01Business problem
Production orders lived in the ERP, stock in the warehouse system and nobody had a real-time view across the two. Checking an order status meant walking over or picking up the phone, and there was no secure reporting layer at all. The client asked for a narrow set of use cases only: no cloud, no mainstream BI suite, no broad analytics programme.
02Intervention
We took the narrow request seriously instead of arguing for a bigger one: a lightweight reporting layer on a self-hosted BI tool, running on their own servers, reading from the ERP and the warehouse system. Order status in real time, component and material stock levels and summary dashboards with filters for time, product line and customer.
03Role of data & AI
Mostly data: one governed reporting layer over two systems that had never been joined. On top of it we proposed a chat interface for plain-language questions about orders, to show what AI could add; the client parked it for now, and the foundation is ready when they are.
04Adoption
Operations and logistics, sales and the owners work from the same dashboards. The manual status checks between production and customer support disappeared, and production planning improved with the stock visibility.
05Measurable impact
Hours of manual checking gone, leaner coordination between production and customer support and better production planning.