CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
15 December 2005
Implementation Investments
EMC Automates, Accelerates and Improves Compliance of Business Processes at York International
EMC Corporation announced that York International, a leading manufacturer of heating, ventilation, air- conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems worldwide, deployed the EMC® Documentum® enterprise content management (ECM) platform with the Adobe Intelligent Document platform. The integrated solution has replaced inefficient paper workflows and ad hoc HTML forms applications for internal employee-related processes with automated, intelligent forms that ensure more consistent business processes worldwide and provide increased security and reliability to meet regulatory requirements. As a result, York has reduced time, costs and errors associated with the manual process of creating and tracking custom applications. The results achieved were recently recognized by InfoWorld, a leading IT publication, which honored York with its annual "InfoWorld 100 Award" as one of the best uses of technology to meet business goals.
Tim Fives, Manager, Global Content Solutions at York International said, "The Documentum-Adobe intelligent forms solution has enabled us to slash the average processing time of our authorization for expenditure (AFE) forms from 160 hours to two hours and reduce the time to set up systems access for new employees from an average 30 days to four days. We could not have realized these efficiency gains without the tight integration between EMC Documentum and the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform. The InfoWorld 100 award is an added bonus to the overall success we achieved with EMC's support."
Prior to the implementation, York struggled with managing disparate processes associated with various paper-based and online employee forms that needed to be authorized and approved by management. Fives explained, "The inability to standardize on custom applications made it very difficult to track business processes and keep up with regulatory requirements. It also drove up operating costs substantially."
The Documentum platform provided built-in security, versioning, workflow and lifecycle management, from creation to archiving, of all types of unstructured content across the enterprise. The Adobe Intelligent Document Platform enabled York to build intuitive XML-based forms to help employees enter accurate information and access rights and routing instructions. When a form is submitted, it is saved to the Documentum repository, and its fields are automatically mapped to Documentum object attributes to drive workflow processes such as routing information to appropriate managers and departments for review and approval.
Fives added, "The Documentum-Adobe solution also helped us gain control over our global business processes. Our central IT department can now help regional offices develop intelligent electronic forms processes to streamline business operations in their areas. The overall reliability of information has increased as well because the online workflow replaces paper documents that previously could be misplaced or sit idle on employee desktops."
InfoWorld provides specialized IT coverage for the CTO, senior-most company executives who are deeply steeped in technology expertise and experience. InfoWorld Media Group is a division of IDG.
The InfoWorld 100 Awards celebrate enterprise IT projects that have made the best use of technology to meet business goals. Entries were judged on innovation and project complexity, as well as stumbling blocks that were overcome to achieve success.
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