Technical parts manufacturer: from a business management system to a digitised shop floor

What came after launch

Months are counted from project kick-off. Each period also covers analysis and live testing on the client's side; the implementation itself took only part of it.

1. Months 2–3

   Historical search and stock clean-up

   Implementation itself: 2–3 weeks; rest of the period: analysing which stock cards could be removed, and the client checking the search on real orders, with gradual fine-tuning

   Full-text search over more than ten years of documents and stock movements, with one-click copy of an item back into POHODA. At the same time we removed stock cards with no movement and no stock.

   Benefit: Stock records contain only active cards, yet the history remains available: for a repeat order the earlier item can be found and brought into POHODA without creating a new card by hand.

2. Months 2–3

   Automated payment reminders

   Implementation itself: about 2 weeks; rest of the period: agreeing the reminder rules and wording with the client, waiting for access to the client's mail domain, and checking the first runs

   Four-level reminders go out automatically at set intervals after the due date, together with a statement of unpaid documents. Management also receives a weekly receivables overview.

   Benefit: Chasing payments no longer depends on someone in the office remembering to do it, and preparing and sending reminders by hand is gone. Management gets a regular view of debtors without having to compile it.

3. Months 5–8

   New stock coding

   Implementation itself: 1–2 weeks; rest of the period: designing the code scheme with the client, the client's own manual recoding of cards, and aligning stock accounting with the external accountant

   Automatic typed codes (material, product, goods, service) for thousands of stock cards, keeping the original code and filling the new code in on document lines. Stock accounting was set to method A in agreement with the external accountant.

   Benefit: Until then the company had been recoding cards by hand; the remaining cards were renumbered automatically, so that work disappeared entirely. The code shows the stock type at a glance, and new cards are numbered automatically.

4. Months 5–7

   Production portal

   Implementation itself: about 4 weeks; rest of the period: gradual roll-out to the operators, collecting feedback from live production and fine-tuning based on it

   Each operator sees their production jobs, drawings and the material needed, and records quantity produced, time worked and actual material consumption. Finishing a job creates the production documents in POHODA automatically, and the “Report a problem” button alerts the person responsible.

   Benefit: Production documents no longer have to be created in POHODA by hand, and stock reflects actual material consumption. Operators have drawings electronically at the machine, and the person responsible learns about a shop-floor problem immediately.

5. Months 6–8

   Label printing

   Implementation itself: 2–3 weeks; rest of the period: connecting the label printers on the client's site, test printing in production and fine-tuning label size and layout

   Product, SKU, raw-material and offcut labels are printed from the intranet on label printers, including directly from a production job.

   Benefit: Labels carry data taken from POHODA, so handwriting them, and the code errors that come with it, is gone. Labelled offcuts are easier to find in the warehouse and reuse.

6. Months 6–8

   Dispatch with two carriers

   Implementation itself: about 3 weeks; rest of the period: waiting for carrier API access, testing on real shipments and fine-tuning document and label printing

   Parcels, pallets and shipping labels are created straight from issued invoices, pickups are ordered by API with one of the carriers, and invoices, delivery notes and handover protocols are printed from the dispatch desk. Delivery status is tracked automatically for each invoice.

   Benefit: Shipment details are taken from the invoice and do not need retyping into carriers' applications; everything needed for dispatch is prepared in one place. When a customer asks where their shipment is, the answer is right on the invoice without checking with the carrier.

7. Month 7

   Offer → order → production

   Implementation itself: 2–3 weeks; rest of the period: verification on real offers and orders in the client's live operation, and fine-tuning based on error reports

   Once a salesperson marks an offer as confirmed, an automated job creates within a minute any missing stock cards, received orders split by delivery date, and production requests.

   Benefit: Retyping a confirmed offer into orders and production requests, and creating new cards by hand, is gone. Production sees the order as soon as it is confirmed, and the job reports any errors by e‑mail itself.

8. Months 7–8

   Management reporting

   Implementation itself: 1–2 weeks; rest of the period: analysing management's requirements, checking the figures against POHODA, and explaining and adjusting the dashboards based on feedback

   Orders, cash flow, sales, receivables and payables ageing and a customer map in one place, all with live data from POHODA.

   Benefit: Management has its financial and sales overview available at any time, without assembling spreadsheets from exports by hand, and decides on current figures.

9. Months 8–11

   Production planning

   Implementation itself: about 4 weeks; rest of the period: designing the solution with the client, testing in production, and gradually adding a new machine and shift settings as production needed them

   A capacity plan for each machine in 30-minute slots that respects working days, public holidays and each machine's shifts. The plan recalculates automatically after every change; the office edits it and the shop floor views it.

   Benefit: Completion dates can be promised to customers based on genuinely free machine capacity, and overload is visible in advance. Operators see the order of work directly in the intranet, and requests without an assigned machine do not get lost.

10. Months 8–9

    Goods receipt with locations, supplier confirmation import

    Implementation itself: about 2 weeks; rest of the period: verification on real deliveries and orders in the client's warehouse, with minor fine-tuning

    Goods are received against issued purchase orders, with a stock location assigned and labels printed; warehouse staff do not see prices. A key supplier's PDF order confirmation is converted into an issued order in POHODA automatically.

    Benefit: The POHODA receipt document is created while the delivery is being checked, and every material has a recorded location, so it can be found quickly in the warehouse. Retyping lines from supplier PDFs into POHODA is gone.

11. Month 12

    Customer pack labels

    Implementation itself: 3 days; rest of the period: checking the label format against the customer's requirements and a test print in the client's operation

    Labels for packs of 10, 50 or 100 pieces with an EAN‑13 code, the customer's item code and the lot taken from the order, in the format the customer requires.

    Benefit: The company meets the customer's labelling requirement without making labels by hand. The data, including the lot, comes straight from the order, so no transcription errors occur.