Initial Situation
A manufacturing multinational with five plants runs a wide range of different ordering systems in parallel, including vending machines, cafeteria ordering systems, and several vendor portals for third-party components. Each plant has grown organically over the years, which means each location operates its own approval logic and its own thresholds. The plant manager in Plant A approves orders from €500 onwards, while in Plant B the threshold sits at €1,000, and the remaining plants follow yet again different local rules.
Central control across this fragmented landscape is practically impossible. Spending is largely uncontrolled, with on average 15% of all orders bypassing the approval process entirely, a textbook example of maverick buying. The compliance exposure is significant: the external auditor explicitly criticised the lack of uniform approval processes during the last audit cycle. The operational consequences are equally heavy. Around 40% of orders require post-hoc approval, and another 20% contain cost assignment errors that need manual rework in Finance.
Your Solution with simple system
simple system centralises the configuration of approval workflows across every order channel and every plant via the External Order Systems and Marketplace modules. Genehmigungsprozesse are defined once and then applied consistently, regardless of whether the order originates from a vending machine, the cafeteria system, or a third-party vendor portal.
- All 10 external systems are registered centrally on the simple system platform.
- Central configuration and management of external systems: a single management interface defines uniform approval rules for all five plants.
- All plants: under €100 automatic, €100 to €500 plant manager, €500 to €2,000 plant management, above €2,000 executive management.
- Automatic escalation on rejection or threshold exceedance, fully traceable end-to-end.
- Delegation during absence prevents approval bottlenecks during holidays or business trips.
- Complete audit trail for every single order and every approval step, audit-ready by default.
- Real-time dashboard showing approval status and backlogs per system, plant, and cost centre.
Result
- 100% of orders run through uniform approval processes
- Maverick buying drops from 15% to 2%
- Rework rate drops from 40% to 5%
- Audit findings on approvals are eliminated
- Average approval time reduced from 2 to 3 days to 4 to 6 hours through automation
- Controllers focus on strategy and value-adding analysis instead of repetitive rework
Your Benefit
- Time savings: approval time reduced from 2 to 3 days to 4 to 6 hours, with rework dropping from 40% to 5% across all plants.
- Measurable EBIT impact of around +€800,000 per year: +€175,000 (rework reduction) + €325,000 (maverick buying reduction) + €300,000 (faster approval cycles).
