The Stadtreinigung Leipzig (Leipzig City Council Cleansing Department) used to be completely awash with information and paperwork. But, thanks to Konica Minolta, it now uses a document management system (DMS) that administrates all location-specific letters, faxes and e-mails that come in and archives them digitally. This not only optimises workflows but also takes the strain off staff and improves customer service.
Stadtreinigung Leipzig is an independent municipal waste disposal company run by Leipzig City Council and certified by the TÜV (German Technical Inspection Association). It employs around 800 members of staff and its main duties are disposing of waste, cleaning the streets, clearing and gritting the roads in winter, rehabilitating former landfill sites and maintaining the city's green spaces. Managing all of these things requires highly efficient organisation, since the number of “customers” is considerable: Leipzig is home to over 530,000 people living in an area measuring approximately 300 square kilometres.
Carrying out the aforementioned tasks made it necessary to expand the existing archive. Currently, Stadtreinigung Leipzig is estimated to have around 70,000 files. The effort involved in updating the paper records and making them available quickly was increasing with the number of files, meaning that staff had to carry the documents they needed back and forth all the time. It began taking longer and longer to search through the increasing number of files too, which was making the process “customer-unfriendly” as records had to be requested before a customer's specific concern could be addressed.
To increase customer friendliness and improve working conditions, Stadtreinigung Leipzig worked together with Konica Minolta to compile a detailed list of requirements. It was important here to integrate the suggested software into MS Office programs as effectively as possible and to be able to replicate the existing records structure in digital form. Following a thorough test phase, Stadtreinigung Leipzig chose a Konica Minolta DMS that met all of its requirements with ease and was a hit with users.
Now the required files are scanned in and made available in digital format. New documents are also scanned in if there is no digital copy of them already. All records are then indexed. The interface to Microsoft Dynamics NAV makes it possible to enter large amounts of relevant data (such as the document number) as keywords upon storage, which provides clear organisation, facilitates searching for and finding information, and enables documents to be accessed extremely quickly.
The DMS solution from Konica Minolta even uses a workflow to organise how mail is handled. The software automatically archives all location-specific letters, faxes and e-mails that come in once they have been dealt with. Any fees charged can also be saved automatically and resent as a copy if required.
The Konica Minolta solution is great – everything's archived in the same way and my staff don't have to do loads of copying any more
Elke Franz
Assistant Head of Operations, Stadtreinigung Leipzig
Now staff can archive all Office documents straight from the application (Word, Excel, etc.) and use Windows Explorer to save digital photos and other files in the document management solution's archive with ease. All document versions are saved in a way that is compliant with auditing standards and with the law. The document management system has now administrated over 780,000 documents to date. Introducing the system has improved internal workflows too: “Consequently, the 95 members of staff who work with the program rate it very highly. Colleagues can now work on the same file at the same time, for example, which is especially important for teams in different departments,” explains Elke Franz, Assistant Head of Operations at Stadtreinigung Leipzig.
The document management solution from Konica Minolta has enabled Stadtreinigung Leipzig to optimise its administrative tasks and stem the deluge of paperwork. All documents can now be found significantly faster and accessed immediately if required, which has made work less stressful and improved customer service. Stadtreinigung Leipzig has scanned in 85% of its 70,000 files so far and will continue to digitise its records archives over the coming years until everything is available in digital format.
The DMS has proved such a success that it is currently being expanded – in 2012, for example, a digital vehicle file was created for every vehicle. The DMS solution from Konica Minolta will also soon be used upon receipt of invoice and in various projects run by the specialist departments.