Griffin Pipe adopts Dynaflow Workflow to automate their Purchasing Approval Process

Business Requirements

Griffin Pipe (GPP) manufactures ductile iron pressure pipe for potable water transmission and wastewater collection. GPP is committed to being the leader in service and quality. Headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois; GPP operates two manufacturing locations and several shipping locations which provide broad coverage to all markets throughout the United States. GPP is an independent operating division of Amsted Industries Inc., a family of companies consisting of approximately 10,000 employees worldwide serving the transportation, construction and general industrial markets.

GPP has experienced difficulties in efficiently processing purchase requisitions. As requisitions were printed on paper and handled manually, the requestor lacked tracking information about the status of their requisitions and Management had no real-time tracking of requisitions in the queue resulting in labor intensive ad-hoc searches. As well, repeatable requisitions, frequent at GPP, were not handled easily with this manual approach. Finally, the fact that the requisition forms were different at GPP locations only increased complexity and ultimately confusion. All of these obstacles resulted in a lengthy processing time for each requisition approval.

Solution

To improve this process, GPP selected the Dynaflow Workflow Solution, already used by organizations such as Fujitsu, Comcast and MDA for similar purposes. Dynaflow Workflow allowed GPP to completely automate the purchase requisitions approval process. Requisitions are not only monitored in real-time, they are dispatched electronically to the appropriate approvers, based on criteria such as amount, department, cost category, etc.

Pierre Beaulieu, President of Dynaflow, adds: “Not only has Griffin Pipe improved significantly all aspects of their Purchase Requisitioning Process, the organization is now equipped with a powerful workflow capability that can be applied in a flexible manner to all departments of their organization. This includes the automation of tedious HRM tasks, IT, shop & field service transactions and processes”.

Implementation

The implementation of Dynaflow Workflow at GPP was simplified by the fact that GPP already uses the Dynaflow Compliance Solution, part of the same Dynaflow Business Suite. Dynaflow Compliance provides corporate-wide Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) controls and is integrated with Dynaflow Workflow to automate internal controls testing and Segregation-of-Duties (SoD) conflict resolution.

Four different sites at GPP went live in a sequential phased-in approach.

“The definition of the approval routes, the configuration of the routing rules and the training of the end-users (all able to be done by non-IT personnel) took less time than anticipated. This was made possible because approval patterns and related user notifications can be defined, changed or implemented in production within only minutes”, states Mark Larson, Purchasing Manager, Griffin Pipe.

In addition, the web-based Dynaflow Workflow “User Worklist” interface was quickly and intuitively understood by end-users. As a result, the Go-live learning curve was minimal and the new standardized approval process was accepted enthousiastically by end-users.

Benefits

Vinod Upadhyay, Director Information Technology, Griffin Pipe, adds: “Within only a few months of our decision to implement Dynaflow Workflow, the following benefits have been observed in all Griffin Pipe sites”:

• Full visibility of all requisitions status and audit trails, both past and present;
• A fully automated, accurate, and real-time approval notification process;
• A standardized requisition process across all sites;
• A quick installation, configuration and training timeline;
• A group of end-users who enthusiastically backed the process changes;
• Consistent approval definitions linked to areas of responsibility and approval limits.