Automated sales order processing for a global industrial manufacturer

A division of a US-listed diversified industrial manufacturer producing precision-engineered valves, fittings, and flow control products for aerospace, petrochemical, chemical, and power generation sectors.

Their Inside Sales team processed a high volume of customer purchase orders arriving in varied formats — each manually read, validated, and re-entered into the ERP — creating significant order processing drag and downstream error risk. 

• Customer orders arrived in multiple unstructured formats with no standardised intake process
• Inside Sales staff manually re-keyed all order data directly into the ERP system
• Customer part numbers frequently differed from internal catalogue — requiring manual cross-referencing
• No validation layer existed to catch errors before orders reached the ERP
• No audit trail to trace who processed which order or when changes were made

1. Intercepted orders before the ERP

Rather than modifying the ERP or changing how customers submitted orders, we built a validation and routing layer that intercepts incoming orders — cleaning and approving data before it reaches the system of record. 

2. Caught errors at intake

Errors in this process were typically discovered after fulfilment had started. We designed the alert engine to surface validation issues at intake — so Inside Sales resolves problems before a single line item reaches the ERP. 

3. Resolved part numbers at the source

Manual cross-referencing was a recurring bottleneck on every order. We built a centralised mapping library so customer-to-internal part number resolution happens automatically at intake, not manually per order. 

4. Delivered within the committed window

The engagement was scoped at 1.5–2 months. We used a hybrid agile approach — sprint-based development with structured milestone reviews — giving the Inside Sales team early visibility into working software before final sign-off. 

Document Intake & Routing

• Automated ingestion of customer order documents across multiple formats
• Customer-specific routing with permanent document archive and history
• Role-based access control with admin-configurable permissions per user 

Validation & Alert Engine

• Alert screen surfacing all validation errors before ERP release
• Line-item review, correction, rejection, or approval by Inside Sales
• Orders released to ERP only once fully validated 

Cross-Reference Engine

• Central mapping library for customer to internal part number resolution
• Default value configuration per customer for ERP-specific fields
• Full add, edit, and delete capability for mapping management 

Audit Trail

• Timestamped log of every order processing touchpoint
• Permanent document archive per customer with status tracking
• Session and user activity tracking for operational visibility 

The client's Inside Sales team moved from manually re-keying every order into the ERP to a validated, automated workflow — with errors caught at intake, part numbers resolved automatically, and a complete audit trail across every order touchpoint. Delivered within the 2-month committed timeline. 

Business Impact

• 60% reduction in order processing time post-deployment
• Zero ERP data entry errors recorded after go-live
• Full audit trail coverage across every order touchpoint
• Customer part number mismatches resolved automatically at intake
• Inside Sales capacity freed from manual re-entry for value-add work