4-page Case Study - Posted 2/2/2007

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Del Monte Foods

Food Distributor Automates Processes, Saving Time and Boosting Efficiency

Del Monte Foods is one of the largest distributors of branded food products in the United States. The company, which has offices throughout the country, used a complex, paper-based internal process to route and manage capital funds. Because this process was manual and not standardized to all the company’s disparate business units, reliability and efficiency were major challenges. In addition, lost time and productivity were related issues that Del Monte needed to resolve. To address these problems, the company worked with Microsoft partner SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc. to deploy a fully automated capital request approval process based on the SourceCode K2.net workflow solution. Del Monte employees now have a streamlined process that has saved time and increased both efficiency and productivity. The solution has also given the company a more secure way to track financial data.

Situation

With the new K2.net solution, a business process that would usually require 10 to 12 days only takes 12 hours to complete.  Jonathan Wynn Manager of Advanced Technology and Collaborative Services Del Monte Foods

The company employs 8,400 salaried and 8,900 seasonal workers in offices throughout the United States, American Samoa, Ecuador, and Mexico. Many of these offices rely on up-to-date, accurate distribution of capital funds for purchases of hardware and other items. Del Monte has a complex appropriation process for distributing these funds. This Capital Appropriation Request (CAR) process, which originates in the organization’s finance department, manages the flow of funds within all five of the company’s business units. “The process has a lot of business rules surrounding who the money goes to and how the requests for funds get routed,” says Jonathan Wynn, Manager of Advanced Technology and Collaborative Services, Del Monte Foods.

Unfortunately, that process was also outdated, manual, and labor-intensive. For example, most of the CAR forms were documents that came from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, office and were sent to several national offices before ending up at the main San Francisco office. “The form would be routed in an envelope, and it might end up sitting on someone’s desk because he or she was out on vacation and wouldn’t sign the form until returning,” says Wynn. “In some cases, this could be an urgent request for a half-million-dollar piece of hardware that needed to be purchased. It was a very inefficient process.”

All five Del Monte business units regularly submitted separate CAR forms from their respective offices because no standardized approval process existed. Because of this lack of standardization, there was little uniformity in the company’s CAR forms, which led to confusion in the company’s administrative departments. Also, much time was wasted tracking down lost or misdirected forms. In addition, because of the lack of a reliable tracking method, security was a concern.

“We desperately needed to simplify the entire CAR process,” says Wynn. To that end, Del Monte actively sought a new solution that would standardize forms throughout all of its business units, leading to a faster approval process that would also include better document tracking.

Solution

In late 2005, representatives from Del Monte met with SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc., a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner based in Redmond, Washington. SourceCode develops enterprise business process management software solutions that help organizations create, implement, manage, track, and improve workflow processes. The 10-year-old company, which has more than 200 employees, provides workflow solutions for more than 1,000 customers in industries such as financial services, manufacturing, government, healthcare, and oil and gas.

We have gotten rid of our labor-intensive manual business processes. We’re a much more efficient enterprise as a result.  Jonathan Wynn Manager of Advanced Technology and Collaborative Services Del Monte Foods

K2.net was built to optimize the Windows Server® 2003 operating system and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005. K2.net also provides a drag-and-drop interface for creating advanced workflow processes with a wide range of Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and the Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007 information-gathering program. “K2.net integrates with almost every Microsoft product that demands human interaction and workflow between systems,” says Adriaan van Wyk, Chief Executive Officer, SourceCode. “These efforts have led to development and integration with the 2007 Microsoft Office suites and Microsoft Office Communications Server, because these technologies are maximized with a path to future enhancements.”

“Our solution helps companies like Del Monte automate workflow and add compliance and reporting capabilities so they can save time and be more productive,” adds Jeff Shuey, Global Alliance Director, SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc. “Del Monte really needed to streamline its processes and make things more efficient. The company had a manual, disjointed process that was slowing down the ability to get business done. Del Monte was a prime candidate for deployment of our K2.net workflow solution.”

Given the importance of the project, it was imperative that Del Monte deploy a working solution immediately. However, the company also needed to be able to migrate to updated versions of Microsoft and SourceCode products without disrupting operations. Del Monte was able to implement a solution while looking toward the upcoming version of K2.net and the 2007 Microsoft Office release.

“Del Monte wanted to extend its existing Microsoft suite of products and use tools like SharePoint Portal Server 2003,” says Shuey. “By linking K2.net with tools that were already in place, we were able to help Del Monte receive value on its existing investments in Microsoft technology. We helped Del Monte take its SharePoint sites, for example, and add a standardized process to them so employees could have a solution with enhanced business process management capabilities.”

Benefits

Since deploying the K2.net solution from SourceCode, Del Monte Foods has been able to optimize, standardize, and automate its CAR business processes, increasing efficiency and productivity. The solution has also provided an auditable, searchable data record that has increased overall security in the company’s CAR processes while improving overall efficiency. In addition, Del Monte has gained the ability to provide real-time reporting on the status of each step in the process.

