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eCapture
Helping Costco Save Both Time and Money Costco
Wholesale Corporation operates an international chain of membership
warehouses, mainly under the "Costco Wholesale" name, that carry
quality, brand name merchandise at substantially lower prices than are
typically found at conventional wholesale or retail sources. The
warehouses are designed to help small-to-medium-sized businesses reduce
costs in purchasing for resale and for everyday business use. Individuals
belonging to certain qualified groups are also able to purchase for their
personal needs. Worldwide, Costco has 334 warehouses, 72,000
employees, and over 13 million members.
Revenues for fiscal year 2000 were $31.62 billion. Costco’s corporate office in Issaquah, Washington
had made the decision to replace their entire front-end document capture
solution. Their old capture
system was not designed to handle the increasing large volume of documents
that were being processed on a daily basis which ultimately would result
in an increase in labor costs. Costco needed a solution that could
automate the manual data entry process, and a solution that could be
easily customized to integrate with their AS/400 system.
Costco currently has 15 applications being
processed. These documents
range from invoices to warehouse signatures.
The old method of handling applications involved routing all
documents to Costco’s document control center where they are sorted by
type and then sent to the indexing workstations for data entry into the
AS/400. After data entry is
performed, the indexing operator fills out a header page that contains a
date, keyer ID, and document ID. The
header page and the documents are then scanned. Depending on the type of application, the indexing
operator would sign on to the AS/400 where the documents would appear in
the same order that they were keyed.
If the document ID matches the invoice number, the indexing
operator files the document information into the document management
system. Some documents had
bar codes printed on them. For
these documents, once the initial batch index was keyed by the scanner
operator, each time a bar code was read the scanning software would
increment by one. The total
number of documents scanned, or number of bar codes read, would then be
checked against how many documents were actually keyed into the AS/400. One of the biggest problems with the old system was
the process of downloading information from the AS/400 to a database that
the users needed for document verification purposes.
The indexing operators would experience severe delays during the
process and it was also very problematic.
Furthermore, there was a lot of time-consuming manual data entry
being done up front at scan time. To assist them in the process of finding a new
capture solution, Costco contacted F.Y.I.
Image in Seattle, Washington.
F.Y.I. Image is an imaging systems reseller that also handles
system integration. Terry Butler, the project coordinator from F.Y. I.
Image, recommended that Costco implement Captovation’s eCapture 4
solution. eCapture 4 would
give Costco the ability to utilize a more robust, and efficient capture
solution for scanning and indexing purposes.
They wanted to be able to reduce the costs associated with manual
data entry as well as be able to grow the system.
By utilizing an eCapture 4 component called ecAutoFile Server,
Costco would be able to eliminate almost all manual data entry which would
allow them to grow in volumes without growing in labor costs.
ecAutoFile Server is a software-based solution that
uses bar code recognition technology to file images directly into a
document management or workflow system.
Because of the fact that eCapture 4 is a modular-based capture
system, Costco was able to purchase only the tools they needed.
This meant that Costco could implement the tools in a variety of
different ways to meet their goals. Also,
because eCapture 4 is VBA-compatible, Costco would have the ability to
customize any of the tools to further meet their exact needs.
Most importantly, using eCapture meant that Costco
would not have to hire any additional staff to process documents.
eCapture’s ability to process over 100,000 documents daily would
allow Costco to reduce the number of high-volume scanners needed from
seven to four, thereby reducing overall support and maintenance costs. Nevertheless, Costco needed a solution that would be
easy to use and could be easily installed and maintained.
“I believe that if Costco would have went with a different
capture solution, they would probably still be months away from getting
the solution into production,” Butler says.
“eCapture’s innovative design ensures that there will be little
or no training and easy implementation into most environments.”
eCapture's flexibility allowed Costco to implement
it into their current Optika FPmulti system.
Costco has plans to upgrade to Optika’a Acorde solutions sometime
in the near future. Because
of eCapture’s tight integration with Acorde, this upgrade process will
be seamless. “We have
recognized the fact that we must upgrade our current document management
system. The flexible
architecture of both eCapture and Acorde will enable us to do this without
having to worry about compatibility issues,” said Rob Berg, Manager of
Imaging at Costco Wholesale.
eCapture has dramatically improved the overall
document capture process at Costco. By
using ecAutoFile Server, the data entry staff gets immediate feedback from
the AS/400. ecAutoFile Server
reads the bar code values and immediately updates the AS/400.
This prevents redundant documents from going into the imaging
system. If a document is
scanned twice, ecAutoFile Server will recognize the bar code value and the
scan operator will delete the document image. ecAutoFile Server also makes the
document images readily available. After
scanning, ecAutoFile Server updates the AS/400 and notifies any user
signed on to the AS/400 that the documents are available in the imaging
system. This whole process is done in real-time, which means the users
experience no delay. The amount of time and money eCapture has saved Costco is very significant. Labor costs associated with the old system have been reduced, and production has been increased. eCapture’s price point will give Costco the freedom to expand their capture system in the future without the worry of increased cost. “eCapture 4 has enabled us to increase the amount of documents being processed on a daily basis,” Berg said. “We have already seen a return on investment because of reduced support and labor costs. I must say that it was a wise decision to choose eCapture 4 as our document and data capture solution.”
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