CASE STUDY
Automated post PO procurement saves hours every day for automotive parts manufacturer
Dyer Engineering is a Group of fabrication and machining businesses manufacturing metal components and structures. They also provide maintenance, repair and overhaul support services to keep equipment, facilities and processes running. When their purchasing team needed to improve visibility of their orders, efficiently query inventory and ERP data, and resolve cross-department bottlenecks, they turned to Kavida.
Industry
Automotive
Manufacturer size
51 - 200
Location
Co Durham, United Kingdom
Website
The Challenges
Dyer Engineering has a purchasing team of 10 members managing 100+ active suppliers with 100+ active orders. Their ERP-based workflow left a massive gap in their post PO management process. Manual methods like spreadsheets and emails were used to manage 100s of suppliers and their active orders, which had glaring and costly operational inefficiencies.
- Manual Order Confirmation & Supplier Follow-Up
After placing purchase orders, Dyer’s purchasing team manually followed up with suppliers to receive order confirmations and status updates. This involved extensive back-and-forth communication, taking up to 70% of an average workday. Relying on memory to follow up with X suppliers left a high risk of missed order confirmations and delays. Updates were tracked on spreadsheets, prone to error and offering little visibility, leaving little room for strategic activities like building supplier relationships and cost-saving initiatives.
- Manually Tracking PO Revisions
40% of POs are changed after being raised in their ERP. Dyer’s purchasing team had to manually track these PO revisions using spreadsheets and emails. Changes would slip through the cracks, leading to inaccurate order information. - Delayed Documents
Receiving documents on time required multiple follow-ups with suppliers and was a time-consuming task. Suppliers lacked routine, which resulted in necessary documents like material certificates, invoices, and delivery notes for POs being delayed.
“I’m very impressed. The main benefits I’m seeing is its notifying me of changes to dates and it will amend our Epicure ERP at the push of a button and also uploading of documents, its able to pick those up from the emails and push to Epic. That saves a lot time doing that sort of manual admin tasks”
Graham Hunter
Supply Chain Manager
“I’m very impressed. The main benefits I’m seeing is its notifying me of changes to dates and it will amend our Epicure ERP at the push of a button and also uploading of documents, its able to pick those up from the emails and push to Epic. That saves a lot time doing that sort of manual admin tasks”
Graham Hunter
Supply Chain Manager
Solution
Dyer needed a purchasing workflow solution that would free up their time spent manually confirming orders, coordinating with suppliers and to help them efficiently manage their purchase orders. That’s where Kavida stepped in.
- Automated Order Confirmations & Supplier Follow-Ups
Dyer’s post PO supplier follow-ups, including order confirmations and weekly supplier status updates, are automated with Agent PO’s automation workflows. Integration with their ERP system, EPICOR, enabled pulling and pushing of data without manual intervention to ensure that any confirmed changes are automatically updated and Dyer’s internal teams can rely on a single source of truth. - Automated Missing Document Requests
Kavida’s automated document management workflow requests all missing documents seven days before the ETA for all active orders. This helped build routine with Dyer’s suppliers to get documents in on time, creating stronger relationships between the purchasing team and suppliers. Received documents were then automatically uploaded to Epicor and Sharepoint. - Real-Time Alerts to Manage by Exception
Agent PO scans through 100s of emails each day on behalf of the purchasing teams to deliver real-time alerts for unacknowledged orders, PO revisions, missing documents, and end-of-day (EOD) reports. This enables Dyer’s purchasing team to manage by exceptions, using this visibility to focus their attention on orders that actually require their immediate attention.
Automated Post-PO Parts Procurement
Platform usage
- £X M in order value managed on the platform.
- Managed X order lines
- X automated communications and responses.
- Received X documents
- X Copilot queries.
Productivity
- X automated processes [Process A, Process B etc ]
- X procurement hours saved due to automation
Visibility
- X order lines with end-to-end visibility
- X order risk alerts
- X shipments tracked
Business value
- £X time value saved
- £X reduced cost of manufacturing downtime
- £X reduced cost of risk and delays