Optimized, Automated Processes

Del Monte now has an optimized, automated portal-based CAR process that uses standardized business forms based on K2.net workflow processes. These forms are the same for all of the company’s business units. “All the required capital funds information is now submitted in the same way on the forms electronically,” says Wynn. “In creating that, we were able to reuse processes without having to use individual workflows for every single factory or business unit in the company. All business units initiate CAR forms through their own team’s SharePoint site using K2.net underneath and the Microsoft products on top.”

Specifically, users now only have to click on a link embedded in an e-mail message. The link takes them to a site powered by InfoPath 2003. Once at the site, users quickly read a CAR form, approve or reject it, and click a ‘submit’ button. “We used InfoPath to give us better manageability,” says Wynn. “In the past, if I wanted to make changes to electronic forms, I had to go find a developer to do it. But now, I can simply open a form, edit it within InfoPath and republish it to the SharePoint site.”

Increased Efficiency, Productivity

The new Del Monte CAR process has eliminated the need to route paper forms within the company’s offices. Because the process is electronically based, the overall form approval process has become much more efficient. “We have gotten rid of our labor-intensive manual business processes,” says Wynn. “We’re a much more efficient enterprise as a result.”

For example, document tracking was previously a major challenge for the company. “The issue was always recovering files and forms that had been lost,” says Wynn. “But by deploying a fully scalable architecture based on SharePoint Portal Server, we now have an electronic repository with excellent archiving capabilities. Now I can go back and open up capital appropriations that have been completed and I can look at their history.”

As a result, Del Monte employees have become more productive. “We now only use one form, and we have a process that is unified across all our business units,” says Wynn. “Nobody has to go look in vain for that form, or spend time and effort trying to find out who has it or who needs to sign it. Instead, they can concentrate on their work, because the K2.net solution along with the Microsoft technology works to accomplish those tasks for them.”

In addition, K2.net has recently been enhanced to include a rewritten SQL Server 2005 engine that includes Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, Notification Services, and Reporting Services. The result is a better performing solution that empowers Del Monte employees to work faster and more productively.

Timesavings

Del Monte employees have also been able to save time because the automated K2.net workflow engine makes it possible for forms to reach their destinations immediately. The CAR approval process is much faster as a result. Wynn provides a recent example of the new timesavings. “We recently were able to route a CAR from our factory in Markesan, Wisconsin, to the Pittsburgh head office, then to the San Francisco headquarters, then back to Markesan in only one day,” he says. “We accomplished that in a much shorter time frame than normal. With the new K2.net solution, a business process that would usually require 10 to 12 days only takes 12 hours to complete.”

Better Security

Finally, the more secure routing environment provided by the new solution gives Del Monte a better method of auditing and tracking important financial information. Employees now input and submit forms within the new standardized submission method. “When forms were manually routed in the past, there was a lack of visibility,” says Wynn. “We now have a solution that has given us a way to review the auditing trail if necessary. Questions such as ‘who really signed this form?’ and ‘is this the most current data?’ are no longer asked. We solved that problem by deploying K2.net and using our core investment in Microsoft products.”

The solution’s overall security has also been improved, because Del Monte IT administrators simply use the Active Directory® service in Windows Server to securely update and manage employee information. “If someone leaves the company, I don’t have to redeploy this for them,” says Wynn. “I just need to go into Active Directory, and it automatically updates the information through K2.net. Then the new employee is ready to use the system.”

Future Growth

Del Monte is currently working closely with SourceCode and Microsoft to update the solution for future growth. For example, Del Monte is already using the next version of K2.net, code named K2.net “BlackPearl.” This version of the workflow solution has been designed to integrate with new Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office Share Point Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and the Windows Vista™ operating system. Del Monte plans to implement all three of these products. “That’s part of our ‘360-degree view’ business plan,” says Wynn. “Those technologies will really help move us forward in terms of increased manageability of business processes, and K2.net ‘BlackPearl’ is the perfect fit.”

In addition, K2.net “BlackPearl” was built using the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0. This technology helps the solution better operate some components and advanced graphics.

Wynn says that Del Monte is already using Office SharePoint Server 2007 for some of its business processes. “Because the new version of K2.net will be linked closely with SharePoint Server 2007, that will really help us take advantage of our existing Microsoft investment,” he says. Wynn has also identified five additional workflows that he is hoping to build using the next version of K2.net and the new Microsoft technologies. “It’s really exciting to have that opportunity to work on the next generation of this solution,” he says.

Wynn adds that Del Monte will continue to work with SourceCode and Microsoft on future projects. “We’re aggressively pursuing technology and technology partnerships to help us further streamline our business processes,” he says.

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc. products and services, call (877) 822-5552 or visit the Web site at:
www.k2.net
 
For more information about Del Monte Foods products and services, call (415) 247-3000 or visit the Web site at:
www.delmonte.com

Microsoft .NET

Microsoft .NET is software that connects people, information, systems, and devices through the use of Web services. Web services are a combination of protocols that enable computers to work together by exchanging messages. Web services are based on the standard protocols of XML, SOAP, and WSDL, which allow them to interoperate across platforms and pro¬gramming languages.

.NET is integrated across Microsoft products and services, providing the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, secure solutions with Web services. These solutions provide agile business integration and the promise of information anytime, anywhere, on any device.

For more information about Microsoft .NET and Web services, please visit these Web sites:
www.microsoft.com/net
msdn.microsoft.com/webservices 

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published January 2007