Seasonal growth was being constrained by the order desk.
A primary producer and wholesaler was managing peak demand through phone calls and free-form emails, with staff re-keying details into Pagemaker Pro and spreadsheets before preparing pick lists manually. Customers were not receiving order confirmations. Each new order added another handoff, another re-keying step and another chance for margin to disappear through delay, waste or a selection error.
ExIQ shaped the opportunity into a staged order-automation blueprint: capture customer intent once, validate it, connect it to the operational source of truth and turn it into a faster, clearer fulfilment flow.
Every order created another manual handoff.
The current-state review described five staff spending much of the day re-entering order details across Pagemaker Pro and spreadsheets, checking customer intent and assembling pick lists manually. Without customer order confirmations, changes or misunderstandings returned to the order desk as another call or email. During seasonal peaks, the warehouse still needed accurate product, quantity and delivery details.
In a perishable supply chain, the commercial cost is larger than administration. Slow confirmation can lose the sale. A mis-pick can become waste. Weak stock visibility can trigger urgent purchasing or leave demand unfilled.
One order flow, whichever channel the customer chose.
The AI automation layer would turn unstructured email and voice AI conversations into consistent order data. Rather than creating a smarter inbox, the design aimed to move validated information into the operating system and carry it through to confirmation, procurement and picking.
Human review remained part of the design. Low-confidence items, substitutions, unusual delivery instructions and commercial exceptions could be surfaced for staff instead of being silently guessed.
- 01 / Capture Email or voice
Receive natural-language orders around the customer's preferred channel.
- 02 / Structure Products and quantities
Translate free-form intent into consistent order fields and candidate SKUs.
- 03 / Validate Customer and delivery
Check critical details, availability and exceptions before commitment.
- 04 / Connect MRP or ERP record
Write approved data into the operational source of truth and procurement flow.
- 05 / Fulfil Confirm and pick
Issue a customer summary and create an image-rich, bar-coded pick list.
The model identified A$555K in potential annual impact.
The business case concentrated the opportunity into three commercial levers: redeploy repetitive administration, protect more product from waste and mis-picks, and move more efficiently from demand to packing. The model is directional, but it gives leadership a concrete value hypothesis to validate before implementation.
Modelled scenario across labour, waste and fulfilment improvement
Two of five administrative roles at A$70K each.
A 0.5% saving applied to the model's A$50M revenue assumption.
A 2% gross-margin improvement scenario requiring baseline validation.
Discovery could replace broad automation claims with verified order volumes, handling time, error rates, spoilage, margins and implementation cost. That turns A$555K from a persuasive hypothesis into a measurable investment case - or narrows the first release before unnecessary spend.
A focused planning sprint made the next investment decision concrete.
The proposed engagement was deliberately short. It combined on-site workflow evidence, technology research, interaction design and architecture into a Product Requirements Document and a costed path to implementation.
- Week 1 Discover the real workflow
Observe staff, map channels and systems, capture pain points and agree success measures.
- Week 2 Design the requirements
Define user journeys, system behaviour, integrations, controls and minimum viable scope.
- Week 3 Review with the operation
Test the draft PRD against practical exceptions, user needs and technical feasibility.
- Week 4 Decide the next release
Complete revisions, prioritise the roadmap and provide implementation costing.
Enough clarity to fund the right first release.
- A current-state process map grounded in real order and fulfilment work.
- Functional and non-functional requirements for email, voice and pick-list flows.
- User journeys, exception paths, acceptance criteria and rollout steps.
- An MRP/ERP review with source-of-truth and integration options.
- Security, privacy, performance and operational-control requirements.
- A prioritised implementation roadmap with cost and value assumptions exposed.
For an operator considering workflow automation for wholesale distribution, this sequence reduces the risk of automating a broken handoff or buying a platform before the operating requirements are understood.
Capture first. Connect the operation. Then optimise the network.
The blueprint separated immediate order-desk relief from the broader MRP and forecasting opportunity. That creates a more credible path for wholesale and distribution leaders: prove the workflow, measure the result and scale only when the data holds.
- Start Capture demand once
Structure email and voice orders, speed confirmations and reduce re-keying.
- Connect Create operational flow
Link approved orders to procurement, inventory records and visual pick lists.
- Optimise Use the new data
Improve seasonal planning, purchasing, service performance and margin visibility.
Could your order desk support more growth without more admin?
ExIQ can map the workflow, model the value and define a staged automation plan before you commit to a build.