AmVia, Galdon Data, Suprachem: A case study in streamlining business processes, improving efficiency

To enable real-time, electronic faxing from the SAP desktop, AmVia and service partner Galdon Data have implemented a RightFax production fax solution for Suprachem`s financial and marketing divisions.

Wholly owned by iron and steel producer Iscor, Suprachem functions in the industrial chemicals field, manufacturing, for example, tar products from coke.

Iscor, which recently implemented the RightFax Production System in its SAP materials management and financial environments, referred Suprachem to AmVia as the sole provider of the RightFax product range in SA. Iscor also uses an automated RightFax solution in its Windows environment.

Suprachem has found that general-purpose fax technologies do not adequately address the delivery of the huge volumes of business-to-business communications generated by its SAP financial applications.

Indeed, SAP users in Suprachem`s financial and marketing departments, both at its Pretoria head office and its outlying factories, such as Vanderbijlpark, increasingly viewed manual fax dispatching as unproductive and time-consuming.

Discussions with various role-players, including Iscor, indicated that the RightFax production fax system would be the ideal solution to electronically deliver documentation to suppliers and customers from within Suprachem`s SAP application.

The solution would eliminate the need to print purchasing, inventory, order and invoicing documents, take them to a fax machine, and wait for confirmation that they have been faxed to the recipients.

In addition, because RightFax is modular, Suprachem would also be able to meet the future requirement of implementing automated fax processes throughout the organisation, enabling users of all applications to fax from their desktops.

Relationship between AmVia, Galdon Data and Suprachem: Production fax has emerged as a key electronic document delivery technology, and the RightFax Production System is the industry-leading production fax solution on the market, says Garry Ackerman, managing director: Galdon Data.

"As AmVia`s first and currently only service partner, Galdon Data has been able to provide Suprachem with in-depth technical expertise and support services in the RightFax arena, implementing the solution with minimal interruption of its operations."

AmVia has built up an unrivalled reputation and market leadership nationally in messaging and convergence, and its partnership with RightFax has enabled organisations such as Suprachem to streamline their business processes and maximise their performance.

Ackerman says since Suprachem did not have automated fax capabilities at all, Galdon Data installed a RightFax enterprise server and the RightFax SAP/R3 connector, providing a seamless interface for Suprachem`s users to send and receive faxes directly from their SAP application.

"At the same time that the RightFax integration took place, Suprachem also initiated new processes on SAP, which made the fax production system installation quite complex.

"This required a considerable level of integration from the SAP side, but Galdon Data was able to roll-out the RightFax solution successfully, within the timeframe specified and meeting Suprachem`s requirements fully."

George Sutton, manager: Information Systems at Suprachem, comments: "We wanted to be very sure that the automated production fax system we implemented functioned 100%, and we found RightFax to be very reliable."

The RightFax production fax solution has not only eliminated labour-intensive and time-consuming manual faxing processes, introducing considerable cost savings, but has also provided an extremely user-friendly tool to our SAP users, he notes.

Streamlining the fax process means that quotes, orders and accounts are processed more efficiently, expediting internal and external communications and ensuring higher levels of efficiency, says Sutton.

"Galdon Data has ensured that the solution integrates seamlessly with Suprachem`s existing SAP application, and we anticipate even further benefits when electronic fax delivery via RightFax is introduced to the rest of the organisation."