Manufacturing is not just about modern machines on the shop floor. It is also (and perhaps above all) about the flow of information between the sales department, the warehouse, the production manager, and accounting. What good are fast machines if an order gets stuck in the office for two days? Today we will show you how one of our clients — a medium-sized Polish manufacturer in the industrial sector — eliminated office chaos and increased efficiency thanks to the Web24 SmartFlow platform.
Many owners of manufacturing companies believe that automation applies only to large corporations or exclusively to assembly lines. Nothing could be further from the truth! The biggest losses of time and money are most often hidden in everyday office routines. See how we tackled this challenge.
Challenge: The "bottleneck" in customer service and production
The client, employing around 80 people and producing steel components, came to us with a typical problem: the company was growing, orders were increasing, but the team could no longer keep up with handling them.
Before implementing our system, the process looked like this:
- The sales rep received the order by email.
- They manually retyped the customer data and specifications into the company CRM system.
- Next, they had to create a document in Excel and send it by email to the production manager.
- The production manager printed the document and took it to the warehouse to check material availability.
- If materials were missing, another email was sent to the purchasing department.
The result? Before the order actually reached the production floor, an average of 2–3 days passed. Documents got lost in the email jungle, employees were frustrated by constantly retyping the same data, and customers were annoyed by the lack of updates on the status of their orders.
Solution: Web24 SmartFlow to the rescue
In line with our philosophy, we didn’t make the client change the systems their employees were used to. Instead, we implemented our integration platform, Web24 SmartFlow, which acts like an invisible conductor and connected mailboxes, the CRM system, warehouse spreadsheets, and the accounting program.
We designed and configured everything for the client without interrupting their company’s work for even an hour.
What does the process look like now, after automation?
Today the same process runs like a well-oiled machine, and most of the work happens "on its own":
- Blazing-fast start: When the sales rep marks an order as "Won" in the CRM, the Web24 SmartFlow system immediately and automatically generates a production order in PDF format.
- Instant communication: The PDF file, without human intervention, goes to the production manager’s messaging channel and to the warehouse system.
- Inventory control: The system itself checks in the spreadsheets whether there is enough raw material in stock. If not, it automatically sends a notification to the purchasing department with a list of shortages.
- Customer peace of mind: At the same time, the customer receives a polished, automatic email: "Thank you, your order number XYZ has just moved to production. The estimated completion time is...".
Implementation results — hard numbers
Thanks to automation with Web24, our client recorded spectacular results in the very first month after launching the system:
| Before automation | After implementing Web24 SmartFlow | |
| Time from order to production start | 2–3 days | 15 minutes |
| Time lost retyping data manually | ~12 hours per week per employee | 0 hours |
| Errors in orders | frequent | eliminated |
| Customer notifications | written manually (often delayed) | automatic, in real time |
The biggest benefit? The client was able to accept 30% more orders in a quarter without having to hire additional administrative staff. The team breathed a sigh of relief, and the company started earning more.
Do it in your company
Is your company also struggling with communication chaos, and are employees wasting time on paperwork? You don’t have to be an IT expert to change that. You know your business, we know technology.
Let’s talk about how we can speed up your production. Contact Web24.com.pl, and we will prepare a free process audit for you and show which of them we can automate right away!
