Leverage is used as a multiplying force to achieve more beyond physical limitations. In the digital world, software provides the ability to multiply influence, effort, and knowledge by using data and interconnectivity. With so much data generated and consumed by businesses, we live in a world of infinite leverage. The clearest example of this is automated tools. These tools can integrate data sources using ETL (Extract, Transfer and Load) pipelines to achieve a wide variety of solutions. These solutions are strategically valuable to businesses because they provide automatic, reliable, and integrated insights.
Spire can take advantage of these tools through its database or REST API. Our client, Ingersoll Products Inc., an established plastic injection moulding and co-packing manufacturing company located in Ingersoll, Ontario, approached us in need of a solution for monitoring real time inventory changes and receiving daily sales summaries. By using available data integration tools, we created two automated projects for Ingersoll Products to meet these needs and free up resources to focus on essential work.
The first project involved sending an email alert if an inventory item’s quantity fell below its Reorder Point. The Reorder Point in Spire is the amount required to be in stock for an item. The alert will scan the database throughout the day, using Back Ordered quantity, Committed quantity, On Order quantity, and the Reorder Point to calculate if any inventory items have low quantity and should be purchased or manufactured. The alert sends an email with the relevant details to the Production Coordinator and Purchaser. The email alert allows them to make adjustments immediately rather than logging on to Spire first and assessing the status of inventory items.
The other automated project entailed creating a sales report at the end of each day, emailed to all stakeholders, comprised of 4 summaries. The report compiles Invoices, open Sales Orders, Shipping Date, and Phases and presents the data as:
- Invoiced Sales in the Current Month,
- All Open Sales Orders,
- Orders Shipping this Month, and
- Open Orders by Phase.
The report is updated at the end of each day and emailed, allowing management to make decisions using up-to-date information without the need to request a report, open Spire, or even click a button.
Shelly Moffat, Ingersoll Product’s Controller, was impressed that “implementing the automated inventory alert and sales report resulted in significant time savings and easy access to important information because they run independently and use up-to-the-minute data from Spire. Receiving email alerts allows our people to work on tasks outside of Spire and be notified with critical updates without needing to check Spire throughout the day.”
Automated tools are reliable, accurate, and up to date. They provide real-time data in multiple forms and are not at risk of user error or adding to a user’s workload. These solutions can be customized to satisfy a large variety of needs. Businesses using Spire can take advantage of automated solutions to produce email alerts, reporting, updating excel files, Salesforce, Google sheets etc. Leveraging your Spire database with automated solutions can unlock productivity without adding to workloads, an exciting opportunity.
We hope this blog, Leveraging Spire Using Automated Solutions, has given you some insight as to how your company might benefit from automated reports. If you would like to discuss further, contact your team at Edge!