AMI Leasing: Internal Development Project Saves Time and Money

5/1/2003

Scenario
AMI Leasing, a full service fleet leasing company, was overburdened with multiple paper-based purchasing systems for vehicles, vehicle-related services, parts, third party repair services, and internal equipment and supplies. With unclear rules for approval and multiple forms, most purchase orders filtered up to Vice Presidents for signatures. The Accounts Payable department was manually matching invoices to Purchase Orders, with most invoices requiring re-work or additional confirmation due to discrepencies.

Company Profile
As a full-service leasing company, AMI (now a unit of Penske) leases and maintains heavy truck, light truck, and automotive fleets for commercial customers. By managing fleets from customized configuration and outfitting and preventative maintenance through emergency roadsize service and used vehicle disposition, AMI helps their customers lower the cost of operating fleets.

Benefits
Through Horizon's Information Services Product Management (ISPM) service, Horizon consultants helped AMI create a product definition for a comprehensive electronic purchase order (EPO) system. With agreement on functional requirements and high-level design from all departments, Horizon assisted in developing standard business rules for purchase order approvals and exceptions.

Working closely with project managers, Horizon provided oversight and immediate user feedback as the internal development team built the system. After coordinating the system implementation and user training, Horizon helped AMI benchmark the impact of the new EPO system. In addition to shorter approval cycles with fewer exceptions, the Accounts Payable department quickly eliminated its work backlog and eliminated 5 full-time temporary staff positions that had been in place for more than two years.

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