Document Automation Boosts Productivity, Saves Money, and Reduces Expenses,

1. Fireside Distributors Streamlines
Business Processes
Document Automation Boosts Productivity,
Saves Money, and Reduces Expenses
Case Study

2. Challenge Business Challenge: Minimize
Minimize costly, time-consuming manual processes Time-Consuming Manual Processes
related to invoicing, collections, and other customer For more than 40 years, Fireside Distributors has been a
service and supplier management communications. leading wholesale distributor of hearth and fireplace products
and accessories, as well as outdoor lifestyle products like
Solution grills and cooking islands. Fireside maintains its competitive
Fireside Distributors modernized and streamlined the way advantage through a rare combination of great people,
it communicates financial and order information, such as exceptional service, and advanced technology. Susan
invoices, aging reports, purchase orders, and quotations, Thornbrough, executive vice president of operations, explains:
through the use of Unisys Enterprise Output Manager. This “The hearth industry is fairly small and most distributors have
flexible output management and distribution tool allows access to the same manufacturers and products. So, we need
Fireside to automatically generate PDFs of key documents to offer more and better services to stay ahead. Our people
and deliver them to customers and suppliers via email— and customer service are the best around. And, we have
without having to make significant changes to its existing always relied on technology to give us an edge.”
core COBOL applications.
Since 1980, Fireside has powered its business operations with
a Unisys mainframe. And, the COBOL applications it deployed
Results in 1984 continue to serve the company well. “We had an
With Enterprise Output Manager, Fireside Distributors online, real-time system in the 1980s,” says Thornbrough.
eliminated the need to print, collate, and mail “Today, that system has been customized to fit our business
hardcopy invoices for more than 75% of its customer and keep pace with changes, such as the emergence of
base—reducing expenses, speeding cash collection, Internet retailers as a core part of our dealer base.”
and eliminating manual effort. In addition, the solution
supports on-demand conversion of financial and customer With an eye on controlling expenses, speeding cash collection,
service documents to PDF, which further streamlines and delivering responsive service, Fireside started emailing
daily invoices to a select group of dealers. The company
workflow in the company’s administrative functions.
modified its application to create text file versions of
invoices, which its staff manually attached to an email
Metrics to each recipient. “Some days we’d have more than 25
• Productivity: 40 hours per week saved across the invoices for a single dealer, which was cumbersome,” recalls
organization through process automation—time that Thornbrough. “I could see this approach wasn’t going to
can now be spent on higher-value work work in the long term. I wanted to be able to do everything by
• Costs: Significant cost savings by reducing the need for email in a PDF format that could be accepted by everyone.”
printed forms, stationery, postage, and labor associated
with preparing invoices for distribution via U.S. Mail
• Revenue: Faster cash collection by getting invoices to
dealers via email on a nightly basis “Fireside has always run a lean
operation. There’s no way we could do
what we do with the same number of
people without tools like Enterprise
Output Manager.”
Susan Thornbrough
Executive Vice President of Operations
Fireside Distributors
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3. Solution: Enterprise Output Manager
Thornbrough discussed her desire to streamline and automate
the invoice distribution process with Unisys technical
consultant, Larry Ramsey. “Unisys is more than just great
hardware, they have great people, too,” Thornbrough says.
“Because Larry has been a long-term partner, he understands
our business and I don’t have to spend time bringing him up
to speed and explaining how everything works.”
It was through this discussion that Thornbrough learned
about Unisys Enterprise Output Manager, a powerful output
management tool that is a standard component of the
ClearPath MCP integrated operating environment. “Once I
understood what Enterprise Output Manager could do and
looked at the cost justification to get it working with our
application, I approved the project,” says Thornbrough.
With the help of Ramsey and the programmer who maintains
its core COBOL applications, Fireside was ready to launch
the newly automated process in about a month. Enterprise
Output Manager processes the cumulative invoice output Profile: Fireside Distributors
to create one PDF per dealer containing all of that day’s
• Premier distributor of innovative heating products,
invoices. The software then emails the PDF directly to both
including fireplaces, gas logs, and enclosures, serving
the dealer and Fireside’s credit department.
a dealer network that stretches across all 48 states in
the continental United States
Since the initial implementation, Fireside has found many
more uses for Enterprise Output Manager. Staff in the • Founded in 1965
company’s credit department can now more efficiently
• Located in Raleigh, North Carolina
address collections by immediately sharing aging reports with
dealers via emailed PDF while they are on the phone, instead
of waiting for information to be faxed or mailed. In addition, Solution at a Glance
Fireside emails purchase order PDFs to most of its vendors, • Unisys Enterprise Output Manager
and can easily share backorder and shipment information • Unisys ClearPath Libra 400 server
with customers. “It’s amazing how much we can get done in
a very short time with Enterprise Output Manager,” observes • Unisys technical consulting services
Thornbrough. “It’s wonderful!”
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4. Results: Modernization Boosts The Relationship: Trust, Stability,
Productivity and Controls Expenses and Longevity
Through the use of Enterprise Output Manager, Fireside With a partnership that began more than 30 years ago,
Distributors has once again evolved and modernized Fireside Distributors and Unisys continue to work together
its investment in its ClearPath mainframe and COBOL to identify new ways to leverage technology for business
applications in response to business needs, and realized benefit. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Fireside, as a
significant benefits along the way, including: small company, would not be where we are without Unisys
hardware, software, and people,” says Thornbrough. “Our
• Reduced expenses
bank and accountant have often commented about the
• Faster cash collection efficiency of our operation, and much of that is due to the
• Improved staff efficiency Unisys technology we use.”
Not only does Enterprise Output Manager help Fireside
minimize the postage and printing costs related to mailing
hardcopy documents, it also speeds cash collection
because invoices get to dealers faster. And, professionally “There’s no doubt in my mind that
prepared and emailed documents signal that this relatively
small company is making a big effort to communicate with
Fireside, as a small company, would
dealers and suppliers in a modern, efficient manner. not be where we are without Unisys
In addition, Thornbrough estimates that the company hardware, software, and people.”
saves at least 40 hours per week through automation of
Susan Thornbrough
the invoicing process, as well as faster, more efficient
Executive Vice President of Operations
information sharing: “We’ve always run a lean operation, Fireside Distributors
and during the winter heating season we’re extremely busy.
Now, our people can do more important things than printing,
copying, and faxing. There’s no way we could do what we do
with the same number of people without tools like Enterprise
Output Manager.”
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