Order Processing from 25 Minutes to 3 Minutes

The challenge

Incoming orders via email, fax and phone were manually re-typed into the production system. During peak periods production came to a halt while the office team processed admin. Errors led to wrong production orders and delivery delays.

Our approach

Automated order intake that reads email orders, extracts the relevant data and automatically enters it into the production planning system. Non-standard orders are flagged for human review.

1. Phase 1

   Break down the 25 minutes

   We timed every step of an incoming order. The data entry itself took four minutes; the rest went into looking up customer agreements, checking stock and chasing lead times with production.

2. Phase 2

   Automate order entry

   Orders arrive by email and customer portal and are read and created in the ERP automatically, including the customer-specific pricing agreements that used to be looked up by hand.

3. Phase 3

   Link stock and lead time automatically

   On creation the system checks availability immediately and calculates a realistic delivery date from the production schedule. That ended the back-and-forth between sales and production.

4. Phase 4

   Make exceptions visible

   Orders with deviating specifications, unknown article numbers or credit risk appear in a separate list. Internal sales now handles only those cases instead of every order.

The results

• Order processing time from 25 minutes to 3 minutes per order
• Production errors from incorrect input: −85%
• Office capacity freed up equivalent to 2 FTE
• Delivery accuracy 95% (was 71%)

Frequently asked questions

What if customers send orders in different formats?

That is the rule, not the exception. The delivery pattern is configured once per customer: email attachment, portal or structured file. After that, processing is identical.

How do you prevent errors on customer-specific pricing?

Pricing agreements live as source data in the ERP and are applied automatically. Previously they were looked up manually, which was precisely the most common source of errors.

Is this worthwhile at lower order volumes?

Below roughly 20 orders a day the time saving matters less. The argument then becomes error reduction and faster lead times rather than pure cost saving.

How long did the rollout take?

A few weeks, with most of the time spent cleaning up article and customer data in the ERP.