Hitec At Work in Distribution

The economic downturn of the early 90’s has changed many business practices and expectations. Staff reductions associated with down sizing and survival strategies were often targeted at areas within the company that were perceived to be luxuries. The remaining staff was expected to assume greater responsibility, but often were never given the tools to allow them to be more productive. Now that the economy has improved, luxuries are not being replaced.

Some Managers believe that customers will understand that the resources aren't there to respond quickly to inquiries and problems. "Not so" says Joel Huspeni, VP of Operations for Granse/Trio & Associates, the Minnesota based manufacturer and distributor of plumbing products. "Our customers are many times more demanding today than they were a few years ago. It's obvious that they are also doing more with less and are relying on their suppliers to deliver products quickly and efficiently. They also expect us to be the information resource when questions and problems arise concerning shipments, billing and backorders".

To expedite information access, Granse/Trio has implemented DataStore, the computer output to optical disk system, from Hitec Integration Inc. (Hitec). Huspeni originally saw DataStore as a great tool to reduce paper consumption and storage space requirements for the large number of reports generated daily by their information system.

It was obvious to him that by downloading traditional green bar reports directly to DataStore and indexing them for later access, viewing and storage, they could eliminate the printing and storing of the paper.

While analyzing Granse/Trio's needs, personnel from Hitec suggested that Granse/Trio also experiment with capturing all invoices and shipping documents generated by the host computer directly into DataStore. By doing so there would be additional savings if there was a reduction in the printing of multi-part forms and labor used to burst, file and manage the internal copies. It was also shown how accessibility would be enhanced significantly by creative use of DataStore's indexing capabilities.

The advice was taken and today all mainframe generated documents including; Invoices, Shipping, Sales and Payroll reports are electronically transferred to DataStore's optical disks. Most internal reports are never printed to paper. The only paper consumed is what must be printed for distribution to customers and the field sales force. When it is necessary to review information in a report or retrieve a specific invoice or packing slip, the powerful retrieval system allows users to retrieve only the page or related pages needed to verify information directly from their networked PC. If a copy is required, only the relevant pages are sent to the printer.

According to Huspeni, "my original expectations have been surpassed significantly. Saving paper, space and printing costs are secondary to the savings we have realized from the productivity gains associated with reduced forms handling, filing and instantaneous access to all our computer generated documents. "

Our people no longer have to go to paper files to solve problems and provide superior customer service. After using the system for 36 months, we have become so reliant on DataStore as an information resource that it will be incorporated it into all our planning for future information systems capability."