Edwards, Mooney, & Moses: 94% Time Savings with Centralized Document Management

Company: Edwards, Mooney, and Moses
Industry: Construction
Location: Columbus, Ohio

The Challenge

Disorganized records management system impacted productivity and document retrieval

The Solution

Document scanning services, ECM cloud solution, and digital storage

The Results

94%

Time Savings

$0

Software Installation Fees

100%

Improved Information Accuracy

Centralized Document Management Results in 94% Time Savings with VRC

Introduction

Edwards, Mooney & Moses, an Installed Building Products Family of Companies affiliate, is a leading $10-12 million insulation contractor in the northwestern U.S. Thousands of commercial and residential builders, contractors, and homeowners depend on their professional insulation services and home products. 

Each month, the Edwards team generated over 4,000 pages of paperwork from invoices to work orders to project summaries. Their outdated filing system included manual processes, including scanning and indexing, which hindered productivity and slowed document retrievals.

Edwards recognized the need to modernize their information management system to store, digitize, and retrieve documents at scale. VRC and its ECM partner, Digitech, provided the enterprise content management solution they needed.

The Challenge

When the Edwards, Mooney, and Moses’ team completed a project, all associated papers were compiled, scanned, and saved to a hard drive. Digital files were indexed according to job number, project phase, customer code, etc. Then, information was stored and accessed on their internal hard drive.

“This left lots of room for human error,” explained Brian Mclaughlin, Time & Materials Manager for Edwards, Mooney, and Moses. “Hopefully, at least one field would be entered correctly so work orders could be located for a review.” However, due to inevitable human errors from manual indexing, work orders on the hard drive were often challenging to find.  

Additionally, the high volume of orders and employees accessing them made it challenging to retrieve files. Files were easily lost and misplaced. With project summaries often consisting of several pages of related documentation, imaging became a hassle. Beth Gatewood, Edwards, Mooney, and Moses’ Administrator, could easily spend up to 8 hours each month scanning documents and then hand-keying fields. 

“It was a lot of collating,” said Mclaughlin. “The end of each month was frustrating and time-consuming because assembling each work order packet could take an entire eight-hour day.” 

Compliance was also becoming an issue. Digital files required storage for 13 years to comply with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations. The team looked for a document storage solution to securely retain large files, organize information, and improve compliance with government regulations.

The Solution

With the help of VRC, the Edwards, Mooney, and Moses team was able to implement an integrated information management solution with a phased approach to meet their document conversion, digitization, and document storage needs.

During the first phase, VRC completed a backfile conversion to convert large volumes of paperwork into digital files. VRC also conducted comprehensive indexing to classify all existing documentation correctly.

To consolidate information and provide real-time access, VRC recommended the client implement secure online storage for documents. This helped unify data across the board while providing fast access to authorized users.

Finally, Edwards, Mooney, and Moses implemented a data capture software, Papervision Capture, to enable auto-classification of documents and day-forward scanning capabilities. This eliminated manual data entry and increased information accuracy.

VRC’s blended approach to digital transformation provided the company with a realistic, cost-effective solution to its previously inefficient document management system.

The Results

Time Savings

Edwards, Mooney, and Moses were completely set up and live with their new document management software within 90 days. Currently, documents are scanned and auto-classified using Paper Capture. 

This process once consisted of a time-consuming program where Gatewood would scan and hand-key fields for each record. If several projects were coinciding, they could receive thousands of papers within a month. Pulling paper files, scanning, and indexing them could take up to 8 hours a day. Today, the process takes only a few minutes, representing a 94% time savings over the old manual system.

Cost Savings

With no initial software setup fees, Edwards, Mooney, and Moses realized the significant cost advantage of using VRC’s recommended document management system. “Alternative products were so costly,” said Mclaughlin. “Implementing ImageSilo was a lot easier. The other options would have been complicated to use and too expensive.”

Even though the Edwards team recently launched the system, they expect long-term savings. Employees are no longer required to search endlessly for files. “We could potentially reallocate our staff beyond routine tasks and also save money on storage,” said Mclaughlin.

Improved Accuracy and Compliance

Since implementing Image Silo, the Edwards, Mooney, and Moses team has solved its document management and governance challenges. Now, any employee can scan a document for auto-classification using the ECM software. This not only streamlines their records retrieval process but eliminates inaccuracies from hand-keyed indexing and sorting. “Accuracy is a lot higher—almost 100%,” stated Mclaughlin.

By removing the paper process altogether with ECM technology, the organization can store 10GB of data in one central repository. This enables more seamless and efficient document processing. “We feel secure that this will take care of our paperwork. We’ll be able to find it when needed, and we’ll securely have it over the entire 13 years to comply with HUD,” confirms Mclaughlin.

The Future

After the success realized by Image Silo, Edwards, Mooney, and Moses looks forward to implementing the PaperVision Enterprise Workflow platform used for document routing through any workflow. This will eliminate the need to email by providing employees self-service access to documents – all in a responsive, user-friendly interface accessible on any device.

About Vital Records Control

Founded in 1988, VRC Companies, LLC (Vital Records Control) is a trusted leader in records and information management services. VRC helps businesses manage and govern their physical and digital information assets to reduce costs, mitigate risk, and improve productivity. VRC’s suite of scalable solutions enables seamless information lifecycle management – offsite records storage, content management services, document scanning services, and secure shredding. Find more information about VRC at vitalrecordscontrol.com.