Are you struggling with an order process that is slowing you down?

In manufacturing industries, efficient order management is essential. However, our experience tells us that many manufacturing companies struggle with an order process that does not work as it should, and in turn affects important key targets, such as profitability, sales and customer satisfaction.

Maybe you and your colleagues experience that:

• You spend a lot of time on repetitive tasks that do not create value
• Parts of the order management grind to a halt when key people are ill or away
• There are occasional errors in the order process that affect production
• You spend a lot of time correcting mistakes
• Orders remain pending for too long and are not processed on time
• Information looks different depending on where you look

Do you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions? If you do, there is a reason to review your order management.

You can read more about order management in our other articles: 4 steps to streamline your order management and 7 tips when choosing a new order system.

Risks with order handling that does not work properly

Of course, it takes effort to tackle a process that does not work and it also involves an element of risk-taking. What if you end up spending money and time on something that in the end does not improve the situation at all? Although it may feel relatively safe and secure to continue with the status quo, there are a lot of risks associated with not improving an order management that does not work.

Risk of not having time for all orders

‍If you receive a large number of orders during a short period of time, or if key people in the order process are absent, there is a risk that you will not have time to handle all orders that arrive quickly enough. In the long run, this can lead to lost business, damage to your reputation and lower sales.

Risk of errors and errors in manufacturing

‍If a lot of manual input work is required in the processing of orders, there is a great risk that human errors will appear from time to time. Mistakes in the order process can have major consequences for both you and your customers. A mistake that is not found in time can cause manufacturing errors. In a worst case scenario, this can lead to a customer not being able to deliver to their customer on time and thus losing business. Regardless of the consequences of a manufacturing error, you risk losing customers.

Incorrect decisions due to incomplete data

‍Sales data linked to incoming orders are often used to follow up on the business' results and make forecasts for future periods. With manual handling in the order process, there is a great risk that your data is not accurately updated in real-time.

If you have data in several different places, you may see different numbers depending on where you look, and it can be tricky and time-consuming to produce reliable reports. Incorrect data and inaccurate reports can lead to poorer decisions that can have major consequences on the business.

How to streamline your order processing

‍To streamline order management which has traditionally been handled manually, the main thing is that tasks need to be automated so that they are handled by a system instead of a human being. An automated process that applies AI minimizes many of the aforementioned risks and provides a more reliable order process.

An automated order management process can handle orders around the clock, even on holidays, and handles temporary work peaks without problems. Thanks to AI and machine learning, the system also becomes smarter with time, which means that the risk of errors decreases and that the time you need to spend on manually correcting errors drops at the same rate.

So how do you get started with automation? We recommend that you start from your existing systems: What solutions can you add to make them work even better?