Standalone .NET Application
Pharmaceuticals
Czech Republic, France
9 MMs
One of our clients turned to us to improve their process of delivering raw materials from the loading docks to the manufacturing plants.
Our goal was to streamline their operations with a sophisticated digital solution, powered by SharePoint for document management. Its chief advantage was to replace the tedious scheduling methods that involved email and phone communications with a convenient electronic form. Suppliers could now choose a time slot for arrival and unloading via the new inventory systems - this was much quicker and easier than getting in touch with the office to find out what time slots were free.
The process of creating this quick and easy scheduling solution took several steps.
First of all, we needed to incorporate a key feature: telling suppliers what time slots were available. To accomplish this goal, our Microsoft developers designed a web application that was connected to a shared calendar. (This shared calendar contained all the scheduling information.) Beyond simplifying the process of reserving delivery time slots for suppliers as mentioned above, our solution was just as helpful to the company's own personnel. This is because our solution was enabled to support SharePoint notifications, that automatically informed staff members about the details of each delivery. (These details include arrival time, the kinds of raw materials being delivered, and more.)
Our work on digitizing the supply chain process led to the development of a modern application with the following features:
Calendar with a time slot reservation system for loading docks in a large industrial warehouse
Access to the web application with credentials over the regular Internet (outside of the Intranet environment) for suppliers and warehouse workers
Scheduling based on the following factors - date, time, supplier, material (volume) and the amount of time needed for unloading
Merchandise parameters form - amount, supplier, owner
Reporting and statistics
Time slot utilization monitoring
Our SharePoint Team created a modern web application that significantly improved our client's delivery experience. The software's ability to assign a free time slot to suppliers - and to notify staff so that they can properly prepare for deliveries - has saved the company a lot of trouble. (Note: as previously explained, suppliers would use credentials to log in to the application via a public site outside of the Intranet environment.) Before our software was implemented, trucks would sometimes arrive at inopportune times when they couldn't be received and properly unloaded - this meant they would have to leave and try again at a later date. Such second attempts came with a negative consequence of additional costs. (The delay issue was further compounded by truck queues that arose when multiple suppliers tried to deliver at the same time.) After the customer began using our solution, they could expect their raw materials to arrive and be unloaded without any of these problems. Such smooth operation also came with a reduced administrative burden because the software handled all of the scheduling automatically. This was much more effective than trying to agree on a delivery time over lengthy email exchanges and repeated phone calls.