The OCR for Forms system let Simplicity redeploy the entire staff of the discard department that formerly opened boxes and counted patterns, and reduce processing staff from 28 to four, to usher in a new era of efficiency in internal operations. OCR for Forms automatically retrieves scanned characters and places them into an electronic, on-screen version of Simplicity's discard form. The software flags any form with missing fields or information requiring verification, such as incomplete fields, numbers printed in the wrong place or illegible hand-print. Staffers working at three correcting stations manually review any suspect forms, make corrections, and then, at day's end, forward all data to Simplicity's IBM mainframe. Average time to process a form was cut from 15 minutes to 45 seconds.
Aggregate data is available the very next day to create a product ticket for manufacturing.
This ticket helps determine materials and labor needed to print the quantities required for each pattern literally overnight after receiving a retailer's form. Automating the information capture process changed production scheduling efficiencies, and gave us data not available in the past for in-store inventory management. The company knows demand levels for specific patterns sooner, and can better schedule the production of product, including materials and staff to create them. In addition, Simplicity cut costs significantly, both from decreased labor required to input the data, and from tightened inventory management, by using OCR for Forms. Accuracy also became something we could monitor and control.