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Automation for Inventory Reordering
Without a consistent procedure and a dedicated procurement manager, inventory reordering can be a tedious process that causes lots of cash flow issues. If mistakes are made on the order form, or worse, order forms are not turned in on time, popular items in stores become out of stock and purchasers are turned away to other suppliers and competitors to fulfill their needs.
A national fitness brand was experiencing this issue as their location managers were responsible for taking inventory and placing orders for items that were low on stock. This manual inventory reordering process was very fragmented, and orders were often being placed late and with inconsistent quantities directly resulting in lost sales. To solve for this, the fitness brand turned to OpenBots RPA to automate the process.
Using OpenBots Studio, the company was able to build a bot that centralized all purchasing orders from over 100 branches through a digital employee. Managers would send their inventory reports to the bot and from there the bot would collect the orders from a dedicated email address. The bot was then able to save the orders, read the inventory counts, and based on average item consumption select the correct quantity for each needed item and place the order for each branch.
This automated solution not only ensured that orders were placed consistently and on time, but it also saved over 2,000 hours/month as location managers across each branch were no longer responsible for placing orders, they only had to submit their inventory reports. The automation also saved the fitness company $50,000 a year as they eliminated the need to allocate a full-time resource to managing and submitting inventory orders.
