Slow Internet, five manufacturing companies at different locations, the introduction of digital accounts paybale processing with JobRouter and a lot of plans for creating smoothly digitized business processes: SAW, a subsidiary of Arkil Holding, was faced with major changes - and was ready to take action to speed up ‘slowness time’ in the Viking city of Schleswig.

'Slow­ness-time' meets workflow management

For tourism experts in the Baltic coastal region of Schlei in Northern Gremany, the invitation to ‘slowness-time’ is a memorable advertising slogan. But for Arkil Holding Group’s project controller Andreas Tusch, slowness is a problem – as well as for his colleagues at the company’s construction yard nearby and compounding plant, 11 km away. Because, unfortunately, ‘slowness-time’ also applies to the slow internet connection between the central office and subsidiaries of Arkil Holding. SAW is the largest subsidiary of Arkil Holding with services that include road construction, civil engineering, and asphalt production and processing.

What makes the matter urgent: Administrative maintenance of the whole Arkil Group in Germany is handled by SAW where the introduction of JobRouter with its special module for the construction industry, JobMind Bau, is already a success! There is reason to hope: Telekom began delivering broadband access to the region and surrounding municipalities in February 2017.  Estimated completion time is three years. This gives some cause for optimism. Slow internet is also why another subsidiary, ASA Bau, located over 300 km away in the city of Greifswald is still not integrated in the company’s web-based solution on the JobRouter digital process automation platform.

JobRouter Advantages : Invoice veri­fic­a­tion via JobMind Bau

  • JobMind Bau enables invoice correction according to the VAT act
  • Enables notes and modifications directly at the screen
  • Supports the parallel browsing of attachments on a second viewer
  • Automatically calculates the corrected invoice sums, positions, values and carry-overs anew
  • Enables manual intervention and correction by authorized staff, site managers and other entitled persons
  • Automatically creates and exports a corrected version of the invoice

Project details

Client
SAW (Schleswiger Asphaltsplitt-Werke) / Arkil Holding Group
Industry
Road construction, civil engineering and asphalt production
Employees
220
Instances
25,000 processes per year
Database
ERP system Microsoft Dynamics
Ongoing processes
Accounts payable processing, central archive
Planned processes
Digital constructions file, vacation process, driving license process, personnel file
Special features
Correction display on a 2nd monitor in JMB with subsequent archiving in JobRouter

Green light for JobMind Bau

Andreas Tusch was initially looking for a document management system at the CeBIT Expo but found something even better. “We now have a digitization platform and do not move receipts back and forth, but manage processes. We owe this to our JobRouter partner. They were the only ones who could demonstrate the JobRouter module JobMind Bau, where invoice verification and modification really works. That was something we could trust.”

Other decision criteria for SAW management were:

  • Complete digital invoice handling up to posting
  • Better exploitation of discounts
  • 100% transparency and traceability of invoice status

One solution for all sub­si­di­ar­ies

“The workflow is the same across the whole company”, says industrial engineer Tusch. That’s why management decided to start with the largest subsidiary right away. “If we can build up the whole workflow at once, we can manage all clients together with our five compounding plants.”

A year and a half later, Andreas Tusch is enthusiastic about the fact that “everything entered in the front is coming out the back into Microsoft Dynamics NAVISION” and can be automatically posted. He acknowledges with appreciation that JobMind Bau is creating and sending corrective invoices for the supplier automatically, which makes credit notes redundant.

The system is brilliant. We have been working with it for one year now and even at the first annual accounts everything worked out perfectly. Auditors and accounting advisers can follow every process excellently.
Andreas Tusch
Project Controller at Arkil Holding GmbH

The process di­git­iz­a­tion challenge

According to Andreas Tusch, it was a difficult road to get there. “If you want to transfer processes that have been used for 20 years into an electronic system, then you have to establish the so called construction site the other way round. It is not so much a question of transferring analog processes into digital ones, but a question of relations and references. With intensive support from our JobRouter partner L and M, a matrix was created depicting the workflow process in the company." Who is allowed to do what and when? At which spot do you have to build junctions into one-way-roads to enable additional coordination processes? When does a roundabout make sense, to return tasks to a colleague for further editing? How is it possible to bypass the normal road via the cost center to target a supervisor directly for an invoice approval?

Detours to the target

The site manager and accounting department staff had to train in process orientation, Andreas Tusch summarizes. “The goal was to integrate all staff in the process right from the beginning on one hand and to exclude unhelpful individual working habits and requests as early as possible on the other hand. Otherwise one gets bogged down in small details and ends up with twice as much in the digital construction file as before. The design of dialog windows or access of rights can also escalate, if executed according to the established analog rights.” In this case a review of the roadmap was followed by another acceleration to help pull the handbrake – with patient programming people in house and the supervising JobRouter partner. Compared to this, the Interface connection with Microsoft Dynamics was a trifle.

Con­struc­tion progress in the system

April 2015: Processes are worked through in team workshops with the JobRouter partner and first receipts are processed in a JobRouter test version.

February 2016: A new OCR scanner is established in the head office in Schleswig. With immediate effect all incoming invoices are scanned centrally. The JobMind Head module reads the header data of each invoice. The JobMind Bau module enters each invoice position individually and provides them to the site managers for further editing. In the background a permanent invoice correction is performed, of course, according to the value added tax act.

March 2016: The whole invoice verification conversion is implemented at SAW in Schleswig. All employees are working with JobRouter and the two modules specifically created for the complex invoice verification processes of the construction industry.

Thanks to the automated calculations at SAW via JobRouter, 80% of the invoices are fully automatically posted through the ERP system. Our bookkeeping does not need to change anything. Management and employees alike are looking forward to the update to JobRouter 4.0! Then everybody will be able to use JobRouter right on the starting page. And every employee will have their personal calendar next to the long-term appointment calendar of the company, together with a task list in one corner, displaying for example, which invoices require their attention next.
Andreas Tusch
Project Controller at Arkil Holding GmbH

“Develop a taste during the meal”

It has become evident that all construction administrations will profit from the fast internet. Actually, the SAW branch office in Kiel has gained access to the new processes. ASA Bau in Greifswald will get access to the JobRouter Cloud in Q2/2018 with 50 Mbps. Soon, employees on the construction sites will be able to upload pictures right on the spot, which will get assigned to the digital construction file and saved in a special archive in JobRouter. Fixed assets accounting will also be depicted in the JobRouter process. Andreas Tusch is considering the future already. He is thinking about a vacation process, the reorganization of the document filing via JobRouter and a drivers license control process. “A taste is developed during the meal. With the JobRouter license system for mid-sized companies we can make a difference. The price is also very appealing to us, even in comparison with other software manufacturers.”

Company profile : SAW Schleswiger As­phalt­s­plitt-Werke

SAW (Schleswiger Asphaltsplitt-Werke) is headquartered in Schleswig, Germany and operates in the sectors of road construction, asphalt road construction, civil engineering and canal construction. The company was started in 1956 by the Dane Consul Ove Arkil. Werner Schwarz, a native of Schleswig, acquired the company two years later and managed the business until 1984. SAW has compounding plants in Jagel and Kiel and manufactures construction material, based on 200 asphalt recipes, for construction projects in the region. Clients include communities, federal states, the federal state and private sector companies. The 17th century Fürsens Hof building has been the location for SAW head offices since 1987. SAW has a 50% interest in ASA-Bau in Greifswald, a road construction company with four subsidiaries. SAW and ASA-Bau are majority owned by the German Akril Holding. Arkil Holding is a 100% subsidiary of the Danish listed corporation Arkil Holding A/S.