Designed to improve workflow, reduce costs for complying with ISO standards in chemical and related industries
New Orleans — May 4, 2004 — Addressing Chemical Industry Data Exchange (CIDX) members regarding the growing trend within the chemical industries to reduce costs while improving customer and supplier interactions, customer document management (CDM) solutions provider ADEXS today announced the release of its Version 2.0 solution for the electronic exchange of Certificate of Analysis (CoA) documents between industry suppliers, distributors and their customers through The DOCeXCHANGE.
ADEXS said the new version extends existing customer applications by simplifying the inter-company exchange and management of business documents. The DOCeXCHANGE is a hosted Web-based service designed for cost-effective document flow between businesses as indexed digital files versus paper.
Among the key enhancements over its previous release, the Version 2.0 platform uses Adobe's new Intelligent Document Management architecture, which provides support for embedding business logic directly into the electronic documents and enables integration with both the sender's and the receiver's enterprise applications to create a true end-to-end, paperless solution.
"Despite all the efforts during the last decade to reduce paper," said Greg Buchholz, co-founder and chief operating offier of ADEXS, "our customers tell us they're actually handling more paper than ever before — and at high costs, which are eroding margins."
He said ADEXS' CoA solution was built by collaborating with current customers as well as a consortium of suppliers, end-users and standards groups within the Chemical industry. "Collectively, we've identified the inefficiencies around these documents and created a robust solution that creates value for the entire supply chain," Buchholz said.
ADEXS explained that The DOCeXCHANGE combines technology and services to help companies move traditional paper-based CoA processes like mail, fax and even e-mail into the digital world. Delivered as a hosted service, The DOCeXCHANGE provides a secure network through which chemical companies can exchange (send, manage internally and receive) CoAs electronically with trading partners, without the need
for integration projects.
"We've emphasized simplicity, with the goal of getting a customer up-and-running in a matter of days," said Buchholz. "Since it's a Web service, we can provide our customers with a quick and easy way for them to interface with their customers and suppliers, regardless of their technological readiness or infrastructure."
Since its inception, ADEXS said the Certificate of Analysis has served as an ISO, quality control document, and it has been moved from supplier to customer via a paper-based workflow. Principally, CoAs were printed and handed to the truck driver and/or faxed to the end customer.
The DOCeXCHANGE enables suppliers to send an electronic CoA, well in advance of the shipment. ADEXS said the end customer benefits by receiving the indexed, electronic document, which is stored on The DOCeXCHANGE and is accessible through a free Web-repository called an eBinder, which enables the supplier to stop printing and faxing the CoAs.
Some of the features of the upgraded DOCeXCHANGE include document/data capture tools, which allow users to upload and index CoA documents electronically; online document retrieval and routing; a one-click resend capability; an instant audit trail via a transaction log, which also captures information to let you know if your customers viewed the document; and analytics so managers can monitor and access their users' productivity and analyze document flow.
"We partnered with ADEXS over a year ago to improve our document handling processes to benefit our customers, our suppliers and ourselves, said John LaBahn, chief financial officer at CHEMCENTRAL Corp., a leading chemical distributor. "Through the DOCeXCHANGE, we've been able to streamline the receipt of supplier information, reduce our day-to-day operating expense as we work with these documents, and improve the way we interact with and provide value to our customers."
LaBahn added that Version 2.0 has enabled CHEMCENTRAL to deliver any transactional, compliance-related or customer-required document electronically in an "intelligent" format, which allows the distributor's trading partners to more easily incorporate the information into their business processes.
