27. July 2017

Digitisation in the logistics sector with a paperless office

The logistics industry is always under enormous time pressure. Constant pressure from looming deadlines, intensified by daily surprises in the form of traffic congestion and delays. Not only are the truck drivers under pressure, but also the scheduling and other administrative colleagues at the respective logistics company. This is precisely the problem that CML Logistik & Transport GmbH was facing. The solution was AMAGNO.

While many drivers on the road are now supported by intelligent advanced driver assistance systems, the situation is unfortunately very different for the employees working in administration. For them, the numerous bills of lading and transport documents, invoices and other relevant documents quickly pile up in analogue paper format. In but a few weeks or months, the scope of the archive grows to take on enormous proportions. And every day, new documents are added to the pile.

Enormous volume of documents in the logistics sector

In addition to the spatial dimensions, the poor searchability of the analogue documents is an enormous problem. As soon as there are requests for verifications and information, it becomes necessary to begin the laborious and highly time-consuming process of looking for these among the stacks of paper or various filing cabinets. This ties up precious working hours and brings with it a substantial risk of misunderstandings or untraceable documents.

This is precisely the problem that CML Logistik & Transport GmbH was facing. The countless paper documents that were accruing were literally stopping management in its tracks and made acquiring information extremely time-consuming. Thus the requirement was clear: The digitisation of all bills of lading and transport documents, and subsequent archiving in a document management system. In addition, the processing of incoming invoices should be handled electronically.

Digitisation of administration at CML Logistics & Transport

Since the start of 2017, bills of lading and transport documents have been digitised biweekly by the AMAGNO Solution Partner Smart-Store using high-performance scanners, and made electronically available to the logistics company in the smart cloud of the AMAGNO document management system. All verifications are therefore available at any time in the most economical and modern method of electronic archiving at a German certified data centre. Gapless traceability of every transaction is thus guaranteed. Entirely without the chaos of analogue paper and documents.

Bills of lading and transport documents are available electronically at all times

Using a freely definable key combination (hotkey search), a full-text search can be initiated from any application. If an inquiry into a delivery is received by email, for example, it is possible to get started just by highlighting the delivery note number and order number.

The AMAGNO document management system directly displays the desired documents. This increases the ability of CML Logistik & Transport GmbH to provide information many times over. Instead of searching among impenetrable piles of paper, all urgently needed documents are now accessible with only two keystrokes. Access is via the AMAGNO client and always via an encrypted SSL connection.

It is even possible for truck drivers to access documents via the AMAGNO Mobile Explorer. This works with a smartphone or a tablet with any current browser. And here as well, of course, standard SSL encryption is used.

The electronic processing of incoming invoices saves enormous costs

The administration at the logistics company also processes incoming invoices completely electronically. In this case, incoming analogue paper invoices are digitised independently using a document scanner. The scanned invoices are automatically transferred to the invoice workflow in the document management system. This can be mapped individually to each company and makes a cost savings of up to eleven euros possible as compared to analogue processing. For each incoming invoice!

With electronic invoice processing, CML Logistik & Transport ultimately spares itself media upheavals and thus, the separate archiving of analogue and electronic invoices. By replacing with scanning, it is possible to electronically archive invoices that are received in an analogue format.

No high investment costs, quick implementation and profitable in no time

By digitising the current bills of lading and transport documents, CML Logistik & Transport GmbH was able to significantly increase the company’s ability to provide information. The digital workplace in the smart cloud increases competitiveness in the time-constrained logistics sector. Due to a flexible monthly billing model, no high investment costs were required and the digitisation at CML Logistik & Transport was implemented very quickly, becoming profitable only a few weeks later.