From spreadsheets and phone calls to a platform dealers actually use.

A regional custom vehicle manufacturer was running production tracking, dealer sales, and inventory management across spreadsheets and phone calls. We built the full-stack platform — production workflow, dealer portal, hold management, and financial dashboards — in 9 weeks.

9 weeks

Signed spec to production deployment

$44,300

Fixed price — no change orders

22.5 hrs/wk

Saved in management time

Real-time

Profit tracking — previously monthly

The Challenge

22 hours a week spent on work a system should be doing.

Spreadsheets and phone calls running production

Every vehicle on the lot, every dealer hold, every unit in production — tracked in spreadsheets that only one person could update at a time. When a dealer called to place an order, someone had to manually check availability, call back, then update the sheet. When a unit moved through production, someone had to remember to log it. The same manual reconciliation happening repeatedly, across 22+ hours of management time every week.

Dealers had no visibility and no self-service

Dealers couldn't see what was available. They couldn't place orders without calling in. They couldn't track units they'd already purchased. Every interaction required a person on the manufacturer's side to look something up, relay information, and manually record the result. There was no audit trail — if a dispute arose over an order or a hold, there was no system of record to reference.

Our Approach

Spec first. Build second. No surprises.

01

Map every manual workflow

We spent time mapping exactly how production tracking, inventory management, dealer orders, and holds were being handled — every step, every person involved, every place data lived in a spreadsheet or someone's head.

02

Define the dealer portal first

The dealer portal was the highest-leverage change. Getting dealers off phone calls and into self-service would eliminate the largest class of interruptions and create a system of record for every transaction.

03

Build production workflow with real-time state

We designed a production tracking system where every unit has a defined state — and moving it from one state to the next is a deliberate, logged action. No more 'I think it's in final inspection' — the system knows.

04

Wire financial dashboards to live data

Profit tracking was previously a monthly exercise of pulling numbers from multiple sources. We built dashboards that calculate margin in real time as production costs and sale prices are entered, so management always has a current view.

05

Ship to production on week 9

Fixed-scope, fixed-price engagement. Nine weeks from signed specification to production deployment, with full training and a 12-month warranty on anything we broke.

What We Delivered

A complete operational platform. Built from zero.

Production workflow system

Unit-level state tracking from production start through delivery. Every stage logged. Every transition timestamped and attributed.

Dealer self-service portal

Dealers browse available inventory, place orders, manage holds, and track their purchased units — without calling in.

Automated hold management

Dealers can place and release holds on specific units. Hold conflicts surface automatically. Expirations are enforced without manual follow-up.

Financial dashboards

Real-time margin and profit tracking as production costs and sale prices are recorded. No more end-of-month reconciliation.

Full audit trail

Every order, every hold, every status change — logged with timestamp and actor. A system of record for every transaction.

Management reporting

Pipeline visibility, dealer activity, and production throughput — in a single dashboard, updated in real time.

Results

What changed on day one in production.

Before

  • 22+ hours/week of manual inventory management
  • Dealers placing orders by phone and email
  • Profit calculated manually at end of month
  • No audit trail on holds or orders
  • Production status tracked in spreadsheets

After

  • 22.5 hours/week reclaimed — system handles the tracking
  • Dealers self-serve in the portal — no phone calls
  • Real-time profit tracking as data is entered
  • Every transaction logged with full audit trail
  • Production status tracked in real time, unit by unit

“We went from tracking everything in spreadsheets to a system our dealers could also use to purchase vehicles. The team saves hours upon hours every week because we’re not tracking inventory manually anymore.”

— Owner, Regional Fleet Manufacturer

Ready to start

Let’s talk about your operation.

A 30-minute discovery call costs nothing. We’ll map your biggest operational bottleneck and tell you exactly what’s automatable — and what isn’t.

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