Automated Product Update
Initial Situation
Our clients coordinate 20 external branches that receive monthly lists of 250-500 products. These lists must be manually checked for updates, as they come from three different umbrella organizations. If there is uncertainty about the data's currency, the external branches contact the manufacturers directly and log their inquiries. Unanswered inquiries and manually updated lists are intensively researched at the central office. Every response received is carefully entered into the central system, which is a time-consuming process.
Goal
The goal is to make the process of product updating and management for decentralized locations more efficient through automation and digitalization. This includes reducing manual checks, simplifying communication with umbrella organizations and manufacturers, and optimizing the logging of inquiries and responses. By implementing a structured system, time savings should increase, errors should be minimized, and overall company productivity should be enhanced.
Implementation
In some sections of this process, manual assessments and decisions are inevitable. Therefore, the workflow was structured in a system with tabs. 'More complex' cases pass through multiple tabs from left to right, while others are immediately moved from the 'Entry' tab to 'Completed'.