Case Study: Microsoft SharePoint Product Line Communication Site Development

Springhouse specialists augment a manufacturing client's SharePoint site administrators to help them develop product line communication sites that reduce manufacturing disruptions and improve transparency between shifts.

February 17, 2021

Client Overview

Our client* operates more than 120 manufacturing product lines located in six facilities. Over its three decades, the privately held company grew to more than 4,000 employees located in four US states and Canada. Our client is a diversified family of companies manufacturing consumer products serving institutional and retail markets throughout the world.

Springhouse Deliverables

A SharePoint specialist from Springhouse augments the client's staff full time. Providing dedicated support organizes the efforts, and the specialist assigns client resources to the tasks required to migrate the pre-existing on-premise SharePoint sites to the cloud. The first step was to collaborate with the client to develop "Line Communication Sites" using Microsoft SharePoint Online.

Each of the client's manufacturing product teams uses a line communication site to facilitate discussions between the shifts and between operators and management. The operators document operating parameters observed during their shift, log any operational issues that occurred and how they addressed those issues, and can flag serious issues so the site sends notifications using a Power Automate flow to the responsible parties for investigation and resolution.

In addition to the line communication sites, the client uses SharePoint Online sites for several other manufacturing-related functions:

• The "Process Deviation Site" reports process deviations to the engineering department, accessible through each line communication site so operators can easily report deviations for evaluation.
• The "Process Auditing Site" uses two Power Apps canvas applications and associated Power Automate workflows so auditors can record the results of their daily process reviews and good manufacturing practice audits.

Results

From a financial perspective, Springhouse's assistance with moving the client's SharePoint sites to the cloud reduced its hardware costs and other capital expenses, and lessened the time and money associated with software updates. There have also been fewer manufacturing disruptions because of the streamlined and proactive communications between shifts.

*Springhouse respects client confidentiality.