Five Tips to Transform Document Management

In this two part series, we talk about how to optimize document management in your supply chain. In part one, we discussed features you must have in your Document Management System (DMS). In part two, we discuss practical tips to help you drive success.

Increasing compliance requirements and growing supply chain complexity mean our team and partners in the supply chain are working with multiple organizations, complicating the processes of uploading, storing, reviewing, editing, signing, and searching for documents.

Effective document management is an ever-greater challenge in the modern age of manufacturing and compliance.

Without the right digital tools, document management can quickly become an expensive drain on companies. Office workers often spend more than half of their time manually inputting and filing documents, accounting for a third or more of salary costs. Worse yet, these expensive processes are still failing to deliver ROI:

• 95% of business documentation is still paper-based.
• 83% of workers spend time recreating existing documents they can’t find in the network.
• 21% of daily productivity loss is due to document issues.
• 86% of workers report difficulty locating files.

As compliance will only continue to tighten, companies with a centralized document workflow management solution will gain a competitive advantage. High ROI is possible on a short payback period for entities like brands, retailers, and vendors, which must handle documentation every day.

To improve the way people access documents across the supply chain, adopt a forward-thinking digital solution to create a single source of truth and automate workflows across your evolving network.

How to improve document management

Follow these tips to transform the way your company and supply chain handles documentation:

1. Centralize operations in a digital solution.

Manual document management creates silos, making it difficult to keep track of versions and coordinate efficient review, editing, signatures, and approval. The first step is to migrate these processes to a digital solution.

Digitizing creates a single source of truth for document management. You can assign different levels of access control for different stakeholders to search, access, review, edit, and approve the documentation, with all communication contained within the solution.

2. Automate processes.

When you automate your document management workflows, you increase efficiency and make it easier to stay compliant. 

Look for a flexible workflow system that can automate your company’s document management processes. It should allow you to restrict document access to the relevant stakeholders, and alert them of the need for review or approval.

3. Enhance security and sharing.

Sharing documents securely is critical when you’re dealing with dozens of different documents that need to be sent to remote colleagues and suppliers.

Your file management system must be flexible, allowing you to filter access and reading/editing permissions based on different user characteristics (e.g. organization, country, role, department) for security and ease of operation.

4. Build collaboration with consistent communication.

An efficient supply chain depends on timely communication and real-time exchange of information. When you open a document, your solution should:

• Always open the latest version.
• Be able to support different stakeholders viewing the same information at once.
• Alert all parties to changes.
• Support in-platform commenting.
• Store all consultation history.
• Remove access as needed. 

Your solution should streamline all communication into a centralized, digital platform that enables collaboration with people inside and outside your organization.

5. Ensure document traceability.

Version control is essential; 83% of workers report having to deal with version issues every day. That’s because there are often multiple versions of the same document on Excel, in email, and on paper — it’s impossible to keep track, and the result is information silos and miscommunication.

A transparent document management process is one in which it’s easy to tell who has handled records and what changes they made. Users can log into the system, find records immediately, and track how they are being accessed and altered.

Click here or the image below to download our latest eBook and learn more about how to optimize document management in your supply chain:

The impact of switching to digital documentation management

When companies digitize their supply chain documentation management, they experience several different benefits:

Improve your auditability and performance

For agencies to gauge the state of their records and their audit-readiness at any time, they need information transparency and strict document control. If they know they have problem areas, they can take preemptive steps to correct any compliance issues before they turn into violations.

Bring collaboration to your supply chain

Collaboration can become increasingly difficult to achieve as your company grows, which hurts the sharing of knowledge and insight.

Document management software streamlines all communication to a centralized digital platform, allowing the entire remote production network to collaborate — brands, suppliers, factories, and third-party agencies. Digitization has become essential for companies to stay competitive, and document management is a key step in that journey.

Save time and money on daily document work

A document management system that centralizes and automates core processes, improves efficiency and reduces the cost and clutter of paper.

The ROI of document management has been measured to be 404% over just 5 years, and allows companies to reduce errors by up to 30%.

Increase transparency and autonomous record-keeping

An effective document management system will ensure that users detect problems before they turn into crises. A clear record history can tell you who handled the file and when and where they handled it, letting you protect yourself from non-compliance.

Introducing Inspectorio DocuFlow

A document management system should eliminate inefficiency, improve supply chain visibility, and keep stakeholders on the same page when dealing with documents.

To successfully transition to such a system, you must:

• Centralize all documentation into a digital system.
• Automate workflows.
• Enhance security and sharing.
• Build collaboration with efficient file editing and communication.
• Make sure your documents are traceable.

Inspectorio DocuFlow is our new in-suite document management solution. It can improve your auditability and performance, save on daily document work, open up your supply chain to collaboration, and increase transparency and recording.

To learn more about Inspectorio DocuFlow and how it supports your quality, compliance, and sustainability operations, contact us!