOLUTION
Due to its modular design and optional interfaces, DocuWare offers a high degree of flexibility, particularly in regards to integration with existing software environments and for expanding the system later. This characteristic was positively on view right from the beginning according to James Sterling: "We only needed six weeks from the date we chose DocuWare until the roll-out of our custom solution which included departments around the UK."

Integration into the existing CAFM (Computer Aided Facilities Management) system as well as in their existing accounting solution, Mardak, was carried out by their local Authorized DocuWare Partner (ADP). The ADP can even remotely access the system in order to install updates and, if necessary, implement modifications and enhancements.

The DocuWare archive is at the heart of the new document management concept from H&J Martin. A wide variety of business documents are stored in structured directories with clearly defined access rights. The range includes classic customer data, invoices, service reports, and sheets tracking employee hours and performance. Document exchange with partner organisations and customers occurs via a portal solution. According to H&J Martin, about 90 percent of documents from their suppliers and subcontractors are now digitised and captured into the system in this manner. Digitisation of remaining paper documents is handled with powerful document scanners installed in the department.

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