Order Handling automated for Seafarma in the marine industry

Order Handling automated for Seafarma in the marine industry

Seafarma is a medical supply company located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The core business of Seafarma is supplying medicines, medical supplies, and other related products to ship chandlers, offshore, oil rigs, cruise ships and luxury yachts all over the world.

Because Seafarma built op a great name in their industry, they encountered a significant challenge due to an overwhelming influx of orders. Each accompanied by numerous product requests stored in PDF files.

This brings us to the following challenge:

Finding the right products and converting orders into internal systems

Having to deal with huge amounts of volume in orders means having a team of employees, skilled in pharmacy, that works around the clock. This team is purely focused on looking up the right products, creating orders and making sure a confirmation of their order and a freight note is returned to the customer.

Endless searches and precious hours sifting through orders in search of the right products, leading to inefficiency.

Recognizing the potential to enhance operational efficiency, Friso Janssen, Manager at Seafarma, went looking for a solution that could expedite this process. This led to the discovery of Mydatafactory and its specialized solution, Mydatamatcher, marking the commencement of a fruitful collaboration.

The Solution's Implementation and Testing

Incorporating Mydatamatcher into Seafarma’s workflow introduced an intelligent approach to match orders with the appropriate products. Because matching of medical supplies has different challenges than matching of MRO products, Seafarma and Mydatafactory adapted and fine-tuned the solution accordingly. Through small, but smart changes to the solution and the data results were getting better. With each iteration, the results improved, reflecting a substantial enhancement in the accuracy of product matches and overall process efficiency.

Another challenge is the fact that Mydatamatcher only used to work with Excel, CSV or other structured formats imports. For Seafarma this meant that first, they had to use a separate tool to convert PDF files to Excel. Even then, the business case was looking solid. Because Seafarma and Mydatafactory were looking for a solid long-term relationship Mydatafactory decided to build a PDF import in the Mydatamatcher. Automatically recognizing the different product lines and products ordered.

As the collaboration progressed, Seafarma began to experience tangible benefits. The time previously expended on manual research and order handling was now significantly reduced. The streamlined process not only saved valuable man-hours but also increased the speed at which customers received their order confirmations and products.

Further more, by using the solution for thousands of orders meant that many orders could now be fully automated. This through the previous matches functionality. When the same products are ordered the solution automatically recognizes and handles these products.

Friso Janssen – General Manager Seafarma:

“Integrating Mydatamatcher was smooth and rapid, thanks to active involvement of the Customer Success Management department of Mydatafactory. It required just a couple of weeks for adoption into our workflow. During a 2-months trial, we spotted incremental enhancements in product matching accuracy. We appreciated the solution’s adaptability as it addressed the specific nuances of our industry. In collaboration with Mydatafactory we extended the trial by 1 month to build a solid business case.’’

The results

In the first month of going fully operational 41% of the matches were automatically matched through previous matches.
Two full-time equivalent (FTE) hours were reclaimed and utilized more effectively.
Already over 165.000 product lines completed, with 95% a handled rate. Meaning: hardly anything left open.

Conclusion

Seafarma’s collaboration with Mydatafactory, and integration of Mydatamatcher, swiftly streamlined their order handling process in supplying medical supplies to the offshore and marine industry. Through adaptive small changes the intelligent solution successfully matches and cross references diverse orders to the right products. Through a trial the solution was up and running in no time and gave the opportunity to build a strong business case. The solution addresses the initial challenge, leading to efficiency gains, reduced manual efforts, and faster responses to customers.