Moving to new premises and as part of its paper lite policy, the council (SoTCC) wanted to create a digital mailroom to handle all incoming correspondence, which would forward documents electronically to the correct team for processing.
Sector: Local Authorities
Stoke-on-Trent City Council is the local authority for Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. It functions as both a district council and a county council, which means it has a wider range of responsibilities than some other local authorities
Challenge
Alongside moving to new premises and fostering a paper lite policy, the council also wished to implement a hot desk policy, with staff using different workstations as needed. To do this, SoTCC needed its mail to be delivered to the correct team in an electronic format.
The Solution
An Automated Digital Mailroom
Restore worked closely with SoTCC to define a process which would fulfill SoTCC’s objectives. Using its wide operational knowledge of mailroom automation, Restore designed the solution to include processes capable of handling regular, sensitive and managers’ post.
- Installing two OPEX scanners at a centralised location greatly increased efficiencies in opening and scanning the incoming post.
- The output from the two scanners was then consolidated and imported into Kofax, for classification of the documents to take place.
- Using complex algorithms, Kofax classified the document against its sample set and if confident, the document type would be matched against a mapping table to determine which SoTCC Line of Business Team to route the document to.
- If the document type could not be automatically identified then it would be sent to an Operator to validate.
The Result and Business Benefits
The digital mailroom, implemented by Restore, has resulted in a number of business benefits for SoTCC. With the support of Restore, SoTCC has successfully moved offices and implemented a consolidated digital mailroom, allowing for automatic routing of electronic correspondence to the correct team.
What are the benefits of a Digital Mailroom?
The transition to the digital mailroom has also resulted in:
Improved Efficiencies in Handling and Response Time
The digital mailroom was able to sort and deliver mail in a much faster time than a human processor, allowing it to be read and replied to more quickly. This means that issues and enquiries are dealt with immediately.
Reduced Mail Handling Costs
As well as making the distribution of mail much faster, the council is able to save cost efficiencies on staff time, postage and other overheads such as copying and storage. This allows the money to be used on other areas of the council requiring investment.
Prioritising Mail
With a digital mailroom, everything is now sorted and prioritised in one place so that the important messages come through over the irrelevant ones.
Channel Communications
With messages coming in from a number of different places, it has been beneficial to have a digital mailroom that can channel all emails, post and other messages into one place, helping prevent anything being missed or forgotten.
Effective Information Sharing
Information is now processed and distributed instantly where required. This allows every employee in the council to be fully up to date with any messages in order to advise a customer or supplier.
Reduced Paper, fulfilling its paper-lite strategy
The digital mailroom reduces the amount of paper used, which also helps avoid messages being lost and minimises the requirement for storage space and shredding. Improved Management and Process Information; The digital mailroom allows all of the information which runs through the system to be collected and displayed in a way that can be analysed through simple dashboards.