Slash Inventory Investment by 20 % with Process-First RPA.
Industry: Metal Fabrication & Erection (Gulfbased, 4 fabrication yards, 1,200 MT/month capacity)
Engagement: Inventorydata overhaul → Smart coding + lean workflow + microRPA
1. Tangled Steel in the Yard
Yard Supervisor Omar can’t find the 12metre Hsections spec’d for tomorrow’s highrise job. ERP says 120 pieces in stock; reality shows 70—if he can match heat numbers to the right project code.
Inside, Cost Controller Leila recalculates job costs for the fifth time: bolts booked to FABRedA45 should have hit FABBlueC10. Miscoding has inflated Project Atlas by AED 3.2 m and hidden shortages on Project Falcon. Schedule slips, cranes sit idle, and cash is tied up in AED 68 m of “maybesomeday” inventory.
FieldObservation Note — Shadowing Exercise, 07 Oct
“We’re carrying 3,600-part codes for just 14 plate sizes. The welders keep asking which code is the real 12 mm plate.” — Leila, Cost Controller
2. The SOS to Procism
COO Mr Saleh calls at sunset:
“I need the right part on the right truck, costs that match reality, and zero overtime firedrills.”
We move into a prefab office, armed with tape measures and barcode guns. Five days in, the whiteboard tells all:
- 3,600 duplicate material codes for the same 14 plate sizes.
- 8 manual handoffs from goods receipt to job ledger.
- 21 % of stock orphaned—no project tag, no clear destiny.
3. Blueprint Reboot (Data & Discipline First)
No robots yet; just formula and flow:
- One PartNumber Standard. A 10digit “ThicknessWidthGrade” code replaces legacy nicknames.
- BOM Realignment. Every drawing’s billofmaterials autolinks to the new code—single source of truth.
- Kanban Lanes. Fabrication bays reorganised into “Pull” zones; supervisors only request what today’s schedule needs.
Inventory error rate drops 28 % in four weeks—without extra software.
4. Tooling Up (Targeted Tech & Bots)
With lean workflows in place, we deployed three bots:
Bot | Role | Daily Impact |
Torch | Scans QR labels at goodsin, assigns heat no. + project, posts to ERP | 240 receipts logged in 9 min |
Magnet | Reconciles issued parts against BOM; flags excess & shortages by 17:00 | Cuts midnight stock hunts by 85 % |
Boom | Autoapplies true landed cost (steel, transport, duty) to each part; updates live margin | Cost variance on projects shrinks from 11 % → 2 % |
Operations Stand-Up — 10 Oct
“Automation scripts now live alongside our real tools—always accurate, never needing calibration.”
5. SixMonth Scoreboard
Metric | Before | After | Delta |
“Ghost” inventory (no project tag) | AED 68 m | AED 29 m | 57 % |
Ontime steel availability | 63 % | 94 % | +31 pts |
Project cost variance | ±11 % | ±2 % | 9 pts |
WIP days | 36 | 22 | 39 % |
Emergency overtime hours | 480 hrs/mo | 90 hrs/mo | 81 % |
Four clerks redeployed to CNC programme optimisation instead of spreadsheet triage.
Monthly KPI Dashboard — 03 Mar
“Unassigned inventory fell from AED 68 m to AED 29 m, and ontime deliveries jumped to 94 %. Yard backlogs are gone.” — Mr Saleh, COO
6. ShopFloor Lessons
- Data is steel. A rocksolid part code beats fancy software every time.
- Microbots > megasystems. Three scripts stitched into the ERP yielded ROI in weeks.
- Visual truth calms chaos. Kanban lanes and redambergreen dashboards ended cranetime roulette.
- Land the landed cost. Realtime costing stopped margin leaks before they hit the ledger.
If inventory mountains are crushing your margins, let’s forge a leaner flow together.
