Michelin signs on for Optika's eMedia

Michelin North America, a leading brand in tire products and travel services, will use Optika's new suite of web-based document image management, COLD and workflow technologies to streamline customer service and billing disputes.

Michelin's signing on to the eMedia suite is a natural evolution for the tire maker, a user of Optika's FilePower document management products. Trey Ivey, document imaging project manager at Michelin NA, says that the new eMedia suite will help the company "realize our long-term strategy of improved customer service and increased efficiency at lower costs" by improving communications with supply chain partners.

Involving the customers, suppliers and partners in solving business problems is a core function of the eMedia suite, according to Jeetu Patel, CTO and VP of research at Doculabs. Leveraging the framework of the Web and incorporating documents from various internal and external sources, "eMedia’s architecture will facilitate business-to-business commerce transactions across the Internet, within intranets and throughout extranets."

Will users of legacy document imaging technology see the benefits of upgrading to the eMedia product? Tom Reynolds, senior network engineer at GMAC Commercial Mortgage, believes so. "Optika eMedia is much more than just an imaging product," he said. "It will be an integral part of brokering our business transactions through the incorporation of EDI and electronic commerce." With eMedia, Reynolds plans "to manage all of our disparate types of information, including business documents, reports, faxes, EDI transactions and the discussion content."

The first phase of eMedia will be installed later this summer to gauge its impact on business processes, says Ivey. Future plans may include deployment in an extranet E-commerce transactions initiative. Optika CEO Mark Ruport thinks his company benefits more than just by selling its product. "Michelin's long-term experience with FilePower will help us gain a better perspective of the solution(s) eMedia provides businesses" beyond what traditional integrated imaging and document management could do.

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