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. He has been in that role for more than a year, at the time of this case study. Providing dedicated support organizes the efforts. 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. They log any operational issues that occurred and how they addressed those issues. The operators can now flag serious issues, and the site will send out 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 Springhouse specialist provides dedicated support for these efforts.
- The “Process Deviation Site” reports process deviations to the engineering department. Access to this site is provided through each line communication site so that operators can easily report deviations to the engineers for evaluation.
- The “Process Auditing Site” uses two Power Apps canvas applications and associated Power Automate workflows. Auditors 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. Plus, the changes lessened the time and money associated with software updates.
Also, there have been fewer manufacturing disruptions because of the streamlined and proactive communications between shifts.
*Springhouse respects client confidentiality.
Microsoft SharePoint Communication Sites
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