Global Manufacturer Quaker Houghton Enhances Customer Experience with Automated Workflow
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
Applicable Industries
- Equipment & Machinery
- Metals
Applicable Functions
- Human Resources
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Additive Manufacturing
- Personnel Tracking & Monitoring
Services
- Testing & Certification
About The Customer
Quaker Houghton is a global leader in industrial process fluids. Their business is to make other businesses run better by optimizing their processes, reducing their costs, and advancing their safety and sustainability around the fluids they use to make, roll, cut, or cast metals. The manufacturing processes for which its customers use Quaker Houghton’s fluids are precise and sophisticated. If anything’s just a bit off, it can show up on the customer’s shop floor in the form of chemical deposits on a machine, foam in a central system, or defects on steel or aluminum sheets. Quaker Houghton has nearly 20 labs around the world to conduct experiments and analyses to resolve these issues.
The Challenge
Quaker Houghton, a global leader in industrial process fluids, faced a challenge in their customer service process. Their sales and service personnel would send customer samples to their labs for analysis to resolve customer problems. However, they lacked an efficient method to determine which of their nearly 20 labs worldwide should receive the samples. The process was further complicated by the need for tracking, approving, and reporting on the work activities. The existing process was driven by email, which was notoriously uneven in efficiency. It also required additional time from lab managers to locate and organize data to fully understand the overall demand. Quaker Houghton needed a better, faster way to streamline this process to enhance the customer experience.
The Solution
Quaker Houghton adopted a solution using Nintex Forms and Nintex Workflow to automate the process of initiating lab requests. The solution, known as the 'online tool for non-routine service requests', allowed customer-facing sales and service personnel to access the lab request form from an online portal. They could then complete fields and drop-downs with details on the fluid type, how the customer uses it, and the resulting defect. Calculations behind the Nintex Form would then identify the most appropriate lab for the service request and send samples for analysis. Nintex Workflow would route the request to appropriate reviewers and approvers, keeping them in the loop. Once the lab completed its analysis, the resulting report would be sent to all relevant parties and archived in SharePoint for easy access. The solution also included a dashboard that provided a clear overview of all requests at all the labs for all the product lines.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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