Automate and streamline the contracts workflows
Automate and streamline the contracts workflows
More efficient and streamlined contract document workflows
DS Smith, a UK manufacturer of sustainable packaging, is one of the world’s leading suppliers of corrugated packaging solutions. The company operates in more than 34 countries worldwide, with a number of almost 30,000 employees and with an extensive product portfolio that includes transit packaging, consumer packaging,
display and promotional packaging and customised protective packaging.
Locally, DS Smith Paper Zărnești is the largest packaging paper production unit in Romania, supplying almost half of the domestic market. The company uses 100% waste paper and cardboard as raw material.
DS Smith also has a recycling operations coordination centre in Bucharest, two recycling depots in Otopeni and Cluj-Napoca, two packaging plants in Ghimbav and Timisoara and three workplaces in Pitesti, Timisoara and Otopeni, employing a total of 650 people.
Due to the cumbersome work with a large number of contracts, making document workflows more efficient and streamlined has become one of DS Smith Paper Zărnești’s main priorities. The company therefore chose a document management solution from Konica Minolta, that allows them to easily manage documents from creation to approval and signature. After implementing, contract document workflows have been fully automated and simplified, and the efficiency and transparency of their management has increased significantly.
Challenges
- The cumbersome management of the contracts in physical format
- Long time required to retrieve information
- Possibility of signing contracts only in handwritten form, presence in the office being required
- Ensuring confidentiality of documents
- Long time for signing contracts with partners
- Lack of contract expiry notification
Solution
- Implementation of contract management solution based on M-Files, facilitating collaborative work on contracts, addenda and annexes
- Implementation of automated approval workflows
- Simplified way to search for contract information and, by default, associated documents
- Automated notifications on approval, revision or expiry of contract documents
- Specific reports needed by both company management and other employees. (The information available at the level of each contract is basic, needed for document identification and tracking, or complex, allowing cost tracking and optimization of contract terms)
- Implementation of an e-signature solution to streamline the time required to sign contracts, as well as to significantly reduce courier or printing costs
Benefits
- Secure access to contract information
- Quick retrieval of information from contracts, addenda and annexes
- Automatic contract expiry notifications
- Approval workflows allowing a transparent view of the whole process
- Contract version history, with visibility of each user’s comments
- Specific reports for each contract category
- Digital signature to reduce the time required to sign contracts
Antonia Stroie
Manager Assistant, DS Smith Paper Zărnești, Romania
Our medium and long-term investment plan is to increase the efficiency of our paper production activity and at the same time minimise our impact on the environment through better resource management and lower carbon emissions. The need to streamline and simplify working with a large volume of documents led to our decision to implement an in-house document management solution that allows us to easily manage documents from creation to approval and signature. Following the implementation of Konica Minolta’s solution, workflows with contract documents have been fully automated and simplified, and the efficiency and transparency of their management has increased significantly.
The aim and context of the project
The requirements
Concrete data about the implemented solution
- Analysis of the business process by which the contracts with partners are initiated, approved and signed
- Analysis and optimisation of the approval workflow
- Development of the proposed workflow in M-Files
- Integration of the digital signature solution
- Import all the partners and contracts in place
- Setting up the contract storage structure, allowing easy retrieval of documents
- Creating the necessary reports and setting up automatic notifications to users
- Setting access rights for users
- Testing the solution with key users designated by DS Smith and implementing the additional functionality identified
Challenges
- The cumbersome management of the contracts in physical format
- Long time required to retrieve information
- Possibility of signing contracts only in handwritten form, presence in the office being required
- Ensuring confidentiality of documents
- Long time for signing contracts with partners
- Lack of contract expiry notification
Solution
- Implementation of contract management solution based on M-Files, facilitating collaborative work on contracts, addenda and annexes
- Implementation of automated approval workflows
- Simplified way to search for contract information and, by default, associated documents
- Automated notifications on approval, revision or expiry of contract documents
- Specific reports needed by both company management and other employees. (The information available at the level of each contract is basic, needed for document identification and tracking, or complex, allowing cost tracking and optimization of contract terms)
- Implementation of an e-signature solution to streamline the time required to sign contracts, as well as to significantly reduce courier or printing costs
Benefits
- Secure access to contract information
- Quick retrieval of information from contracts, addenda and annexes
- Automatic contract expiry notifications
- Approval workflows allowing a transparent view of the whole process
- Contract version history, with visibility of each user’s comments
- Specific reports for each contract category
- Digital signature to reduce the time required to sign contracts