Process optimisation in Salzgitter: less paper between plant, dispatch and office
Around steel processing, vehicle manufacturing and logistics, Salzgitter has grown an IT landscape over decades that carries the daily business — but creates manual work at the handovers. We capture your workflows where they actually happen, name the points that cost the most time and then implement what pays off. From our base in Söhlde we are with you in a good quarter of an hour.
Salzgitter is a location where material sets the pace. Steel is produced, cut, formed and passed on, vehicle manufacturing and logistics depend directly on it, and around the large plants sits a dense ring of suppliers, maintenance firms, hauliers and trade businesses. These companies have one thing in common: their workflows have grown with the order volume rather than being designed on a drawing board. Every special requirement from a client, every new documentation duty, every additional programme has added another loop. What counts in the end is not whether the systems are modern, but how often the same piece of information is picked up again along the way.
From weighing note to booking: today and after the measure
Why the topic looks different in Salzgitter
In a purely office-based business, almost everything happens on screen. In Salzgitter, by contrast, a case often begins at a loading bay, at a weighbridge, at a machine or in a driver's cab — and only then reaches a system. It is precisely at that seam that most of the avoidable work arises. The weighbridge figure is noted down, the delivery note is signed off, the batch is recorded on a slip of paper, the feedback from production is passed on verbally. Later somebody sits in the office and transfers all of it into the inventory system, into a spreadsheet and once more into the accounting system. Anyone wondering where the time goes will almost always find it between those three entries. On top of that come the documentation duties that are part of everyday life for metalworking suppliers: material details, batch allocation, test results and traceability have to be provable at any time, often in the formats the respective client prescribes. When those details sit scattered across folders, drives and mailboxes, every query turns into a search task. A workflow that carries them along from the moment they arise saves more than minutes — it also takes the pressure out of complaint and audit situations, where several people would otherwise be searching at the same time.
The third point is geography. Salzgitter is a spread-out city made up of districts such as Lebenstedt, Bad and Thiede that lie noticeably apart. Workshop, warehouse, dispatch and accounting therefore often sit in different buildings, sometimes not even in the same district. Paperwork travels with people: the driver brings the documents along in the evening, accounting sees the case two days after it was completed, and the question of the current status can only be answered by telephone. That time lag is no small matter — it is the reason many companies only learn their own figures with a delay.
Steel and metal
processing, cutting, maintenance
Vehicle building
supply, assembly, workshop operations
Logistics
dispatch, warehouse, plant traffic
On site
appointments at your premises, not by video call
Typical starting points in Salzgitter companies
The following situations come up again and again in companies with a grown system landscape. None of them is a sign of poor work — on the contrary, they usually arise where people helped themselves because the main system could not do something. For our review, these workarounds are the most valuable clues of all. Whether a worthwhile project emerges from them is decided not by the number of findings but by frequency: a step that costs two minutes per delivery is a different case at ten deliveries a day than at ten deliveries a month. That is why, in the process analysis, we project every weak point onto a full year before we talk about tools.
Paper between shop floor and office
Weighbridge slips, delivery notes, inspection sheets and material documents are created where the work happens — and then travel to the office as a stack. Until they are entered, time passes during which nobody can reliably say what has been delivered, processed or collected.
Duplicate entry at goods-in
The same delivery is noted at the weighbridge, booked in the warehouse system and captured a third time for invoice checking. If the records diverge, reconciliation begins — and that regularly takes longer than the booking itself.
Reports assembled by hand
For the monthly meeting, figures are collected from several programmes, copied into a spreadsheet and prepared for presentation. That preparation takes up a whole working day, and the figures are already out of date by the time they are shown.
Shift handover on slips of paper
Whatever the early shift left unfinished is written on a sheet by the shift plan. In case of illness, holiday or a short-notice swap, that knowledge is lost, and the following shift starts with questions instead of work.
