Use Case: How DemandLine Saves Manufacturers Over $800K Annually
Discover how manufacturers can transform operations with Exostar’s DemandLine—reducing manual work, improving accuracy, and delivering major cost savings across order entry, planning, shipping, and customer service.
USE CASE: LABOR ELIMINATED
Slash Costs Across Teams withUp to $800K in Annual Savings
Companies using DemandLine realize direct labor savings in key departments like customer service, order entry, production planning, and shipping. By automating time-consuming manual tasks, teams gain back hours every day—and companies save between $100K and $800K annually per site.
Based on customer feedback and an average salary of $35,000 per person. Companies with multiple divisions can expect these savings per DemandLine installation.
A company using DemandLine will see direct labor savings in:
- Order Entry
- Customer Service
- Production Planning
- Shipping
Ranges (per year)
Per year, DemandLine saves a company site:
| Low | Average | High |
| $100,100.00 | $245,245.00 | $800,800.00 |
USE CASE: RELIABLE DATA
Turn Disorganized Customer Data into a Competitive Advantage
DemandLine automation improves a company’s processes by standardizing and stabilizing the handling of customer data. Customer data becomes:
- Timely
- Accurate
- Reliable
Business and production processes that rely on customer data see efficiency improvements as a result of DemandLine.
USE CASE: ORDER ENTRY
How DemandLine Replaces Hours of Manual Work
Alice works for AeroWidget. She is responsible for keeping customer orders up to date in AeroWidget’s order book.
Before DemandLine
On a regular schedule, Alice goes into a customer’s portal. This customer provides a download of their PO releases in a spreadsheet. Alice downloads the spreadsheet and opens
it up. She also opens a copy of the spreadsheet from the last time she was in the customer’s portal. With both copies open, she manually compares them and looks for changes the customer made. When she finds a change, she checks in her AeroWidget’s ERP software to make sure it wasn’t due to a shipment to the customer. If the change is real, she records the change in the ERP software’s order book. Other customers don’t provide downloads of their PO releases. For those customers, Alice has to create a spreadsheet by hand.
Due to the amount of manual work required, Alice can only update her employer’s order book once per week for each customer. This causes late deliveries and missed sales. In response, AeroWidget hires Bob, Carol, and Dan to also do order entry.
After DemandLine
Every morning at 3 AM, DemandLine downloads all customer PO releases and updates the order book in AeroWidget’s ERP software. DemandLine also generates a report showing any issues it encountered while updating.
Every day, Alice opens the report generated by DemandLine. For any issues, Alice uses the information in the report to go into AeroWidget’s ERP software and correct the issue. Usually this entails things like making sure a sales order has the correct status or that a customer’s part number is associated with the correct AeroWidget part numbers. Because the report contains issues specific to AeroWidget, it shows Alice the exact information she needs to correct it.
AeroWidget no longer needs Bob, Carol, and Dan to do order entry, so the company reassigns them to managing customer critical needs.
USE CASE: CUSTOMER SERVICE
Cut Response Times and Prove Delivery Changes Instantly
Emily works for AeroWidget. She is responsible for responding to customers on parts that are past due.
Before DemandLine
When a customer sends an email or calls for an update on a past due part, Emily opens AeroWidget’s ERP software and checks to see what they have in stock and in production. She also looks at the order book in the ERP software to confirm the due date the customer has told her. If the due date doesn’t match, Emily gets in touch with Alice in order entry to find out why. Emily also gets in touch with Frank in planning to see if he can prioritize one of the part’s work orders. Once she has that information together, she sends a response to the customer.
Often a customer will ask why their parts are past due. Based on what Alice and others have told her, Emily knows that the customer changes their PO due dates frequently. When she tells the customer that it is most likely due to changes they made, the customer requests proof. Emily often spends two or three days working with other AeroWidget employees to put together proof for the customer.
Because the customer makes changes so frequently, Emily can’t provide proof for every past due part. As a result, AeroWidget’s performance metrics suffer and the customer places orders with other companies.
After DemandLine
Every morning at 3 AM, DemandLine downloads all customer PO releases and updates the order book in AeroWidget’s ERP software. At the same time, DemandLine finds all of the changes that the customers made to their due dates and quantities. DemandLine generates several reports showing different views of the changes. Every day, Emily opens the DemandLine reports showing changes that customers made within each part’s lead time. Emily checks stock and production status for those parts and sends the reports to their respective customers to let them know that deliveries will be late due to the changes the customers made.
