The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the
second largest container shipping company in the world, is
extending the use of a document management system after earlier
successes.
From its Ipswich headquarters, MSC UK offers shippers and
consignees a range of services supported by branch offices in
London, Liverpool and Glasgow, together with operational management
at major UK ports.
MSC is planning to extend its use of
EASY’s workflow and document management
technologies to its export department, thanks to the success of
the technology in an import department workflow automation
project.
MSC’s import department was facing a mountain of paper files and
the business was suffering from inefficiencies in service and
productivity. “We faced a real challenge,” said Mike Wilson, MSC UK
quality manager.
Wilson said MSC needed to scan and store its paper archive,
introduce its staff to a new electronic way of working, and at the
same time automate the processes of the import department using a
workflow system to improve efficiency and customer service.
Wilson explained, “Things are done a certain way for historical
reasons and personal preferences, and, because paper is involved,
simply logging and identifying those processes and flows so that we
could then map them electronically would have been a huge
undertaking. So we designed an outline workflow, which went through
several iterations, and after significant testing we had a working
solution.”
An interface to MSC’s Link system was produced so that the EASY
Workflow system could read the manifest that is produced
electronically by Link, and from that data a job file is produced.
A combination of electronic and paper client documents are pulled
together and all made available electronically, managed by the
workflow system.
To make the task more manageable and to reduce disruption to the
business, the team focused on two trade routes first and secured
user and business confidence in that before applying the system to
the remaining 26 trades.
Thanks to success in both the import and finance departments,
MSC has already begun the next phase of its document and workflow
automation in its export department.
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