The situation
As order volumes increased, a regional retailer began experiencing longer fulfilment times. Customer orders moved through several teams, but responsibilities were not always clear. Inventory checks happened at different stages, exceptions were handled manually, and urgent orders frequently interrupted planned work.
The business was growing, but its operating process had not evolved at the same pace.
The average time between order confirmation and dispatch had reached 50 hours. For customers, this meant longer waits. For the business, it meant additional coordination, more interruptions and less predictable daily operations.
/
What we found
Arda Aris reviewed the fulfilment journey, from order confirmation through inventory checks, picking and dispatch.
The main issue was not the speed of individual employees. It was the number of handoffs, duplicated checks and unclear decisions between teams.
Improving individual tasks would have provided limited benefits without changing how the overall process worked.
What we changed
We worked with the operational team to redesign the fulfilment flow around clearer responsibilities and fewer unnecessary steps.
The work focused on:
Defining one consistent order-priority process.
Moving inventory checks earlier.
Clarifying ownership between teams.
Establishing simple rules for handling exceptions.
Introducing weekly tracking of fulfilment time and delayed orders.
The approach prioritized practical changes the existing team could maintain without introducing an entirely new operating system.
The result
50 → 36 hours
Average order-to-dispatch time
Measured over 12 weeks.
Over 12 weeks, average order-to-dispatch time decreased from 50 hours to 36 hours.
That represents a 28% reduction in fulfilment time.
The improvement came from removing delays between activities rather than asking employees to work faster.
Why it mattered
The retailer could process orders more predictably while maintaining its existing team structure.
Customers received faster dispatch times, managers gained clearer visibility into operational bottlenecks, and employees spent less time resolving avoidable handoff problems.
The business gained a process better suited to continued growth.
