The project
Founded more than 100 years ago, Hijos de la Rivera is a company that offers a wide range of products including beer, mineral water, wine, cider, sangria and spirits. It faces the future with robust growth, and in recent years its sales revenue has multiplied accordingly. This has posed the challenge of managing a multitude of documents related with the billing of suppliers, while also coordinating a flow of approval for all related documentation.
Before implementing Alfresco, Estrella Galicia did not have in place a unified document management solution: it was using a proprietary system for managing the invoices of its suppliers. In that system, documents were stored in network units, hard drives and other systems.
Challenges
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Implement a powerful document management system that is Open-Source and scalable -
Manage large volumes of supplier invoices -
Agile management of invoice flows
The solution
From its beginnings, the project was aimed at managing supplier invoices, with the intention of later expanding the use of the document platform to the remaining departments. It was necessary to manage an average of 4,000 new documents each month in the Billing Department, and this volume has grown as more departments and companies from the group have been incorporated into project framework.
“When selecting the new document platform, we were certain that it would need to be an open-code, scalable platform that would be easy to expand to other areas of the company. It was also fundamental that the solution would have the support of a network of partners and the guarantee of Alfresco,” asserts José Manuel Santiso, ITC business manager of Estrella Galicia.
The process of approval of an invoice involves various individuals, and the key to introducing the new document platform is its ability to streamline the invoice management process so that invoices can be accessed and validated rapidly. In addition, it was necessary to manage flows of invoices using mobile devices, which has made it possible to access the application at any time from any location and to manage (approve/reject) these documents using mobile devices.
The result
At present, as part of the new solution, Alfresco is integrated with many different technologies, including: iOS mobile devices, iPhone and iPad; supplier invoice portal using CMIS; proprietary ERP, by using web services and WebScripts, as well as many proprietary applications that use WebScripts.
MySQL has been utilized as database manager, Tomcat as application manager and Redhat as operating system.
Once the bases for invoice flow management have been established, significant evolutionary improvements were made, in addition to different process for customization of the document platform in other departments.
The document platform that has been developed has successfully met those requirements for scalability and for gradual growth in additional areas, as well as facilitating mobility. Other qualitative benefits that Estrella Galicia is experiencing are the ease of use and a considerable savings in time spent on repetitive tasks, which leads, in turn, to an improvement in provision of service at the internal and external level.