A Fortune 100 Manufacturer Streamlines Procurement
Procurement pro turned Citizen Developer creates his own apps to eliminate bottlenecks, improve on-time payments, and increase working capital by $10M.
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Employees
- 100,000+
- Built by
- A procurement lead, not a developer
- Nearly 600Emails a week eliminated
- $8-10MEstimated working capital improvement
Requests that vanished into email
When Bill started with the company back in 2018, he faced many challenges overseeing procurement and operations, including lost information, employees working in silos, unanswered emails, blocked orders, and past due invoices that were affecting the company’s credit terms with suppliers.
The main problem was that many of these procurement processes were handled by email or word of mouth.
Particularly frustrating for Bill and his division’s team was invoice processing. A blocked invoice could take up to a week or more to get resolved with no one checking on it. These delays were common and caused the accrual of interest, which equated to lost money for the company. It also had the potential to cause outright credit holds which could limit the buying power of the team and even shut down supply lines.
“It was like a black hole effect of lost, unanswered, or ignored requests with no data.”
One app, built by the person who ran the process
Bill knew automation could make the process better and had a magic bullet up his sleeve from experience at his previous company. Bill had used TrackVia before and he knew how well it could work for his new team.
Win over the company
However, it took some time to convince the company to get on board.
Build a Request for Support app in days
By no means a software developer, Bill was able to create a “Request for Support” case management application in a matter of days with TrackVia. His app tracked each request to completion in a central location. It also provided valuable structure and visibility to the procurement process and promoted collaboration and efficiency across the integrated supply chain.
Open the front door to everyone
Anyone in the company could put in a request for support with a simple form. Automated instructions are supplied to the requester depending on the issue. All parts of the Request for Support process are tracked within Bill’s TrackVia app.
Assign work and keep requesters informed
Bill can now easily assign tasks to his team members, who are automatically notified of their assignment in their “My Tasks” tab in the app. They can also be notified by email if they choose. Requesters can see the status of their request through the entire life cycle and are notified by an email with resolution notes once the request is closed.
I told them I could do much more with less. I wound up being able to do the same amount of work with only eight people versus 13 and that became the driving factor for them to accept TrackVia.
Visibility that pays off in the monthly ROI review
Today, Bill’s team discusses ROI at their monthly operation meetings.
- 25%Reduction in credit holds since implementing the app
- 2-3%Monthly increase in on-time payments since implementation
- 300 to under 100Blocked invoices a week, before TrackVia and now
- 30% to 76%Purchase order acknowledgment, around 30% before and 76% today and climbing
Email replaced by one place for the data
With all the data in one place, people no longer have to spend valuable time sifting through emails to hunt down information.
Faster invoices and sharper pricing insight
The app has also helped increase his team’s market knowledge, insight on pricing data, and overall invoice processing speed.
Fewer supply issues
There has also been a significant reduction in supply issues.
Easier problem-solving
Having the procurement process housed in a centralized application has made it much easier to address blocked purchase orders, track price changes and inflation, determine source and vendor issues, and identify supply risk.
Better vendor terms and full control
Bill has been able to negotiate extended payment terms with many vendors and now has control over the entire procurement process.
Bill’s vision and work isn’t done. He has bold plans to introduce TrackVia and his applications to more divisions throughout the company. Although his application is only used by Bill’s team to manage procurement for his division, he has already started setting it up for other divisions in the company.
After vetting out several other solutions, TrackVia quickly seemed like a perfect solution for us… Our needs change almost weekly as regulations and the industry evolve, and we needed the flexibility to constantly tweak our platform in real time.
Projects that used to sit delayed for weeks now finish in days or even hours.
With Excel, we couldn’t see what employees were doing. With TrackVia it’s easy to track work and view what exactly has been completed. This resulted in an 80% time savings.
I wound up being able to do the same amount of work with only eight people versus 13 and that became the driving factor for them to accept TrackVia.
We are very pleased with the ease of use of the mobile application. We are thrilled to have instant visibility of the sterilization process and to be able to see immediately where issues are occurring. This enables us to focus on our number one priority, which is our patients and their loved ones.
TrackVia has truly changed the game on software development and deployment. We created and rolled out a mobile workflow app with limited resources in a very short period of time.
Their solution provided the flexibility we needed to meet unique project requirements while affording visibility and control.
TrackVia has improved the accuracy of our data. In the past it was a chore for our coordinators to document issues in real time. Now, they can just open the mobile app or website, check a few boxes and they are done.
The first application I built—it was simple—I think it took 10 minutes.
Become a success story
Increased productivity
Do more work with the same people.
Reduced cost
Less manual work, rework, duplicate entry, and administrative overhead.
Reduced risk
Better compliance, evidence, accountability, and auditability.
Improved performance
Faster cycle times, fewer delays, earlier intervention, and higher service levels.
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