Where the Value hides in Operations.
Orders in, paperwork out, two systems that never talk.
Hold these three questions in your head while you read.
- How often does this happen? Per day, per week, per month.
- How long does it take each time, including the interruptions around it?
- What did the last mistake in this process cost, in money, in rework, or in a customer's patience?
You answer them in your head. That is the whole exercise.
Orders arrive as PDF, as email text, as a photo of a handwritten note, and someone types each one into the system.
- Orders arriving as PDF and retyped
- Every customer orders in their own format
- Article numbers translated from their catalogue to yours
- Rush orders jumping the queue by phone
- A mistyped quantity discovered at the loading dock
How many orders a week does someone type in by hand?
The truck leaves, the paper comes back days later, and someone matches, scans, and files every sheet.
- Delivery notes and PODs filed by hand
- Signed papers returned crumpled from the cab
- A missing proof of delivery hunted weeks later for a dispute
- Invoicing waiting on paperwork from the road
- Archive boxes nobody wants to open
How long does it take to find one specific proof of delivery?
The two systems both need to know, so the same numbers get typed once here and once there.
- Two systems that need the same data entered twice
- A sticky note carrying data from one screen to another
- Stock levels that disagree between systems
- The weekly correction of what drifted apart
- New staff taught which system to trust
How many fields get entered twice on a normal day?
The information exists, just not where the next person needs it, so a human carries it across.
- Status updates a human copies from one tool into another
- A morning round of calls to ask where things stand
- The planning board updated after the fact
- A customer promised a callback that requires three internal asks
- Screenshots pasted into chat as reporting
How many times a day does someone relay a status by hand?
The delay was visible days earlier, in a mailbox, on a list, but you heard it first from the customer.
- The bottleneck everyone felt but nobody measured
- A supplier slipping gradually, noticed suddenly
- Overtime as the default answer to peaks
- Recurring failures treated as one-offs
- The season everyone knows is coming, planned late
What did the last surprise delay cost you?
If one of these hit a nerve, that’s your process. Bring it to the call and we’ll tell you within 30 minutes whether it’s worth pursuing, and what it would have to deliver to be worth it.
Find out if it’s worth it