Success Stories - The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC)
Building workable solutions with ATOC
ATOC are the voice of the passenger railway industry and represents train companies to the government, regulatory bodies, the media and other opinion formers on transport policy issues.
They also provide their members with a range of services that enable them to comply with the conditions relating to their franchise agreements and operating licences.
Part of ATOC's work includes providing key support services for passengers including National Rail Enquiries, passenger fair revenue allocation (through the rail settlement plan), National Rail products such as railcards and the network of travel agents selling rail services to the public.
The challenge
ATOC wanted to increase operation efficiency and reduce costs. They also wanted practical, secure and cost-effective solutions, which would fit into their existing IT infrastructure and grow with their future IT strategy.
As a direct result of its work, ATOC is responsible for a significant amount of important documentation. Their current volume of paper documents was in excess of 10,000 files plus per week.
This volume of paper documents created several issues:
- Storage - ATOC's central London office had limited storage space resulting in increasing storage costs.
- Working together - With up to twelve different departments involved in individual projects multiple copies of work in progress were generating significant amounts of paperwork.
- Compliance - The legal nature of ATOC's work often requires strict compliance protocols and auditing procedures.
- Resources - Considerable resources were being spent locating, copying and distributing paper documents each day.
ATOC had previously invested in a document EDM system to help resolve some of their issues, but sadly found the solution to be too costly, difficult to use and complicated to implement across the whole organisation.
The solution
As an organisation ATOC works closely with its staff to create IT solutions, which work effectively in practice. This approach makes changeovers and staff take-up much easier. This meant that any document management solution would need detailed consultation.
Step 1 - DCS conducted a detailed onsite review of existing processes and had an in depth discussion with ATOC staff and their technical team.
Step 2 - We recommended the implementation of FileStore EDM - our electronic document management system with specific functional customisation tailored to ATOC's specific needs.
Additional functionality included text search capabilities, change control, and business process management.
Step 3 - Once the software and required functionality was in place we turned our attention to scanning the 10,000 paper file archive and importing it the new EDM system. This took just five days.
Our solution enabled ATOC staff to instantly access and retrieve documents from any location. A rolling programme across departments is now being implemented to put into place automated document workflows to meet various business processes such as finance approvals and expense submissions.
The Results
- Increased staff efficiency and productivity
- Improved traceability, tracking and visibility of critical documents
- Substantial reduction in the time taken to locate and retrieve documents
- A customised solution delivered at a reasonable cost
- Cash savings of £10-£15k per year as a direct result of reduced paper usage
ATOC Says
"One of the main advantages of the DCS solution is that rules and system protocols for security, access control and workflow policy can be added as we go along.
This works well for us as it means we can evolve the system at a pace which suits our organisation overall and our users."
Chris Gould, IT Manager ATOC
Find out more about FileStore solutions
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