Furniture Manufacturer - From 14 Excel Sheets to Working ERP in 10 Weeks

The company has existed since 2008, selling bespoke office furniture (desks, cabinets, conference chairs) mainly to B2B clients — corporations, public institutions, 50+ person companies. Before implementation, the entire operation was managed via 14 Excel sheets (orders, schedule, warehouse, offers), emails and 'only Wojtek knows it' tribal knowledge.

Pain scale: 30-40% of orders missed deadlines (sales promises vs real production capacity), shift manager lost 2 hours daily on 'what are we doing today'. Board received sales report once a month — with 2-week delay.

Three main challenges: (1) no production capacity visibility for sales — they promised dates production didn't confirm, (2) raw material warehouse 'floated' — quarterly stocktake showed MDF panel shortages, blocking production for 2-3 days, (3) board had no management dashboard — decisions were made 'by feel' or based on 2-week-old accounting reports.

Previous attempts: tried Comarch Optima twice (stopped at no CRM and pricey licences), once Subiekt nexo (didn't handle discrete manufacturing), once even considered Salesforce (3-year TCO ~EUR 78k vs ~EUR 22k for Open Mercato).

10-week implementation: Weeks 1-2 audit (process mapping with production manager and 2 sales reps), Week 3 technical design (architecture, Optima integration, BOM structure), Weeks 4-7 build (module configuration, 850 customer migration from Excel, Comarch Optima REST API integration), Weeks 8-9 training (sales reps and production managers separately), Week 10 go-live + on-call support.

Key decision: keep Comarch Optima for accounting (accountant knew Optima for 8 years) and add Open Mercato as CRM + production + warehouse. Invoices from Open Mercato flow to Optima automatically, payments back. No accounting revolution, full modernisation in sales and production.

Measurable effects 6 months after go-live: OEE rose from 58% to 71% (+22%), mainly due to better scheduling — fewer changeovers, less idle time from missing raw material. Order handling time (offer to dispatch) dropped from 6.2 to 3.8 days (-38%) — sales rep sees production availability immediately, no email back-and-forth.

On-time delivery rose from 71% to 95% — sales reps promise dates only after production confirms in the system. Raw material stock dropped 29% (less 'safety stock'), because the system alerts at minimum 2 weeks ahead. Board has a 12-KPI live dashboard — decisions made same-day, not after 2 weeks.

Monthly offer count up 34% — sales reps have more time for new clients (less admin). Implementation payback: 1.5 months (team time savings + conversion increase). 3-year savings vs Salesforce alternative: ~EUR 56k.