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Since 1986, Excel Connection has been a leading manufacturer of high quality cable assemblies, lead wires, wire harnesses, and electro-mechanical assemblies.
Operating out of a 30,000 square foot facility in Milwaukee, WI, Excel Connection focuses on consistently exceeding their customers’ expectations of quality, delivery, and cost. They accomplish this through a company-wide commitment to continuous improvement and attentive customer interaction.
Recently, the company began researching document management systems in order to streamline processes and improve workflow. One of the primary requirements was for the system to work well with EVO, their current operating system. All accounting, production, and operating functions of the company are maintained within EVO, so finding a compatible system was vital. “We had a lot of filing,” commented Colleen Weber, Business Manager at Excel Connection. “We filed packets of purchase orders for raw material with acknowledgments, packing slips, and invoices which we never kept up on.”
After a thorough research phase, Excel Connection chose Content Central by Ademero. The simplicity, functionality, and affordability of the system provided the company with exactly what they were searching for. “I needed a system that was easy to operate for employees that are not computer savvy,” said Weber. “Content Central has 3 tabs: Search, Folders, and Capture. Other systems were much more complicated.” Content Central also allows the company to automatically group related documents from different departments, a feature not often seen in other document management systems.
After Content Central was implemented, the company’s internal workflow procedure was vastly improved. Previously, the process of dealing with purchase orders and associated paperwork was manual and time-consuming. Now, when a purchase order is created in EVO, it’s emailed directly to the customer as well as to a customer file in Content Central. When customer acknowledgment comes back, it’s scanned in to the same file within Content Central. Then, when the packing slip is received, it too is scanned into the file. Finally, when the Accounting department pays the invoice in EVO, the invoice file is automatically updated with check number and date.
In addition to simplifying the company’s workflow procedures, one of the immediate benefits of implementing Content Central was the staff’s increased commitment to document management. Weber explained, “Once they realized how simple the process was, the time savings, storage space reduction, and elimination of manual filing tasks, the employees’ commitment was huge.”
In the near future, Weber says Excel Connection plans to use Content Central to increase efficiencies in other areas of the company. “We need to look at our other manual systems and move these into Content Central. All of our customer files for the products we build including part drawings, revision updates, and pricing for example. Human resource files and sourcing documents all need to be moved into Content Central as well.”