Master data in several places
Customers, items and prices are kept separately in the inventory system, in the quotation template and in a carefully maintained list. A change rarely reaches all three places, and in case of doubt nobody knows which version applies.
Evidence for major clients
Large clients require documents, certificates and confirmations in their own formats and portals. If those details are gathered after the fact instead of carried along as they arise, every order costs additional office hours.
How a project runs at your company
We work in four steps that build on each other and allow a genuine decision after each one. You take on no obligation for the next stage until you expressly commission it. The services overview shows which building blocks may come into play.
Analysis: capturing what actually happens
We accompany the workplaces concerned during normal operations — at goods-in, at the machine, in dispatch and in the office. We note every step, every handover and every system change, and we ask explicitly about the exceptions, because that is where the effort hides. For one clearly defined workflow at a single site, that is usually one day on site (project experience).
Prioritisation: an order of work, not a wish list
The review produces a written report with findings, annual effort and measures. Every measure receives an assessment of effort, impact and implementation risk plus an estimated price. We go through the report together and agree what gets tackled first — usually something small that is noticeable in daily work straight away.
Implementation: fixed price, against an agreed scope
Only now do we talk about technology. Depending on the findings, this means process automation, interfaces between your systems, data integration, or document digitisation. The scope is set down in writing, and testing is done with real cases from your company.
Operation: so it still runs in the third month
A transfer that has been set up needs somebody who notices when it fails to run. In ongoing support we monitor the runs, contact you when something goes wrong rather than waiting to be asked, and adjust things when your systems change. On request we train the people involved on site, so the new way of working does not depend on one individual.
We accompany the workplaces concerned during normal operations — at goods-in, at the machine, in dispatch and in the office. We note every step, every handover and every system change, and we ask explicitly about the exceptions, because that is where the effort hides. For one clearly defined workflow at a single site, that is usually one day on site (project experience).
The review produces a written report with findings, annual effort and measures. Every measure receives an assessment of effort, impact and implementation risk plus an estimated price. We go through the report together and agree what gets tackled first — usually something small that is noticeable in daily work straight away.
Only now do we talk about technology. Depending on the findings, this means process automation, interfaces between your systems, data integration, or document digitisation. The scope is set down in writing, and testing is done with real cases from your company.
A transfer that has been set up needs somebody who notices when it fails to run. In ongoing support we monitor the runs, contact you when something goes wrong rather than waiting to be asked, and adjust things when your systems change. On request we train the people involved on site, so the new way of working does not depend on one individual.
Entry point · net plus VAT
- Captured where the work happens: shop floor, warehouse, dispatch, office
- Media breaks, duplicate entry and waiting times named and quantified
- A list of measures sorted by effort and impact
- An estimated price per measure as a basis for your decision
- The report belongs to you — even without a follow-up order
For one clearly defined workflow at a single site, the analysis is 1,900 € net, including the initial call, the on-site review, the evaluation, the written report and the joint review session. Larger reviews spanning several departments or districts are agreed in writing beforehand. Implementation starts at 4,900 € net per automation or interface, as a fixed price after the analysis; ongoing support at 190 € net per month. All prices net plus VAT; details on the pricing overview.
Prices as of September 2026. Ongoing services are booked individually and can be cancelled monthly; there is no minimum term.
What the short drive actually gives you
A good quarter of an hour lies between Söhlde and Salzgitter
Proximity sounds like a soft argument at first. In everyday project work it is a hard factor, because many questions can only be resolved where the workflow takes place. A description over the phone is no substitute for a look at the screen of the colleague at goods-in, or at the slip of paper lying next to the weighbridge. When an appointment does not mean half a day of travelling, it also happens when only an hour is at stake — and it is exactly those short appointments that keep a project moving.
