Wheelabrator to Cut Waste with Paperless Solution from Quadrant

Published: March 11, 2008

by Alex Woodie

Houston, Texas-based Wheelabrator Technologies knows something about waste. For 30 years, the Waste Management subsidiary has been converting household trash into billions of kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable energy. Now, the JD Edwards World customer is looking to Quadrant Software and its paperless process management (PPM) solutions to help it get rid of another source of waste--paperwork--and implement more efficient paperless business processes.

By the end of the month, Wheelabrator expects to complete its implementation of several Quadrant products, including IntelliChief, Formtastic, and FastFax, that should help the company reduce its use of paper and be more productive with business documents and the underlying workflow in the company's purchasing, accounts payable, and legal departments.

The job entails transforming various documents, such as purchase orders, invoices, acknowledgements, and expense reports, into electronic documents using Formtastic, Quadrant's electronic document management software. Instead of shuffling paperwork around to different people and departments for approval, Wheelabrator will use IntelliChief's workflow routing component to notify workers when documents in their inbox need to be approved. FastFax will be used when fax technology is needed.

The implementation is also taking archiving, retrieval, and SOX compliance into consideration. For example, use of IntelliChief's print capture driver software will allow Wheelabrator employees to automatically attach a spreadsheet or other PC-based documents as an imaged file that is then indexed into the archive and available for retrieval at any time.

Wheelabrator expects the new system to yield benefits in a number of areas, including better visibility of approval routing and use of escalation procedures, and the elimination of the need for manual signatures on paper forms, which will shortening the time for generating purchase orders and paying invoices. This will allow the company to save money by using its vendors' early payment programs, and by avoiding late fees.

Less travel will result from the improved document sharing capability, saving more money. All told, Wheelabrator expects to save $200,000 per year. That will provide a return on investment of less than a year, according to Quadrant.

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