One record everything hangs off
01A single list of the work, with every field your business actually uses on it. Filter on all of them at once, sort on any column, and export the result, because somebody will always want it in a spreadsheet.
All work
A real build
Eleven spreadsheets, a clipboard and a 6am email. Now one system.
Contract Services Group sort, inspect and rework parts for manufacturers across two states, then have to prove every unit of it with data. The work was excellent. The system holding the evidence was spreadsheets, paper forms and an email chain that somebody rebuilt by hand every morning.
The screens below are the real system, with their customers and part numbers swapped for invented ones. That part stays theirs.
- Client
- Contract Services Group
- Industry
- Quality containment and manufacturing services
- Sites
- Two states, one system
- Replaced
- Spreadsheets, paper forms, an email chain
- Built
- In slices, something usable every fortnight
- Status
- Live in production, still growing
What was actually wrong
Nothing was broken in an obvious way. The work got done, customers got their reports, nobody was in crisis. All of it just depended on people remembering to move information between places by hand.
Numbers were written on paper and retyped later, occasionally twice, occasionally differently. Approval was whatever the last message in the email thread said. And every morning somebody rebuilt the customer reports by hand.
A business whose product is proof was carrying that proof in files nobody could audit.
Packaged software for this industry exists. None of it knew what their words meant, and reshaping the company to fit a vendor's vocabulary would have cost more than building the right thing. That is the usual finding, and it is usually the reason a company ends up talking to us.
Before
Your operation runs on twelve things that don't talk.
Spreadsheets with four versions. Approvals living in email threads. Numbers on a whiteboard that gets erased. Everyone is busy, nobody is certain, and the customer asks for a report you have to rebuild by hand.
The build
We map it, then absorb it, one piece at a time.
We sit with the people doing the work and trace every handoff. Each paper form, each side-spreadsheet, each 'just text me' becomes a real screen with rules, permissions and a history behind it.
After
One system. One truth. Everyone in it.
The floor enters data where the work happens. Managers approve in a queue. Customers see their own portal. Reports send themselves before first shift. Nothing gets rebuilt by hand again.
Before
The build
After
containment_log_v7_FINAL(2).xlsx
spreadsheetedited by 4 people
RE: RE: FWD: is this approved?
email9 in thread
resend the Aptiv report
sticky note
who signed off on 2nd shift?
text message
Sort Data Sheet · paper
paperLine 4 · 2nd shift
whiteboard count
whiteboarderased Friday
missed call 6:04am
phone callcustomer asking for numbers
2019 archive, boxed
binder
daily_summary_COPY.xlsx
spreadsheetwhich one is current?
status still showing grey
emailunread · 2 days
one system · every department · live
Containment Log
Sort Data Entry
Approval Queue
Client Portal
Daily Reports
Time Clock
✓ one login✓ per role access✓ full audit history✓ reports send themselves
What we built
Six pieces. One database. One login.
Delivered worst problem first, so the team felt it early. Read it as a menu. Most companies need four or five, and it is rarely the same four.
Data entry built for the floor
02The screen where numbers go in, designed for the person holding a scanner in a loud room. Totals and percentages worked out rather than typed, and a bad entry caught at the keyboard instead of three days later in a customer report.
Nothing reaches a customer unchecked
03Work routes to whoever signs it off, who approves with their name and the time against it. Approved work moves on by itself. Rejected work goes back with the reason attached.
Reports that send themselves
04The daily or weekly report compiles per customer and goes out before anyone is in, including on quiet days, so silence is never mistaken for a missing report. Cutoff times and delivery status are visible and adjustable, not buried.
Logins for your customers
05Each customer gets their own view of their own work: their jobs, their numbers, their documents, and nothing belonging to anybody else. It turns a reporting obligation into something you can sell against.
Alerts where your team already is
06Thresholds, new work and approval requests land in the chat channel the team already has open, with the context and the buttons to act attached. Nobody has to learn a new place to look.
Not a mockup
A real system we built,
running right now.
This is the system we built for Contract Services Group. Every screen replaces something that used to be a spreadsheet, a paper form or an email thread. Click through it, it is interactive. Their customers and part numbers are swapped for invented ones. The screens are not.
your-company.com/portal
live
Dashboard
Containment operations across every project, both states, live.
2 sites, 1 system
Active Projects
0
Pending Review
0
Pending Approvals
0
Sorted Today
0
Total Units Sorted
0
Total Defects Caught
0
Overall Fallout
0
Fallout % · last 30 days
liveTop 5 most rejected parts
all projectsPN-4482-A
·
PN-1177-C
·
PN-9031-B
·
PN-9030-B
·
PN-6215-D
·
Daily sort volume
last 14 daysProjects by status
Active0
Awaiting data0
Closed this month0
Playing by itself. Click any screen to take over.·Everything you see is a screen we designed, built and still maintain.
Where it stands
2.19M
units tracked through one system
7,930
faults caught and traced back to a part
32
live projects visible on one screen
6:39am
customer reports out, before first shift
Your company has a version of this.
Tell us which part of it runs on a spreadsheet somebody is scared to touch. Twenty minutes, and you get a straight answer about whether software fixes it.