Northern Feather Manages Doubled Turnover - Invu Document Management Ensures Static Admin Costs

Invu Document Management and Invu Workflow software helps manufacturer manage a doubled turnover to £20M

Bedding product manufacturer, Northern Feather, implemented document management software from Invu to speed up its order processing. As a result, Northern Feather has been able to manage 100% additional transactions without any increase in headcount.

Based in Wigan, Lancashire and part of the John Cotton Group, Northern Feather specialises in the manufacture and sale of quality natural down and synthetic duvets and pillows, supplying to a raft of major UK high street retailers including John Lewis, House of Fraser and Dunelm Mill. In 2000, the company merged with fellow duvet and pillow manufacturer Snuggledown. Combining manufacturing facilities and administration in Lancashire, it was clear that increased levels of transactions were going to create administrative headaches and storage issues. The company therefore sought options to optimise working practices, notably in sales and purchase order processing.

Initial discussions centred on an obvious immediate problem – lack of space for document archiving. However, after an in-depth discussion about Invu's capabilities, it was clear document archiving was just the beginning. By using Invu Workflow the company could also improve business processes to create a genuine difference to paper-based order processing. This could deliver a solution to a potential limiter to Northern Feather's aggressive growth plans.

Brian Wilcox, Financial Controller for Northern Feather comments, "We wanted to eliminate clerical tasks and automate as much as possible. Being able to automate the sales order process had a real impact on the business. With orders now directly scanned into Invu, we can generate the picking note and attach them using the document number. When picking notes come back from the warehouse, they are scanned and attached. The barcodes were a transformational feature: beforehand we would manually update secondary information in our existing ERP system, Pegasus Opera – it was a time consuming job."

Wilcox continues, "Invu has allowed us to manage twice as many transactions with the same number of staff. Our turnover has increased from £10M in 2004 to £20M in 2010 with prices remaining virtually static. Without Invu, we wouldn't have managed the sheer increase in transactions, whilst also removing human error to improve our working processes as a whole. Invu helped us define and enforce our processes by adding more structure and discipline to the way we worked."

So impressed with the results to date, Northern Feather has continued the transformation to its business operations. The accuracy of content extraction and validation has been greatly improved with an upgrade to Invu Capture. Paper documents are scanned and key data indentified, extracted and used for identification and matching purposes. The introduction of Invu Capture has increased confidence in the technology still further and this additional piece in the jigsaw has reduced the time spent in posting to Pegasus Opera.

Convinced by the changes to the internal business processes, Wilcox concludes, "Invu has been a key element in the transformation of our business. We intend to continue optimising our processes with Invu."

About Invu
Invu develops software that incorporates document management, content management, workflow, automation and collaboration specialising in solutions for the mid-market and smaller businesses.

Also known as the paperless office, Invu typically gives a return on investment in under six months, allowing companies to see efficiency savings in terms of both money and time.

Over 4,500 organisations use Invu. From professional services (such as accountants, IFAs and insurers) to education; from housing associations to manufacturing and engineering; from transport & logistics to construction and charities.

Invu's Open Search integration allows SharePoint users to utilise fully the benefits of WSS/SharePoint Foundation or MOSS/SharePoint Server whilst retaining the functions of specialist document and content management.

Invu's solutions enable automated scan, capture and management, processing and output transformation.

Invu also integrates with all major accounting systems including IRIS and Sage, as well as ERP and CRM systems.

SOURCE: Invu