I worked at Toyota for eighteen years. I started as a labourer in logistics and I finished as a senior specialist in the project team. In that time I saw plenty of processes running on spreadsheets and paper, and I replaced a few of them with an application. Here is how you can tell that you are at that point too.
The spreadsheet is not the enemy
Excel is an excellent tool and plenty of companies can run on it for years without trouble. I am not going to talk you into needing an application. Most of the time you do not.
The problem starts the moment several people work in the spreadsheet at once, the moment something gets printed from it that people then work to, and the moment a mistake in it costs money. That is where the question starts to make sense.
Five signs the spreadsheet has hit its limit
- There are several versions of the same spreadsheet and nobody knows exactly which one is the valid one.
- Somebody retypes data from one system into another. By hand, every day, over and over.
- When that person is off sick, the work stops. The process hangs on one person and their spreadsheet.
- Mistakes are found late. A typo in a cell only shows up at the customer.
- Nobody can say where things stand right now. The number has to be assembled from five files.
If one of those fits, leave it be. If three or more fit, it is worth doing the sums.
You do not need an application because it is modern. You need one when the manual work costs you more than building it does.
What I did at Toyota
My job was to make logistics more efficient in step with assembly. In production you cannot afford for the line to stop, so every change has to be thought through in advance and tested.
I programmed a web application there called TSM that replaced part of the manual work in logistics. Over time I put several more applications into operation.
None of it was about spectacular technology. It was about finding the place where time was being wasted and removing that place. I think the same way today when I build a custom application for a company.
How to do the sums yourself
Take an activity that is done by hand. How many minutes a day does it take? How often a month does a mistake happen with it, and what does that mistake cost? Multiply it by twelve months. If you end up with a number in the thousands of euros a year, a custom application pays for itself in a few years and after that it only saves. If you end up with a few hundred euros, leave it alone and buy yourself a decent spreadsheet instead.
I will do this calculation for you free of charge on our first call. If it comes out that it is not worth it, I will tell you.
What a custom application is and what it is not
It is a program built around exactly how your company works. Records, orders, planning, reports. It runs in a browser, so you install nothing and you can get to it from your phone too.
It is not an off-the-shelf system that you have to adapt to. That is the main difference, and also the reason it costs more than a monthly subscription to something in a box.