Digital Conversion & Optimization
Today when I go out and spend my time or money somewhere, I'm very surprised when I encounter literal paperwork. It's been nearly ten years since the introduction of the iPad which was followed suit by numerous companies creating their own tablet devices. Yet there are still companies out there using pencil and paper to fill out documents. This is not only time consuming it can also be expensive especially if your employees are the ones filling them out.
Whether the paperwork is a Liability Waiver for some recreational activity like zip-lining or intake forms at a doctor's office. Using a paper filing system is not only dated and inefficient it's also expensive. This is because in todays age a filing system can be implemented that's automated and requires less actual labor hours and will reduce your applied overhead. This is especially the case when your employees are the ones filling out a majority of the paperwork. In that case, the fact of the matter is employees usually are filling out redundant information such as their name and the date multiple times, which wastes time and ultimately costs money. With digital paperwork you can set rules to the forms such as required fields or auto-populating fields such as name and date that appear throughout multiple pages. Even when the paperwork is complex and involves elements such as spreadsheets you can drastically reduce the number of required fields. Utilizing macros and equations you can have statistics such averages and deviations auto-populate, reducing the possibility human error and the time it takes to do the equation.
With our clients in the scientific community and manufacturing industry this is becoming increasingly the case. With regulating authorities such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO for short) becoming common place as the industry standard you start seeing companies advertising the compliance of management systems such as the ISO 9001 standard. If you're somewhat familiar with the bureaucracy that goes into these systems, then you're aware that it requires a lot of paperwork. It also requires that paperwork be stored along with all your management systems and distributed in a controlled fashion. If it sounds complicated it's not but a lot of companies and entrepreneurs make it more complicated and costly than required. Simplicity is key when it comes to paperwork which is why switching from paper to digital is an inevitability every company is facing. As an example, one of our clients was paying employees $50 to $100 an hour in some cases to fill out redundant paper forms out in the field using a pen and a clip-board. Employees were literally spending hours out of the day standing there writing down information. They would then have to copy those forms, send the duplicates to the company's home office states away where they were reviewed and filed. Through a time-study we showed that by converting to a digital filing system they were able decrease the time spent on paperwork by 72%! It went from an average of 16 hours per employee a week filling out and filing paperwork to only 4 and a half hours a week. The company ended up saving a substantial amount of money and in turn freeing up their employees from doing mindless tasks and increasing productivity.
Everyone has heard of the infamous cases where a person goes in for a simple out-patient procedure only to awake and find the wrong procedure was performed. Optimization doesn't just mean cost cutting and efficient it also means quality. In industries such healthcare where misinformation or the lack of communication can result in serious consequences. Studies show that going through simple checklists prior to surgery not only increases the chance of that surgery being successful, but also drastically reduces the chance of having any human error. This can be applied to any business model to ensure quality products and service. The industries mentioned such as healthcare often require long hours, so mistakes are ultimately inevitable to happen. It's not really the case of if or when they are going to happen but being proactive to reduce the instances or windows of opportunity for them to happen. If a protocol or system is implemented and is followed it can drastically increase the quality of the work done. Even when a person is tired and the only thing on their mind is going home they are a lot less likely to forget if they are required to physically acknowledge that everything is in order. This saves entrepreneurs and companies money in a different way. It offers quality assurance to their current and potential customers and protects them from seriously potential liabilities which could bankrupt most businesses or send their insurance premiums through the roof.
If there's one thing I want business owners and bureaucrats alike to take away from this is that it's imperative to transition to digital media. Not only will it save you time and money, but it will give you a more solid foundation to build the more important elements of your business, such as growth. Although transferring to digital may sound tedious or scary to some unable to see a tangible paper in front of them. Because let's face it in the end everyone will be much better off, no one likes paperwork. Not to mention it's also the environmentally friendly option.
