Hi,
I'm hoping someone might be able to help & offer some advice. Please bare with me as i've tried to explain this in detail.
Essentially, what i'm trying to do is find a solution to reduce some of our manual admin process' without compromising the existing system too much. My initial thoughts would be an access database which 3-4 users could access at the same time.
Background:
At work we have extremely manual based systems (customer cards, stock cards, quote cards etc) but we have our customer works orders set up as excel templates for each different customer or part. i.e:
Each time an order comes in our process is to:
Ideally what i would like to happen is that we still retain the excel workbooks idea, but that as we fill out the customer information, i.e address, PO#, Date, Product, Quantity etc this then updates a corresponding database for that particular customer. This would give us the ability to see everything that the customer orders as and when we complete the excel sheet. Gradually this would allow us to migrate away from our customer cards onto a database of some sort (assuming access would work best here). n.b. Since these are pre-made templates sometimes all we alter is the date, PO# the part details remain untouched as it's a repeat order.
Additionally we could also do this for quotations (currently we email quotes in the body of the email as text). This could give us a complete customer history on an electronic system. We could then run reports from customers to see what they have ordered in the last 12 months, or even search to find which customers have had specific products.
Obviously this isn't a simple solution and it's perhaps getting into the realms of a CRM or ERP system, which we have explored. However i have not explored the route of looking at excel and/or a database solution and i'm interested to get your thoughts on how feasible and robust this would be.
Bearing in mind we've used the mighty pen & paper for 37 years now. However it's frustratingly slow during busy times, and we have no data at our fingertips. But it is flexible which is important as often we have to un-book stock, or return materials, perhaps even adjust a customer order date or quantity.
Additionally we are constantly overwriting excel files as new orders come in so the only history we have are brief details on the customer card, or mountains of paperwork files of previous orders.
There has to be a faster, solution.
Any advice that you can give would be very much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
I'm hoping someone might be able to help & offer some advice. Please bare with me as i've tried to explain this in detail.
Essentially, what i'm trying to do is find a solution to reduce some of our manual admin process' without compromising the existing system too much. My initial thoughts would be an access database which 3-4 users could access at the same time.
Background:
At work we have extremely manual based systems (customer cards, stock cards, quote cards etc) but we have our customer works orders set up as excel templates for each different customer or part. i.e:
- Customer A) will have a different template for each part they have
- Customer B) will have a different template for each part they have
- And so on.
Each time an order comes in our process is to:
- Update and print the excel template for the relevant customer & part (this consists of 5 sheets in a workbook. 1) Sales Order-pink, 2) Sales order Copy-White, 3)Works order, 4) Reverse of works order, 5) Process sheet). We fill this out partly in excel and then print the workbook.
- Next we have to book out the stock/inventory by hand onto the reverse using our manual stock/inventory book. Once completed, this sales order is then ready for manufacturing and goes to processing.
- Once the above excel sheet is completed, we then have to update the customer card and then file all copies of paperwork away (Sales order-Pink, Sales order Copy-White) Works order, Reverse & Process sheet go to manufacturing)
- Additionally we have to then print bespoke labels, delivery notes etc for despatch when the part is ready - however lets not focus on this part.
Ideally what i would like to happen is that we still retain the excel workbooks idea, but that as we fill out the customer information, i.e address, PO#, Date, Product, Quantity etc this then updates a corresponding database for that particular customer. This would give us the ability to see everything that the customer orders as and when we complete the excel sheet. Gradually this would allow us to migrate away from our customer cards onto a database of some sort (assuming access would work best here). n.b. Since these are pre-made templates sometimes all we alter is the date, PO# the part details remain untouched as it's a repeat order.
Additionally we could also do this for quotations (currently we email quotes in the body of the email as text). This could give us a complete customer history on an electronic system. We could then run reports from customers to see what they have ordered in the last 12 months, or even search to find which customers have had specific products.
Obviously this isn't a simple solution and it's perhaps getting into the realms of a CRM or ERP system, which we have explored. However i have not explored the route of looking at excel and/or a database solution and i'm interested to get your thoughts on how feasible and robust this would be.
Bearing in mind we've used the mighty pen & paper for 37 years now. However it's frustratingly slow during busy times, and we have no data at our fingertips. But it is flexible which is important as often we have to un-book stock, or return materials, perhaps even adjust a customer order date or quantity.
Additionally we are constantly overwriting excel files as new orders come in so the only history we have are brief details on the customer card, or mountains of paperwork files of previous orders.
There has to be a faster, solution.
Any advice that you can give would be very much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
