Efficiency
- Staff hours spent managing shipments cut by about half, freeing that time for other work
- Clean shipment-invoice readiness cut from hours or days to about 20–30 minutes
Case study · Distribution & supply chain
Turning a manual shipment and invoice process into a governed AI platform
A distribution operator running a high-volume, multi-country vendor and warehouse network replaced an uncontrolled process of emailed PDF invoices, shared spreadsheets, and manually typed labels with a single governed platform — AI-assisted invoice extraction, daily SAP and compliance validation, automated lot labels, enforced approvals, and end-to-end audit history.
Staff hours spent managing shipments
Cut by about half
was fully manual effort
Clean shipment-invoice readiness
About 20 to 30 minutes
was Hours to days
Missing-data delays
Flagged proactively each day
was 5 to 7 days (up to 10)
Shipment records
Centralized record with audit history
was Shared, overwritten spreadsheets
Client identity withheld. Figures are drawn from the engagement and rounded to protect confidentiality.
Who they are
International distribution operator · global vendor and warehouse network
Handling roughly 450+ vendor invoices and 100+ outbound shipments per month across a multi-country network.
The situation
Data everywhere, control nowhere
The operator received vendor invoices as PDFs in a shared inbox, re-keyed them into shared spreadsheets that several people edited at once, and typed lot-number labels one at a time in a word processor. Staff manually looked up SAP product numbers and destination compliance codes across invoices carrying 50–80 line items — sometimes 200–300 — with no consolidated view of what was missing.
The stakes
An operations problem hiding a revenue problem
Missing SAP records or compliance codes commonly delayed shipments by 5–7 days, occasionally up to 10. There was no reliable audit trail, no formal approvals, and low trust in whether the spreadsheet data was even current. When sample and display products did not reach destinations on time, sellable inventory sometimes had to be used as samples — a direct revenue impact hidden inside what initially looked like an operations problem.
The approach
A governed platform, built with the Five Stars Method
Following the Five Stars Method, we mapped how the process actually ran, prioritized the highest-friction steps, and built a controlled pilot that centralized the full shipment lifecycle: AI-assisted extraction with vendor-specific and default models, structured review with low-confidence flagging, automatic lot-number generation, daily SAP and compliance validation with consolidated exception reporting, enforced approvals, and a complete audit history.
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Manual & fragmented
PDFs & formsShared spreadsheetsEmail chainsRe-keying
AI-assisted, human-reviewed
AI-assisted extractionLow-confidence flagsApprovals
Governed & measured
Audit historyFaster cycle timeClear ROI
Technology & integration
The solution was built as a cloud application using Azure Document Intelligence and custom AI extraction models — a vendor-specific model per major format plus a default model for new vendors — with original PDFs stored and linked to each record, role-based access, daily SAP data import, automated notifications, reporting dashboards, and user-level audit tracking.
Controls in the loop
Why the business could trust the output
The goal was never blind automation. Controls stayed inside the workflow so people remained accountable for business-critical decisions.
- User authentication and role-based access
- Review of AI-extracted invoice data before approval
- Low-confidence field flagging for manual verification
- SAP product and compliance-code validation
- Shipment intake and readiness confirmation
- Enforced approval process from intake to outbound
- Original document storage linked to each record
- End-to-end, user-level audit history
The results
Measured against the baseline, scored on the four outcomes
Cost
- Lot-number labels generated automatically instead of typed one at a time
- Lower risk of using sellable inventory as samples because shipments are ready on time
Auditability
- A centralized system of record with full audit history replaced shared, overwritten spreadsheets
- Original documents stored and linked to each record
Control
- Daily validation flags missing SAP or compliance data before it delays a shipment
- Enforced approvals from intake to outbound, with daily consolidated exception reports
- A scalable, governed foundation for additional vendors, destinations and regions
Why leaders care
What this means for a CEO, CIO, or COO
Less effort, faster throughput
Managing shipments now takes about half the staff hours it used to and each one completes far faster, so the team can put that time into other parts of the operation.
Control replaces guesswork
Enforced approvals, audit history, and a single system of record replaced overwritten spreadsheets and untraceable email handoffs.
Problems surface before they ship
Daily validation flags missing product and compliance data early, instead of discovering blockers when it is time to ship.
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