Because Emily is being proactive about future late deliveries, she receives fewer requests from customers for updates. For the requests she does receive about past due parts, she goes into DemandLine and looks at the history of changes that customers have made to those parts. She provides details to the customers along with information about their production status. Instead of taking days to put together proof for customers, Emily can provide proof within seconds.
USE CASE: PRODUCTION PLANNING
Smarter Scheduling Without Portal Logins
Frank works for AeroWidget. He is responsible for adjusting AeroWidget’s production schedule based on customer requirements and capacity. He is also responsible for providing commits to customers.
Before DemandLine
Customers want to know expected delivery dates for the next eight weeks. After reviewing and updating AeroWidget’s production schedule, Frank signs into a customer’s portal. For each PO release due in the next eight weeks, he reviews the current commit date and changes it if it doesn’t match the new production schedule.
Because Frank has to do this for hundreds of PO releases for many customers, he only has enough time to update commits once per week. This causes AeroWidget’s performance metrics to suffer. Often Emily in customer service will get in touch with Frank to ask if he can complete a work order earlier than the AeroWidget order book shows that its part is due. Frank checks the production schedule, adjusts the work order’s place in the schedule, and makes a note for why the work order does not align with the order book. AeroWidget’s ERP software has reports that show work orders that are not aligned with the order book and Frank needs to make sure no one else tries to move the work order again.
After DemandLine
Every morning at 3 AM, DemandLine downloads all customer PO releases and updates the order book in AeroWidget’s ERP software. As a result, Frank can trust the reports in the ERP software that show work orders that are not aligned with the order book. Every day, Frank reviews and updates AeroWidget’s production schedule based on the customer order book.
Every evening at 8 PM, DemandLine examines the stock and production schedules in AeroWidget’s ERP software. It uses that information to update the commits in the customers’ portals.
Frank no longer has to sign into customer portals at all He does all of his work in AeroWidget’s ERP software.
USE CASE: SHIPPING
Automate Pick Lists, Packing, and ASNs—From ERP to Portal
Gina works for AeroWidget. She is responsible for deciding what to ship to customers. Harold works for AeroWidget. He is responsible for picking and packing boxes.
Before DemandLine
Every day, Gina goes into a customer’s portal and uses the customer’s reports to determine what the customer will allow AeroWidget to ship. She does this because she can’t be sure when Alice in order entry last updated the customer’s orders in AeroWidget’s ERP software. Once she knows what the customer will allow AeroWidget to ship, Gina checks stock quantities in the ERP software. She puts the parts that are in stock on a pick list that she gives to Harold.
Gina has to go into a different portal for each customer AeroWidget ships to, which means she can usually only do one pick list per customer each day. Harold uses a pick list that Gina gave him to get parts out of inventory. He then packs boxes and creates packing lists in AeroWidget’s ERP software to record what’s in each box. Harold gathers the boxes for a single customer and signs into the customer’s portal. For each box, he goes through a multi-step process to create an advanced shipment notification (ASN) in the portal. Harold manually enters information from the AeroWidget packing list and prints out a barcode label that’s generated by the portal. He puts the barcode label on the box. Harold picks up the next box and repeats the process.
After DemandLine
Every morning at 3 AM, DemandLine downloads all customer PO releases and updates the order book in AeroWidget’s ERP software. As a result, Gina can trust the reports in AeroWidget’s ERP software that tell her what can ship. Those reports also include information about what AeroWidget has in stock. Gina doesn’t go into the customers’ portals at all.
Gina creates multiple pick lists throughout the day as work orders are finished and can be shipped. She gives those pick lists to Harold. Harold uses a pick list that Gina gave him to get parts out of inventory. He then packs boxes and creates packing lists in AeroWidget’s ERP software to record what’s in each box.
DemandLine sees the packing lists in the ERP software as soon as Harold creates them. DemandLine uses the information on the packing lists to create ASNs in the customers’ portals without requiring Harold to do anything. DemandLine automatically prints out the barcode labels for the ASNs and Harold places them on the boxes as they come out. Harold doesn’t go into the customers’ portals at all.