What’s inside: connections to your systems · step-by-step flow
The question this file answersHow many purchase orders a day does someone read off a PDF and type into the ERP by hand?
Fits: mid-size manufacturers handling 50–500+ POs a day and the paperwork around them.
Typical, from the manufacturing playbook. A mid-size plant handles 50–500+ purchase orders a day — about 200 in the composite — by email and EDI. A clerk reads each, checks lines against catalogue and budget, types it into the ERP. It hurts when the admin vacancy stays open.
At the start of the shift the buyer’s screen shows the handful of orders that failed a check — a new supplier, a part not in the catalogue, a price that moved — with the order and the catalogue line side by side. The repeat orders from known suppliers are already in the ERP with confirmations drafted; the clerk who typed them is now the person who deals with the exceptions and the phone.
Typical, not a measured client result. Every figure here comes from the playbook source named below.
less manual PO handling — Deloitte (2022); new suppliers still get a buyer
Before: a clerk reads POs from email, EDI and fax and types them into the ERP. After: Deloitte (2022) puts the reduction in manual PO handling at 40–55% — exceptions and new suppliers still go to a buyer.
Deloitte “Procurement Analytics” (2022) reports 40–55% less manual handling with AI-assisted PO processing; APQC (2023) puts best-in-class procurement at 3–5× the median’s efficiency; the manufacturing playbook uses 40–60%. An industry range, not our measurement.
Nothing replaces your ERP — SAP S/4HANA, Dynamics, Infor or the one you run. This is the same intake build as our PO-and-certificate file, without the quality-certificate half:
Non-standard items. New supplier negotiations. Budget exceptions. Change orders that touch more than one line.
An out-of-date supplier catalogue turns ordinary orders into exceptions — the first weeks show how current yours really is. EDI works for the large partners; the long tail of small suppliers sends PDFs and faxes, and an unfamiliar layout is not read until it has been taught, and until then it goes to a buyer, not a guess. In the composite, about 12% of POs needed a person — non-standard items and new suppliers — and Deloitte’s 40–55% is about the rest.
The path: free 60-second estimate → free 20-minute review → paid audit of this one process (€1.5–3K, typically two weeks) → pilot with your people in the loop (€10–20K, weeks, not quarters). No transformation programme. Prices are public, on the services page →
Scoped in the audit — the playbook has no estimate for this exact desk.
That depends on your volumes and wage costs — this page will not invent the number. The free 60-second estimate runs that calculation from your answers, with every multiplier sourced.
Not a named Aperanda client. Process file · Manufacturing.
Short process file. Same build as its parent file; the playbook has no separate volume or benchmark for this desk.