AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH Dean Ricker, VP of Sales
	"By far the best was ACOM EZCM" "Since we got (ACOM) EZCM software… we now save about 4 days (to process orders)… and no more lost orders." "6 huge file cabinets… we are now down to one." "It's been such a success for us…"

Automation of Sales Order Entry and Quality Assurance

THE CLIENT

Skolnik Industries is the industry leader for manufacturing steel drums—including those used to dispose of hazardous materials and nuclear waste.

THE PROBLEM

Sales orders were getting lost, and nuclear orders took a week to process.

THE SOLUTION

Skolnik's Sage ERP reseller recommended EZContentManager (EZCM) from ACOM as the paperless solution for Sage 100 Standard ERP sales order entry automation.

EZCM RESULTS

• No orders have been lost.
• Nuclear orders now take 2–3 days to process instead of one week.
• 180,000 documents per year no longer need to be filed (now scanned and shredded).
• Customers get answers in seconds instead of an hour (or a week).
• Workflow saves $34,000 in salary annually.

The EZCM system has been such a success, the Skolnik team is already working towards utilizing EZCM's OCR functionality to automate data entry, and extending EZCM to both accounts receivable and accounts payable to automate invoice processing.

 

Full Case Study:

In 1985, Skolnik Industries was founded in Chicago by Howard Skolnik to manufacture 55-gallon steel drums. With containers "thicker, heavier and stronger than industry standards," Skolnik has become the global leader in specialty packaging.

Skolnik 20–55 gallon steel drums are made in compliance with the United Nations and US Department of Transportation requirements for transporting radioactive materials and waste. Their 3–110 gallon steel salvage drums are used for over-packing other leaking or damaged containers and are the only UN "T" rated steel salvage drum available. Skolnik even produces a seamless steel barrel used for wine making.

What It Takes to Be the Best

For Skolnik, it’s the following:

• Striving to be a leader, as measured by customer relationships and product dependability.
• Exceeding customer satisfaction for all specialty packaging needs.
• Being the foremost problem solving manufacturer in our industry.
• Focusing on excellence in technology, quality, applications engineering, and sales and marketing.
• Emphasizing continuous improvement of their business to benefit customers.

To extend their industry leadership position, Skolnik needed to improve their sales order entry process.

Paperwork Problems

Even with their impressive background, we sometimes forget that even the best companies struggle with paperwork. Howard Skolnik was troubled by the clutter, waste, inefficiency, and disaster risk of a warehouse filled with hundreds of boxes.

Each box contains commercial orders that have to be stored for seven years, and nuclear orders that have to be retained forever. For the Skolnik staff, it would take an hour to find a document, if it could be found at all. Going paperless was the answer.

Dean Ricker, VP of Sales, was also troubled by sales orders that were frequently misplaced and occasionally lost, leading to delays in order processing, shipping, and getting paid—not to mention having to make embarrassing calls to clients for replacement copies of the original order. This was quite a problem when processing 20,000 orders per year.

Additionally, every order from the nuclear industry—about 500 per year—took an entire week to process. These orders contain up to 50 documents each, including the actual sales order, bills of lading, correspondence, and the invoice, with copies made in quadruplicate. Review and approval took an hour for each invoice, and was conducted almost daily between sales, customer service, engineering, and quality assurance (QA).

The ACOM Solution

As a Sage certified business partner, Skolnik's Sage rep recommended ACOM and its flagship document management and workflow system, EZContentManager (EZCM). EZCM automates sales order processing and integrates with Sage 100 ERP, 500 ERP, and Sage 100 Fund Accounting. The Sage rep gave ACOM high marks for its ease-of-use and, after a few conference calls, EZCM was chosen by Skolnik. Another vendor was invited to present but "they didn't know what they were doing," according to the Skolnik team.

ACOM worked with Skolnik to map out the sales order process, and EZCM was customized to the steel drum manufacturer’s every requirement. Integration took a week onsite, and the system went live in January 2011.

Instead of having to meet daily, customer service now scans all incoming orders into EZCM. Commercial orders are immediately processed, then shredded. Nuclear orders are routed for review and approval to sales, QA, then engineering. Every step of the process is managed by EZCM’s workflow engine, which conveniently sends out email alerts to each party when their work is needed. What once took one week per order now takes 2-3 days and often less.

EZCM Results

In just a few months, efficiency gains have been seen across the board. No orders have been lost. Both engineering and the VP of Sales save up to five hours a week, and QA saves up to two hours per week. The EZCM system has been such a success, the Skolnik team is already thinking about utilizing EZCM’s OCR functionality to automate data entry, and extending EZCM to accounts payable to automate invoice processing.

• Commercial orders are processed immediately and never lost.
• 180,000 documents per year no longer need to be filed (now scanned and shredded).
• Nuclear orders are processed in 2-3 days instead of one week.
• Customers get answers in seconds instead of an hour or a week.
• No more copies are needed to review orders, saving over 10,000 sheets of paper per year.
• Searching for orders takes less than a minute instead of an hour.
• Workflow recoups $34,000 in salary annually, which is now spent on higher value work.
• Skolnik is now ready for any audit.

In Skolnik’s Own Words

Dean Ricker, VP of Sales: “It’s great. I’m very happy and absolutely would recommend EZCM.”

Customer Service: “EZCM is fantastic. If a customer calls in regarding an invoice, we can look it up in MAS 90 with a couple of clicks. In the past, we’d have to put them on hold and hope the invoice wasn’t misfiled. If the order was lost, it could take a half-hour or a week to find.”

Quality Assurance: “EZCM makes my life easy. When we have to research a sales order now, we can do right on our desktop without an hour of digging in the file room.”

Engineering: “EZCM is excellent to work with. I’ve been programming from a young age and I think it’s magic. I love it.”