A sequential process full of lag time
A Fortune 500 security logistics provider needed better supply chain management for its electronic cash management product, covering customer orders, installation scheduling, shipping, and inventory tracking. The company set three goals: consolidate all its data into one place, give internal and external users access to it, and let each of them see the real-time view relevant to their part of the process.
Before TrackVia, the company managed all of this in Excel. Every customer order needed its own spreadsheet with more than 60 data fields, which then had to be uploaded to a separate order tracker. Fields were often left incomplete, so a full-time employee spent every morning tracking down missing information and calling sales reps just to get orders ready before the midday handoff to the manufacturer.
That process only worked one team at a time. Sales, manufacturers, installers, and technicians all had to wait their turn for the information they needed to do their part. As one business analyst at the company put it, “Basically what we had was a static process that was full of lag time.”
How the company got started with TrackVia
The company started researching off-the-shelf software in November 2008, tried a TrackVia free trial, and had a customized, web-based platform running within weeks. The team’s first move was to consolidate every version of their order spreadsheets into a single database, then build filters so each stakeholder could see only the information relevant to them.
That first workflow changed the shape of the whole process overnight. Instead of one team finishing their part and passing a spreadsheet to the next, everyone could access the same live system at the same time. Required fields meant an order couldn’t move forward incomplete, which cut out the follow-up calls. Installations only got scheduled once the site survey and customer readiness were already confirmed.
Cutting cycle time in half
With centralized data in place, the company’s largest customer, who regularly asked for daily product status reports, went from a report that took hours of manual, error-prone work to one the team could generate in minutes. That report became a tool the customer relied on to run their own operations.
TrackVia now manages the company’s ordering, inventory, rush order identification, installation scheduling, returned material authorization, and maintenance, all in one place. The company cut its overall cycle time in half. More than 10,000 products and their associated customer data now live in a single, connected database.
For any construction, facilities, healthcare, gaming, or manufacturing operation moving a product or piece of equipment from order to install to maintenance, that’s the shift this points to. Replace the relay of spreadsheets with one system everyone can see at the same time, and the lag time that used to be built into the process simply goes away.
One connected system for every stakeholder, every site
Whether the work is construction, facilities, healthcare, gaming, or manufacturing, TrackVia gives you one connected system for real-time field operations, configurable across every site service function you run. New products, new customers, and new requirements will keep showing up. TrackVia combines a proven starting point for order, installation, and field service workflows with the adaptability to change as the work does.
See how TrackVia can help you replace the relay of spreadsheets with one connected system everyone can see, live.