As one of the world’s largest and most successful power supply company, Artesyn is a highly document-intensive company that has already incorporated PDF into its internal workflow, acknowledging the format’s superior annotation and security capabilities. At first, Artesyn used Adobe® Acrobat® for such purposes, but as business and user number grew, the company realized its pricing and rigid license disciplines could no longer cope with their rising demand. “We were using Acrobat at that time and I was in charge of finding a competent solution that all users could switch to,” recalls Nelson Lui, IT manager at Artesyn. “I did a thorough online survey and found a number of PDF solutions, and after meticulous comparisons the team agreed Gaaiho was our best choice.”

After years of satisfaction with the solution, a large-scale system upgrade prompted Artesyn to evaluate the latest version of Gaaiho PDF Suite. Seeing improvements on UI design and other core features, the company decided to centrally upgrade over 1000 copies for 6 sites across Hong Kong, Philippines and China, through Gaaiho’s corporate licensing program.

Since deployment, Artesyn relies on Gaaiho for daily operations, such as annotating circuit diagrams and signing documents for security. Among the many departments within the organization, there are 3 good examples that can demonstrate how Gaaiho helps to improve work efficiency. They are: R&D, Purchase/Sales, and Document Control.

• • Primary duty: design circuit diagrams
• • Features used: annotation, signature, file conversion

An industry leader in distributed power applications, Artesyn produces a wide range of advanced power products, such as AC-DC, DC-DC and voltage regulator modules. Tracing the products back to their origin, there is the R&D department that accentuates precision and collaboration. With Suite’s annotation tools and customizable Quick Access Toolbar, engineers are able to quickly create markups on circuit diagrams and add comments. What’s more, each markup contain important information that makes understanding intuitive, including comment author and the date the comment was made. “We annotate PDFs extensively and the customizable Quick Access Toolbar really helps us work faster,” says Sam Chen, an IT engineer. “Additionally, we also use watermarks to indicate the status of the document, so that the other teams can know what’s going on at first glance.”

After several rounds of editing and review, the head engineer will electronically sign the final draft and submit it for a layered review process. Upon approval, each inspector will sign the design sheet and pass on to the next layer, ensuring it meets the corporate standards. E-signing documents is fast and requires no paper, which is just what Artesyn needs.

• • Primary duties: process documents and review content
• • Features used: edit, create PDF, convert to other formats

The advantages to a manufacturing business enabling their staff to convert PDFs to editable file formats are fairly obvious. After all, human mistakes happen and the agents often need to correct them under time constraint. For instance, a Word-turned-PDF supply contract created by an external vendor would have to be arduously retyped by purchasing staff in the normal course of events. However, by converting the PDF back to a Word file it can be conveniently edited.

Beyond converting to other formats in batch, Gaaiho is also capable of creating PDF from printable files with exceptional speed. With over 200 active users across multiple locations, Artesyn generates approximately 2,000 new documents daily, including contracts, quotations, orders, CAD drawings and data sheets. “I regularly handle over 10 types of documents every day. Some need to be converted to PDF, some PDFs to other file formats, and many of them have to be modified before submitting,” says Anna Jiang, manager of purchasing department. “Gaaiho does the trick by making those works fast and easy. It delivers results exactly as expected.”

• • Primary duties: inspect and convert documents to PDF before archival
• • Features used: batch conversion and inspect document

Offering enhanced security, reliability and a smaller size, PDF is Artesyn’s standard format for archiving a variety of electronic documents. Once an internal document passes the layered review process, it is copied to the Document Control for inspection and archival. Each day, the team at Document Control receives a huge amount of “raw” documents from the other departments, and their job is to check the file for errors and inconsistencies in accordance with the company’s archival guidelines that include parameter, page numbering and hidden metadata. Finally, the approved files are converted to PDF and uploaded to the system. “By archiving our documents as PDF files, we benefit from the reliability the format has to offer,” says Karen Xu, a senior administration assistant at Document Control department. “Gaaiho’s ability to remove unnecessary information and convert files in batch also quicken the archival process, reducing our workload by a great deal.”

By investing in Gaaiho, Artesyn has not only reduced costs and improved workflow efficiency, but also saved significant time and effort thanks to Gaaiho’s ease of use. Conventionally, introducing software to a large number of users often needs a transition period in which IT department has to open training sessions and provide technical assistance. But with the Gaaiho UI, functionalities are logically categorized and accompanied with intuitive symbols, enabling the staff to use the software immediately upon arrival. “Gaaiho has the functions that we need when working with all sorts of documents. It resolves our budget concerns and has become an integral part of improving productivity,” says Lui.