{"id":6654,"date":"2014-02-27T09:13:01","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T14:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theweekinimaging.com\/?p=6654"},"modified":"2014-02-27T09:00:02","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T14:00:02","slug":"be-productive-systems-builds-a-better-mousetrap-with-production-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2014\/02\/be-productive-systems-builds-a-better-mousetrap-with-production-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Productive Systems Builds a Better Mousetrap with Production Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mouse-trap_7-fun-board-games-to-play\"<\/a>For Portsmouth, N.H.-based Be Productive Systems, necessity really was the mother of invention. Its sister company, Recordsforce, a document scanning service bureau, has been in operation since late 2001, providing outsourced content management services. Necessity launched the company into software development, with the result being a cloud-based production management solution designed for service bureaus and in-house scanning operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started with the idea of being a \u2018just-in-time\u2019 document scanning service provider focusing more on traditional documents,\u201d says Bill Becker, CEO and president of the company. \u201cAs the company grew we didn\u2019t really have a good way to maintain control over our operation in a way that was compliant with our transactional clients\u2019 desires for transparency, speedy delivery, and really high accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, Recordsforce had one client that was a very large, FDA-regulated company, with quality requirements much higher than those a typical small business would have in place. \u201cAs a result of those regulations and the type of work we were doing for them, they held us to a very high standard,\u201d Becker says. \u201cWe decided that we needed to step up our game around compliance and quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was that need that led to the next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to make changes to our business that aligned with the types of work we wanted to do\u2014high-touch, high-quality, fast turnaround document imaging and data extraction services,\u201d states Becker. \u201cIn order to manage that we had to create a type of software that did not exist.\u201d And create they did\u2014researching, developing, and finally building what Becker says is \u201cthe only document scanning production management system on Earth. No one really had anything like what we had made–or if they did, they weren\u2019t out telling anybody about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there are image and data capture systems out there,\u201d clarifies chief marketing officer Michael Dailey, \u201cbut there wasn\u2019t anything that was helping to capture as well as manage the people and processes around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Systems like SAP and Oracle, while effective ERP systems weren\u2019t granular enough for Becker. \u201cNone of those systems reached down to the individual worker to help guide that worker in how long it takes them to do their work, where the profit is, how a job is being delivered,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

The Production Manager job tracking management system, which is the result of those years of development, does all those things. \u201cWe developed an area of expertise around getting documents that come in today back out today or tomorrow for our clients,\u201d explains Becker. \u201cIt\u2019s a living, breathing data environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the development of Production Manger came Be Productive Systems (BPS), a spinoff of Recordsforce that sells and markets the Production Manager system. \u201cWe decided we should spin off a new company whose focus is selling this system to in-house document imaging departments and document imaging service companies,\u201d says Becker.<\/p>\n

Two words Becker uses a lot when discussing the Production Manager software are compliance and accountability, specifically when dealing with vertical markets where documentation is critical. \u201cThere is a difference between doing a good job and having documented evidence that you do a good job,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can do your best, but you have to be able to show a customer or an auditor evidence of all the steps you went through to ensure the work was done correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n

An example of Production Manager\u2019s documentation capabilities is the way the changes are made to work instructions. Traditionally, companies have a three-ring binder of printed instructions somewhere in the production facility. If someone has a question they can go find the binder, flip through it to find the customer and read the work instructions. But that, says Becker, isn\u2019t good enough. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t answer the question, \u2018how do I know the person doing my work is using the most recent version of the instructions?\u2019\u201d In Production Manager, an operator performing a task with updated task instructions must acknowledge that change and certify they understand it. That certification is then stored as a training event in the system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had any trepidation (about whether) anyone in my operation is working from the most recent instructions, I could take you into the system and show you exactly what day and at what moment they finished that training and were ready to go forward,\u201d states Becker. \u201cThat level of compliance to change control is very rare in our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had discussions with in-house people managing copy centers in large office buildings, and compliance has been a really big deal for them,\u201d adds Dailey. \u201cUsually it\u2019s the organizations that are big enough to have the software and a department \u2013 usually a larger public company that\u2019s under state or federal scrutiny, compliance has been a key factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that type of company that BPS would like to do more business with as well. The company has its own direct sales force, but is also looking for channel partners with access to in-house document management centers. \u201cThe industry really hides these in-house operations\u2014not on purpose, but it happens,\u201d said Becker.<\/p>\n

