12 June 2009

When Babcock Rail needed a more cost-effective way of issuing and distributing purchase orders (POs) it chose business automation and report scheduling software from ChristianSteven. The resulting solution paid for itself in less than a year by cutting costs, boosting productivity and increasing business responsiveness. The solution is now being extended to other manual paper processes including the distribution of salary slips and remittance advice.

Babcock Rail is one of the UK’s leading rail businesses with a reputation for delivering innovative, high-quality rail engineering services to major customers in the rail industry. Services include feasibility, design, installation, testing and on-going maintenance of track, signalling and control systems, telecommunications, power and associated civil works.

The business employs around 1,800 people and operates from offices and depots throughout the UK. Jake Austen, BI development manager at the rail company, explains further: “We run complex projects that involve a large number of sub-contractors and suppliers. This means we generate up to 30,000 POs a year, and because a large amount of our work can change with short notice we often need to re-issue POs two or three times, which results in us generating nearly 100,000 issues per year. This was obviously a very significant and costly manual process that involved administrators needing to prepare, print, fax, and file every single PO.”

CRD is the perfect solution for automating and converting this process into secure, personalised electronic distribution

Jake Austen, Babcock Rail Jake began investigating an automated way of issuing electronic POs in PDF format. Babcock Rail used Oracle-based ERP for most of its business functions, however the system could not generate POs in the customised format required. For this reason the business was already using Crystal Reports to create more meaningful output.

“We could use Crystal Reports to generate the raw information for the electronic POs but still needed a dynamic way of automating, customising and scheduling distribution,” Jake continues. “We downloaded the 30-day evaluation copy of ChristianSteven Software CRD in December, put together the business case in January, and had the system up and running in February. It really was that easy to configure and use. And although we have not had any real issues with the software, the customer service and support during the set-up and trial process was very efficient.”

CRD is Microsoft Windows application that deals with scheduling, exporting, distributing and delivering Crystal Reports outputs. It allows users to define single or packages of Crystal Reports, schedule and run them automatically, and then send them in a number of standard formats. Using the system, the business now has a reliable, efficient and automated way of distributing electronic POs using personalised e-mails and encrypted PDFs.

Jake is delighted with the results: “The new system has run smoothly with no issues whatsoever. Our administrators can now focus on more value-added tasks and we have been able to save money on printing, paper and faxing costs. In fact the CRD software will have paid for itself in less than twelve months.”

Jake is now using CRD to eliminate other costly manual paper processes across the business, including salary slips and remittance advice. He explains: “We post slips to around 700 salaried staff every month. Over the year this equates to a significant cost in specialist paper, printing, postage and preparation time. CRD is the perfect solution for automating and converting this process into secure, personalised electronic distribution.

“I am very pleased by how quickly we have been able to deliver tangible benefits for the business using the ChristianSteven Software CRD product. I look forward to further leveraging our investment in this flexible, easy-to-use and reliable solution.”

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