A recurring manual review
A supply-chain team manually reviewed hundreds of inbound purchase-order lines to determine which shipments could remain on ocean freight and which needed air freight to protect inventory availability.
Each decision required connecting purchase-order information with inventory forecasts and the team’s planning rules. Repeating that review across many lines consumed planner time and made consistency difficult to maintain.
Understanding how planners actually worked
I began by observing the existing manual process and mapping the decision logic with planners. The work included uncovering undocumented exceptions that only became apparent when the logic was tested against real planning situations.
I first built the automation in a spreadsheet workflow, verified the output line by line, and refined the rules alongside planners. I then developed a web application to make the workflow easier for the team to run and review.
Automating the transportation analysis
The system combines purchase-order data with inventory forecasts, applies the established business rules, and produces transportation recommendations. It flags missing or inconsistent information and routes exceptions for review.
Every recommendation includes an explanation, allowing a planner to trace the result back to the rule behind it. The workflow also generates an upload-ready file of transportation changes for the existing business system.
The impact on the weekly workflow
The resulting workflow screens more than 300 purchase-order lines per run and reclaims approximately 12.5 hours of planner review time each week. It automates the recurring analysis that the team had already been performing manually.
Planners retain review of exceptions and handle the input and output files. The automation makes the analysis repeatable and explainable, while keeping the team able to investigate the cases that need attention.