Manufacturing

Case Study

The Challenge

Our client relied on a custom-made Excel workbook to price up schemes, based on the in-house design or customer-specific requirements, in order to create quotes. This workbook was designed by a former employee of the client who added multiple macros and formulas for it to function, making is exceedingly difficult to make changes. Our client needed a solution that would be more reliable and flexible as this was a business critical process.

The Desired Outcome

Our client needed a new system that would streamline their business operations by automating manual processes to increase efficiency and accuracy. Additionally, the system needed to include a check to ensure that no costs were missing from estimates, while also allowing for the addition of new product ranges and removal of redundant ones. The system also required a transport table to enable automatic transport cost estimation. Finally, the system needed to allow for multiple variations to accommodate the diverse needs of the business.

The Solution

It was clear that the best solution for this project was to create a web-based tool connected to an SQL database as the backend. This approach would consolidate all master data into a single location, providing a central source of truth for the business. Additionally, the system would incorporate multiple access levels to ensure that only authorized users had access to confidential information. Finally, the system would enable reporting based on the data held within it using PowerBI, providing valuable insights to help inform business decisions.

The Impact

By creating a web-based tool with an SQL database, Gradient's teams across the globe have realised the following benefits:

• Reliable - users can now manage data stored in a single source of truth without the need to switch between copies of spreadsheets.
• Consistency - users can create new quotes with a pre-built template, the look-and-feel of the client outputs are much more consistent.
• Flexibility - users can make changes to the master data of the tool (e.g. adding new product range), which are immediatelly reflected when creating a new quote.