A service based client of ours had men on the field calling in orders for parts. Very frequently, wrong parts were being delivered by supplier. Without the right parts, men were not able to begin their work on the field, costing the company a lot of money!

We found several reasons for the inaccurate deliveries – one being errors in communicating part numbers over the phone. Another problem was that some parts were missing on the purchase order – either the foreman on the field forgot to add it to his list or the person taking the order forgot to order it from the supplier – there was no way to tell because the initial order was placed over the phone.

A simple and effective solution to these problems was to implement a mobile application that the men on the field could use to place their orders.  This not only improved the accuracy of parts delivered and reduced the time being wasted on the field but also significantly reduced the time spent on the phone by the purchasing department. Labor costs were reduced at multiple points in the process!