How a Product Design and Engineering Firm Centralized 90% of Operations

^Problem

Speed Meets a Scaling Wall

Design & MFG Firm – US, a manufacturing and product design firm, encountered operational bottlenecks as it scaled its custom engineering and rapid prototyping services to meet growing client demand. But as the company expanded its cross-industry work, internal operations struggled to keep pace.

Day-to-day workflows were disjointed and heavily reliant on email, with minimal visibility into project status or task ownership. Managing customer data across disconnected systems became increasingly risky and inefficient.

Despite evaluating popular work management platforms like ClickUp and Airtable, none met the firm’s need for flexibility or structure. Teams were left manually prioritizing tasks, with no consistent way to scale new ideas into structured, actionable projects. The lack of a centralized, collaborative system created bottlenecks in execution and made it difficult to maintain the speed and precision Design & MFG Firm – US is known for.

Q1

^Solution

From Spreadsheets to Smart Systems

Design & MFG Firm – US transitioned to SmartSuite in September 2023, starting with inventory management. They used SmartSuite to replace QuickBooks for tracking lot-level data and issuing purchase orders. As confidence grew, the team expanded use into dashboards, process documentation, and internal project management.

SmartSuite’s automation, dashboards, and user-friendly formulas enabled the Commercial Support Specialist, initially unfamiliar with low-code platforms, to become a confident builder. “I remember the first time I figured out a piece of automation. It felt so good,” the Commercial Support Specialist shared.

The Director of Production and the Commercial Support Specialist began using SmartSuite's support resources, office hours, and working sessions with Emma Montgomery to refine forecasting dashboards and automate low-stock alerts. SmartSuite’s visual dashboards now track sales, inventory, and procurement workflows—making it easy for leadership to get accurate data fast.

Q2

^Result

90% Centralized—and Set to Scale

SmartSuite now powers nearly all of the firm’s operations—excluding only financials and sales orders, which remain in QuickBooks. The Director of Production estimates that 90% of the company’s daily workflows, from purchase orders to project management, sampling, and inventory forecasting, live in SmartSuite.

The Design & MFG Firm replaced siloed spreadsheets and internal systems with centralized dashboards. Forecasting that was once manual and error-prone is now visual, automated, and integrated across departments. Automations prevent repetitive tasks, saving the Commercial Support Specialist and others from redundant data entry.

Strategically, the company is now set up to scale. Dashboards provide real-time visibility to executives. Builders like the Commercial Support Specialist are empowered to contribute. And customer-facing systems, like portals for reordering, are now in development thanks to SmartSuite’s flexible architecture.

“We’re using SmartSuite more and more. I want my team spending time on meaningful work, not repeating tasks,” the Director of Production emphasized. “SmartSuite is helping us get there.”