The Challenge

As a member-owned organization, Kern Schools has long recognized the need to identify new ways to increase efficiency and minimize risk for its shareholders. To ensure operational excellence, Kern Schools constantly conducts audits and solicits feedback on various processes and procedures. In 2005 Kern Schools' management identified the need to substantially overhaul their process for storing, protecting and retrieving critical financial documents.

During their audit, Kern Schools discovered a number of inefficiencies and risks related to the storage and retrieval of critical documents. These critical documents were stored at each branch office in the vault to protect them from damage. As a result, the cost of operating a facility was substantially increasing over time. In addition, employees were often wasting countless hours searching for documents resulting in customer service not commensurate with the Credit Union's commitment to excellence.

Kern Schools attempted to address this problem by creating an internal imaging department tasked with scanning documents into their document management system. It was quickly discovered that the sheer volume of existing documents -- coupled with the number of new documents created weekly -- overwhelmed their department. Kern Schools realized they needed the expertise of a document imaging specialist to effectively tackle the escalating problem they faced.

The Solution

Kern Schools went through a rigorous selection process that identified and compared solutions from a wide range of companies. At the end of that process, Stria was selected as Kern School's solution provider. The efficient process, competitive pricing and local presence were cited as key factors in the decision.

The first step in implementation was to tackle the approximately 1.5 million documents clogging vaults at each of the branch offices. Stria originally forecasted 120 days to complete phase one. However, through their highly refined process, SecurPaper, they were able to complete phase one a month ahead of schedule and ten percent under budget. Kern Schools' employees quickly realized the benefit of the decision to leverage Stria for document imaging; instant access to electronic versions of pertinent documents.

Based upon the success of the initial project, Kern Schools commissioned Stria with handling their on-going document imaging. Employees and members continue to see the positive impact that Stria provides. New documents are now available within hours instead of weeks.

The Results

Stria has proved to be a perfect fit for Kern School's way of doing business. Implementation of the new process has helped Kern Schools realize a wide range of benefits for its members and employees including:

• Increased employee productivity by reducing time spent on searching for documents from days to minutes
• Improved customer service experience that facilitates easy access to customer records
• State-of-the-art protection for members' financial data to ensure compliance with regulatory and disaster recovery policies
• A substantial increase in available vault space at existing branches and a decrease in capital project costs related to document storage for new branches
• Allowed management to substantially reduce operating expenditures related to internal document imaging

Stria is currently processing thousands of documents per week for Kern Schools.

Making Paper a By-Product of the Past

Stria is a leading provider of advanced digital imaging and document management solutions. SecurPaper, the process created by Stria, ensures the integrity of critical documents and converts them into a number of easy-to-share digital formats. Stria is compatible with a wide range of document management products and is a great way to reduce the complexities associated with managing physical documents.