Why Document Standardization Matters

Business process standards streamline workflows and reduce errors because they give employees a model to follow when completing tasks. Almost every company keeps standard operating procedures (SOPs) handy for employees to ensure the successful completion of work with little ambiguity to the task at hand. One area that is often overlooked when it comes to process standardization is document management.

What do we Mean by Standardization?

Developing naming conventions for documentation is a great way to start standardizing your document management process. In addition to working at names, you can also standardize the processes, checks, and balances that documents go through. On top of that, the standardization of document processing can also be used to standardize business processes.

Standardized documents allow you to better track your procurement processes and ensure you’re always comparing apples to apples. For example, giving your different teams one quote template means they can always quickly see the difference between different bids or tenders.

Procurement is often a complex and multi-channel process that would normally take multiple human interactions and manual checks and status updates. Standardized systems make this easier, and also introduce automation and report integration directly into the procurement process.

Benefits of Standardizing Your Documents and Procedures

Standardizing your documents will generally offer the following benefits:

• Time Savings – Standard naming procedures allow employees to find documents with more ease.
• Identification – Versions and chain of custody are easier to identify.
• Reduced Errors – Employees don’t end up working from the wrong or outdated documents.
• Duplication – Duplication of documents into multiple places is easier to avoid with a sound naming convention.
• Security – Assigning permissions to documents is simple when you know what the document is.

The benefits of standardizing and automating the processes documents are associated with can significantly reduce:

• Deal cycle time
• The time customers wait for items on back order
• Purchasing, manufacturing, and sales errors
• Lost documents, including work orders and messages

Efficiency

Integrating enterprise output management software into your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system like SAP can help you discover new efficiencies that reduce error and allow employees to spend time perfecting other aspects of their jobs and delivering better products and services.

In the example above, the automation removes the need for multiple interactions and document exchanges between departments, creating efficiency. You can also automate and standardize other processes that bring efficiency, using templates, an automated naming nomenclature process, and an automated document creation process.

Preventing Errors

With the efficiencies enterprise output management software can bring, its ability to prevent errors in documentation and their associated processes are clear. Removing the responsibility of figuring out a process like naming conventions or the manual shuttling of documents and information between departments from employees, prevents human error.

Integration and Automation with SEAL Systems

Enterprise output management software by SEAL Systems can easily be integrated into any SAP system. The software acts as an add-on to enhance all of your document creation processes and the processes that accompany them.

In addition to the benefits above, SEAL Systems also provides additional ways to ensure the safety of documents and a solution to decentralized physical printing and digital document distribution networks.

Contact the SEAL Systems team to find out more about documentation and process standardization today.