Procurement Ordered 200 Units. 140 Were Already Sitting in a Warehouse 12 km Away.

No visibility between procurement and inventory. A duplicate order cost $18,000 because stock allocated to a paused project was invisible to the buyer.

Head of ProcurementSupply Chain DirectorVP Operations

Last updated

Business Problem

A project manager submitted a purchase order for 200 units of cable tray at $90 per unit. Procurement processed it. The order shipped. Two weeks later, the warehouse manager mentioned that 140 units of the same cable tray had been sitting in a warehouse 12 km from the project site, allocated to a project that had been paused three months earlier. The $18,000 duplicate order was discovered after delivery. This was not an isolated event: duplicate and over-orders were a monthly occurrence because procurement had no visibility into warehouse stock, and warehouse had no visibility into project allocation status.

Current Challenges

  • The same material existed under three different codes in the procurement system, entered by three different buyers in three different cycles. Stock queries returned partial results.
  • Vendor contracts were stored in shared drives as PDF files. A renewal was missed by 45 days, causing a 3-week supply gap on a project with a hard delivery deadline.
  • Warehouse audit discrepancies averaged 8% per quarter. Manual cycle counts took two days per warehouse and were accurate for approximately one week.
  • MRP forecasting did not exist. Reordering was triggered when someone noticed stock was low, not when project schedules predicted demand.

How the Platform Solves It

The centralized material master enforces classification, validation, and de-duplication: the same item can only exist under one code with version-controlled specifications. Multi-level Bills of Material (BoM) are tied to project packages with traceability to suppliers and pricing. Before a PO is issued, the buyer sees real-time stock across all warehouses including allocation status (available, allocated to active project, allocated to paused project). MRP forecasting uses project schedules and consumption history to predict demand before stock runs low. Vendor contract management tracks every contract through its lifecycle (created → negotiation → signed → expired) with milestone alerts for renewals. Warehouse inventory tracks stock levels, valuation, and expiry with automated reorder alerts and discrepancy detection.

Explore Business Functions (Supply Chain & Legal) →

Business Outcomes

  • The $18,000 duplicate order would have been prevented: the buyer now sees that 140 units are allocated to a paused project and available for reallocation
  • Material master de-duplication consolidated three codes into one per item, making stock queries return complete, reliable results
  • The 45-day missed vendor renewal is no longer possible, as contract lifecycle tracking triggers alerts at configurable milestones before expiry
  • Warehouse audit discrepancies dropped from 8% to under 2% with real-time inventory tracking replacing manual cycle counts

Solve this kind of problem, permanently.

Enterprise Singularity runs 12 of these workflows end-to-end on one platform. See the full platform, or start a conversation with our team.