Aether Solutions

A document workflow that no longer waits for a free desk.

A large Polish engineering and design company in the energy sector. We do not name the client; we describe the process and what changed in it.

Illustrative view of an automated document workflow in a company
EnergyDocument workflowDocument analysis
Client
Engineering and design company, anonymized
Sector
Energy
Scope
Document workflow and documentation search
Role
Audit, implementation, upkeep

The document travelled from desk to desk.

Project documentation, contracts and correspondence passed through several people before reaching the right one. Every stage meant retyping the same data into the next system and another day of waiting. Nobody knew whose desk a case was sitting on, so the status was established by phone.

In this project we started with an audit. We prepared a process map, counted the stages and named the bottlenecks. On that basis we decided what was worth automating and what only needed simplifying.

The same process, two versions.

Before

  • A document landed in a shared inbox and waited for whoever happened to have time.
  • The same data was keyed by hand into two systems.
  • The status of a case had to be established by phone.
  • Finding a clause in the documentation took hours.

After

  • The document is recognized and described the moment it arrives, with no queue for a free person.
  • Data moves on in a single pass, with no retyping.
  • The status is visible in one place, and a case that stalls reports itself.
  • A clause in the documentation comes back in seconds, with a reference to its source.

What the automation took over.

Decisions with material consequences stayed with the staff. Automation took over the repetitive stages, and the events needed to control the process are logged.

  1. Intake and recognition

    Mail and scans arrive at a single entry point. The document is recognized, described and attached to a case without a person in the loop.

  2. Data flow

    Data from the document moves into the company systems in a single pass, so the same information is never entered twice.

  3. Documentation search

    A question about a clause in a contract or a specification comes back with an answer and a reference to the exact place in the document, so it can be verified in a minute.

  4. Alerts and escalations

    A case that stalls longer than it should reports itself to the person responsible. Nobody keeps deadlines in their head.

What stayed after the rollout.

There are no figures here, because the return was calculated on real cases from this company and those numbers stay with the client. What stays is what is visible in the process itself.

  • Manual work in the document workflow came down to exceptions and review.
  • A case starts moving the moment it arrives, not when somebody has a free afternoon.
  • The important stages of the process are logged, which makes a case easier to control and to analyse.
  • The scope of automation can be extended in stages as the process and the team's needs change.

The scope of this project.

Process

analysed before the rollout

System

designed with upkeep in mind

We did not start from technology. First we described the process and counted its stages. Then automation took over the repetitive part of the work.
Aether Solutionsthe team running the project

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