\u201cAIIM, for example, knows about the service bureaus but not the in-house operations,\u201d Dailey reveals. \u201cWe need channel partners that already have hardware that\u2019s installed in these locations so we can go in and help their customers be better at providing the internal service of converting documents and extracting data.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dealer relationship doesn\u2019t need to be one-sided. Becker feels Production Manager software can help the traditional dealer be more successful as well. \u201cWe help folks that are primarily hardware-focused find a way to add a residual income stream into their client base. You may get some maintenance on a scanner, but if I can sell software-as-as-service to the in-house scanning operation, a copier sales company can turn that into a monthly recurring annuity stream that the copier or software system purchased outright wouldn\u2019t provide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just the lowest-priced box,\u201d Becker continues. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a solution that manages your environment, along with the hardware that works in that environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A software solution that can help move hardware as well seems like a winning invention. \u201cYou can go out and build a mousetrap and then go look for mice, but why?\u201d Becker asks. \u201cWe had a problem, and we solved it.\u201d And now BPS and Production Manager are solving problems for a lot of other companies as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Portsmouth, N.H.-based Be Productive Systems, necessity really was the mother of invention. Its sister company, Recordsforce, a document scanning service bureau, has been in operation since late 2001, providing outsourced content management services. Necessity launched the company into software development, with the result being a cloud-based production management solution designed for service bureaus and in-house scanning operations. \u201cWe started with the idea of being a \u2018just-in-time\u2019 document scanning service provider focusing more on traditional documents,\u201d says Bill Becker, CEO and president of the company. \u201cAs the company grew we didn\u2019t really have a good way to maintain control over our operation in a way that was compliant with our transactional clients\u2019 desires for transparency, speedy delivery, and really high accuracy.\u201d Specifically, Recordsforce had one client that was a very large, FDA-regulated company, with quality requirements much higher than those a typical small business would have in place. \u201cAs a result of those regulations and the type of work we were doing for them, they held us to a very high standard,\u201d Becker says. \u201cWe decided that we needed to step up our game around compliance and quality.\u201d It was that need that led to the next step. \u201cWe needed to make changes to our business that aligned with the types of work we wanted to do\u2014high-touch, high-quality, fast turnaround document imaging and data extraction services,\u201d states Becker. \u201cIn order to manage that we had to create a type of software that did not exist.\u201d And create they did\u2014researching, developing, and finally building what Becker says is \u201cthe only document scanning production management system on Earth. No one really had anything like what we had made–or if they did, they weren\u2019t out telling anybody about it.\u201d \u201cWe know there are image and data capture systems out there,\u201d clarifies chief marketing officer Michael Dailey, \u201cbut there wasn\u2019t anything that was helping to capture as well as manage the people and processes around that.\u201d Systems like SAP and Oracle, while effective ERP systems weren\u2019t granular enough for Becker. \u201cNone of those systems reached down to the individual worker to help guide that worker in how long it takes them to do their work, where the profit is, how a job is being delivered,\u201d he adds. The Production Manager job tracking management system, which is the result of those years of development, does all those things. \u201cWe developed an area of expertise around getting documents that come in today back out today or tomorrow for our clients,\u201d explains Becker. \u201cIt\u2019s a living, breathing data environment.\u201d With the development of Production Manger came Be Productive Systems (BPS), a spinoff of Recordsforce that sells and markets the Production Manager system. \u201cWe decided we should spin off a new company whose focus is selling this system to in-house document imaging departments and document imaging service companies,\u201d says Becker. Two words Becker uses a lot when discussing the Production Manager software are compliance and accountability, specifically when dealing with vertical markets where documentation is critical. \u201cThere is a difference between doing a good job and having documented evidence that you do a good job,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can do your best, but you have to be able to show a customer or an auditor evidence of all the steps you went through to ensure the work was done correctly.\u201d An example of Production Manager\u2019s documentation capabilities is the way the changes are made to work instructions. Traditionally, companies have a three-ring binder of printed instructions somewhere in the production facility. If someone has a question they can go find the binder, flip through it to find the customer and read the work instructions. But that, says Becker, isn\u2019t good enough. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t answer the question, \u2018how do I know the person doing my work is using the most recent version of the instructions?\u2019\u201d In Production Manager, an operator performing a task with updated task instructions must acknowledge that change and certify they understand it. That certification is then stored as a training event in the system. \u201cIf you had any trepidation (about whether) anyone in my operation is working from the most recent instructions, I could take you into the system and show you exactly what day and at what moment they finished that training and were ready to go forward,\u201d states Becker. \u201cThat level of compliance to change control is very rare in our industry.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019ve had discussions with in-house people managing copy centers in large office buildings, and compliance has been a really big deal for them,\u201d adds Dailey. \u201cUsually it\u2019s the organizations that are big enough to have the software and a department \u2013 usually a larger public company that\u2019s under state or federal scrutiny, compliance has been a key factor.\u201d It\u2019s that type of company that BPS would like to do more business with as well. The company has its own direct sales force, but is also looking for channel partners with access to in-house document management centers. \u201cThe industry really hides these in-house operations\u2014not on purpose, but it happens,\u201d said Becker. \u201cAIIM, for example, knows about the service bureaus but not the in-house operations,\u201d Dailey reveals. \u201cWe need channel partners that already have hardware that\u2019s installed in these locations so we can go in and help their customers be better at providing the internal service of converting documents and extracting data.\u201d The dealer relationship doesn\u2019t need to be one-sided. Becker feels Production Manager software can help the traditional dealer be more successful as well. \u201cWe help folks that are primarily hardware-focused find a way to add a residual income stream into their client base. You may get some maintenance on a scanner, but if I can sell software-as-as-service to the in-house scanning operation, a copier sales company can turn that into a monthly recurring annuity stream that the copier or software system purchased outright wouldn\u2019t provide. \u201cWe\u2019re not just the lowest-priced box,\u201d Becker continues. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a solution that manages your environment, along with the hardware that works in that environment.\u201d A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[82],"tags":[1218,1215,1219,1217,1220,1216],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6657,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6654\/revisions\/6657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}