- Review in the plant and the office on the same day, without a debate about travel costs
- Short-notice on-site visits when a question cannot be settled on screen
- Acceptance with real cases, done together on the spot
- Training where the new way of working will actually take place
| Occasion | Where | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Review in the plant and the office | on site, same day | 3 to 4 hrs |
| Question that will not settle on screen | on site, at short notice | 1 hr |
| Acceptance with real cases | together on the spot | 2 hrs |
| Training at the workplace | during the running shift | 1 to 2 hrs |
A named contact instead of a ticket system
You speak to the person who captured your workflow and built the implementation. There is no transfer to a queue and no need to explain everything again because somebody else has taken the case over. For small questions, a phone call is enough.
Appointments that fit the shift plan
Review and acceptance follow your operations, not our diary. If goods-in tells us most in the morning, we are there in the morning; if a changeover is only possible between two shifts, that is where we schedule it.
We see the workflow, not just its description
Much of what makes a workflow expensive appears in no documentation: the extra printout out of habit, the list in the locker, the arrangement made by shouting across the room. Such points are only found by standing alongside — and they are often the cheapest improvements of all.
Remote support where it is enough
Whatever can be solved without being present, we solve remotely — faster and without travel costs. The short drive is the fallback for cases where a screen alone is not enough, not the default route for every little thing.
On-site appointments in Salzgitter and the surrounding area
What companies in Salzgitter ask for most often
Automating recurring manual work
Taking over documents, generating lists, distributing confirmations: what runs the same way every day does not need a person to carry it out. Process automation handles the standard case and reports the exception.
Connecting systems to each other
Inventory management, warehouse system, time recording and accounting often run side by side. Interfaces make sure a detail is entered once and then arrives wherever it is needed.
Bringing master data together
Where customers, items and prices are maintained in several places, records diverge. Data integration defines which system leads and keeps the others updated automatically.
Taking paper out of the workflow
Delivery notes, inspection sheets and certificates can be captured where they arise instead of in the office in the evening. Document digitisation is not about scanning, but about making the details directly usable.
Figures without manual work
Utilisation, lead time, open items: anyone who reassembles these values for every meeting is working with outdated figures. Metrics and reporting turns them into a status that can be called up at any time.
Replacing legacy systems properly
Some programmes have been running for many years and can barely be maintained. Legacy replacement is first of all about the data and the order of work, so operations continue during the changeover.
Working alongside your existing IT
In most of the companies we meet in the region, somebody already looks after IT: an in-house person, a systems house for network and workstations, plus the vendor of the industry software. We do not take their place. Our work starts with the workflows and with the handovers between systems — precisely where responsibility otherwise tends to disappear between several parties. Whoever looks after the server room continues to do so; whoever maintains the industry software stays responsible for it. We make sure the pieces work together, and we document what we build so it remains verifiable.
- Coordination with your systems house or software vendor before implementation, not after
- No administrator rights for the review — read access is normally sufficient
- Every change described in writing so third parties can follow it
- Process documentation handed over into your filing system, not ours
- Operations and maintenance by us on request — or by your existing partner
- Training and rollout for the people involved, so knowledge stays in the company
Typical starting situations from conversations in industry
Illustrative scenarios from typical project sequences (project experience), anonymised and without customer details.
Scope, participants and duration at a glance
| Undertaking | What changes in daily work | Who from your company is involved | Duration (project experience) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process analysis of one workflow | You know where the time goes and have an order of work | The people who run it, plus one contact who can decide | 2 to 3 weeks |
| One automation | A recurring manual step disappears, the exception is reported | A subject-matter contact, access to the system concerned | 3 to 6 weeks |
| One interface between two systems | A detail is entered once and arrives everywhere | System owners on both sides, your software vendor if needed | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Ongoing support | Missing runs are noticed before anyone misses them | One named contact for queries | continuous, cancellable monthly |
Not sure where to start?
Describe in a few sentences which process eats up the most time in your company. In the initial call we tell you frankly whether a process analysis is the right step or whether the matter can be settled more briefly.
Our service area around Salzgitter
From our base in Söhlde we reach Salzgitter in a good quarter of an hour. We look after the other locations in the region in person as well.