Customer storyEvery PO. Handled by an agent.
Every purchase order ENRX issues now goes out and comes back through an agent. Its buyers had been spending two thirds of the day on that work, on orders no two of which look alike.
- 100%
- of ENRX's purchase orders now run through the agent
- 65%
- of the buyer's day went on issuing them and chasing confirmations
Overview
ENRX designs and builds induction heating equipment. The company has 1,100 employees and more than 25,000 installations in over 80 countries.
Its products are highly configurable, so no two orders look quite the same, and that complexity lands on purchasing.
- 1,100
- employees
- 25,000+
- installations
- 80+
- countries
Buyers stuck chasing confirmations
Buyers at ENRX spent about 65% of their day on two jobs: issuing purchase orders and getting them confirmed. That meant sending POs, chasing suppliers and keeping confirmation dates in the ERP up to date.
The work never ended. Every PO got the same attention, so the orders blocking production waited in the same queue as the ones that could wait.
The work buyers are hired for kept getting pushed aside: negotiating, developing suppliers and managing risk.
- 65% Issuing POs and chasing confirmations
- Sending, chasing, keeping dates current in the ERP
- 35% Everything they were hired for
- Negotiating, developing suppliers, managing risk
One task, taken off the desk
ENRX started with order confirmations, using Riff's buyer agent.
When a PO goes out, the agent takes it from there. It chases the supplier by email, checks each confirmation against the PO and updates the ERP.
When a date slips or a price doesn't match, the buyer gets the case with the context already gathered.
See the buyer agentThe ERP remains the system of record. The agent does the work inside it, and buyers keep control over the decisions.
From order confirmations to buyer agent
Every confirmation the agent handles teaches it more about ENRX's suppliers, prices, lead times and purchasing history. Each new task starts from that knowledge.
Shortage risk
Ranking open orders by their impact on production, so the critical ones are handled first.
Supplier follow-up
Acting on late or missing confirmations before they turn into rush orders.
Negotiations
Bringing the price and lead-time history into supplier talks.
Sourcing
Running RFQs for hard-to-find items.
The agent earns more responsibility as it proves itself, and people stay in control wherever their judgment matters.
After purchasing, ENRX plans to take the same approach across the rest of its value chain.
Start with one task. Learn from it. Take on the next one.