IDEAS - Intelligent Dealer Electronic Archiving System

Features

Technician Productivity

Canon’s Intelligent Dealer Electronic Archiving System (IDEAS) with SAFE technology enables service technicians to prepare the often numerous OEM-required documents for each Repair Order (RO) digitally. That means there’s no need to print them and walk the entire RO document set to a service advisor. A paperless system eliminates the need to run around looking for documents. It also reduces the need for printers, ink and toner, scanners and shredders.

Mitigating Audit Risk

The IDEAS SAFE technology ensures that not only are documents captured and delivered directly to the archive server automatically, but prior to delivery, they are indexed and validated against the RO ensuring complete document sets. This workflow also provides more efficient search and retrieval of warranty documentation for claims processing and audits.

Cost Reduction

Printing
Let’s face it, with the amount of ink and paper you use and the cost of maintenance and support for your devices, printing can get expensive. In addition to lowering cost, minimizing your dealership’s frequency of printing has many advantages. They include waste reduction, ensuring customer and dealership-sensitive information remains secure, and environmental benefits.

Labor
Transitioning to a paperless business process can produce a very impressive ROI. Overall, IDEAS reduces labor costs incurred managing paper instead of repairing vehicles, scanning documents for archive filing and retrieving them, searching for missing documents, and responding to a warranty audit.

Destruction
Without paper files, you don’t have to absorb shredding expenses.

All in all, a paperless workflow that eliminates costs associated with paper handling and cuts labor costs is a win for OEMS, dealers, and customers.

Information Security

Because IDEAS is fully electronic, information travels securely throughout your organization. User access to IDEAS is managed by Active Directory, enabling administrators to delegate permissions to various users and limiting or enhancing what data they are allowed to access.

Because IDEAS can keep paper files from physically traveling around your location and potentially being left unattended, your customers’ information is more secure and dealership liability from identity theft can be reduced.

Compliance

External
By nature of the SAFE technology, you can rely on the integrity of your document archive to assist with manufacturer and government documentation requirements. In the event of litigation, it can help produce specific documents in a timely fashion.

Internal
IDEAS can help management monitor employee compliance with company policies and protocols and ensure that all service activity is documented and accounted for. In regards to dealer and auto group corporate leadership, IDEAS can help improve their confidence that their dealer operations are compliant with corporate, OEM and government regulations.

Document Storage

The ramifications of continuously storing documents can affect your bottom line in critical ways.

It is easy to quickly fill internal space to store documents. Most dealers rely on off-site providers to store their documents and that can be expensive. In the event that documents stored off-site are required for a manufacturer or warranty audit, fees for document retrieval can mount. With IDEAS, all documents are available immediately and on demand.

With IDEAS, you can convert space once dedicated to file storage into revenue generating activities such as showroom or service bay expansion, or retail space for selling aftermarket products and OEM accessories.

Customer Service

Happy customers tend to be loyal customers, so improving and sustaining a positive customer experience is critical. With IDEAS, you can increase customer turn by as much as 10 minutes per car. Also, because your service process is more efficient, you improve the chance of getting a vehicle in and out on the same day. As a result, you can reduce the need for loaner cars and cut down on customer frustration.

Real-Time Service Intelligence
With IDEAS, when customers call in to find out the status of their vehicle repair, you won’t have to put them on hold. An advisor refers to the service advisor’s screen in IDEAS to respond to the customer inquiry right away.

This is to make Misc appear on the page when needed.