An order book and stock system built around a factory’s workflow.
The factory was coordinating orders through a spreadsheet, group messages, a whiteboard and printed records. DevDep turned that existing flow into a custom ERP, delivered in two connected phases: the order book first, then purchasing, stock and job costing.
Project summary
- Client
- An anonymised sportswear manufacturer
- Work
- Custom ERP and internal operations software
- Delivered
- Order book, purchasing, stock control and job costing
- Design basis
- The factory’s existing workflow, terminology and hand-offs
About the evidence
The client remains anonymous, and interface captures, commercial data and point-in-time report figures are not published here. This account is limited to the delivered workflow, scope and system behaviour.
The information existed, but the records did not connect.
An order could begin by email, phone or PDF, move through production on a spreadsheet and whiteboard, then reach dispatch and accounts on paper. Each team could do its part, but a question crossing those hand-offs meant reconstructing the story by hand.
We worked through the existing order sheet with the people using it. Dispatch dates were often stored inside notes, while production stages appeared in the shorthand the team already knew. Those details showed what the new system had to understand.
Dates
Dispatch dates could be written inside notes, so they could not reliably be sorted or checked against a promise.
Stages
Production status used familiar abbreviations and varied spellings rather than one enforced vocabulary.
Hand-offs
Approvals, photographs, messages and signed paper records lived outside the order they belonged to.
Four decisions made the software fit the work.
The custom part was not a longer feature list. It was deciding where the software should adapt and where a record needed to become more exact.
Accept familiar shorthand, store one stage
A status fragment such as “cutt” maps to “Cutting”. The field stays quick for the team, while the saved stage becomes consistent enough to filter and report on.
Issue material against the order using it
Every material issue belongs to a specific job. Actual usage is compared with that job’s bill of materials or recipe, including its allowance, and the system flags an over-issue for review.
Make approval move the next person
When a test-print design is approved, the system posts the confirmation and order number in the company’s WhatsApp design group and tags the designer. The decision reaches the place where the next action already happens.
Keep receiving as gate, scale and store
The system records what arrived at the gate, what the scale measured and what the store accepted as separate hand-offs, with the responsible person and time attached to each step.
One job record, extended across two phases.
The order book established the shared record. Purchasing, stock and costing were then connected to that record rather than added as a separate system.
The order book
One record follows each job from confirmation through production and dispatch, while keeping the row-based view the office already understood.
- Structured dates and production stages inside the order record
- Files, photographs and conversation kept with the job
- WhatsApp approval notices that include the order number and tag the designer
- Customer email updates generated from order confirmations and date changes
- Workload, stage-time and delivery reporting from the same records
Purchasing, stock and job costing
The second phase connects material movement to the order consuming it, so stock, purchasing and job cost can be read against the same piece of work.
- Material issued against a specific order rather than only against general stock
- Actual usage compared with the bill of materials or recipe, with overuse flagged
- Purchase orders, receiving records and supplier history
- Stock counts and corrections that preserve movements made during the count
- Material and labour cost attached to the job
Access and changes stay attributable.
Roles control who can raise purchase orders and perform other restricted actions. Stock corrections are recorded as new movements rather than silently replacing earlier entries, and operational changes retain who made them and when.
Questions that once crossed several records now sit against the job.
These are operational capabilities from the delivered system. We do not claim hours saved, revenue created or other business impact that was not measured for publication.
Where is the order, and what is due next?
Structured dates and production stages make the live order book sortable, while the job keeps its files, approvals and conversation in context.
Did the order use more material than planned?
Issues are recorded against the job and compared with its bill of materials or recipe. Usage above the expected quantity and allowance is flagged.
What did the job consume and cost?
Material movements and labour entries are attached to the same job record, so its material and labour cost can be reviewed together.
Where did a receiving difference appear?
The gate, scale and store entries remain separate and attributable, so the hand-off where quantities diverged can be examined.
This engagement began with the order book and extended into the store because both depend on the same job record. If your workflow also crosses spreadsheets, messages and paper, show us one real piece of work and we can discuss where software would help.
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