From 40 minutes to 4.

The situation

Orders arrived by email, fax and telephone. Three staff retyped them into the ERP by hand. At the autumn peak, orders backed up overnight.

The solution

Incoming orders are read, checked against the product master and written into the ERP as drafts. Unclear line items go to a review list instead of the bin.

Result

Three staff no longer retype anything. The review list takes twenty minutes in the morning; the rest runs by itself — autumn included.