Process automation case study using the ROI-FIRST approach
Compounded Formula Quotation and Order Management
Industry
Pharmaceuticals & Cosmeceuticals - Compounding
Date
Apr 25, 2026
Recommendation
✅ Automate
Time saved
From 146 min to 73 min per order
ROI Automation, recommendation and costs
COP
currency $:
Level of Automation | % Automation | Cases x Month | Time x Case (hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
Medium - public quotation and order forms for sales representatives, automatic responses with price and delivery time, digital verification checks by stage, real-time order tracking and dashboards. Manufacturing and the technical review remain manual, and the scope of the digital technical package depends on regulatory confirmation | 50 | 220 | 2.43 |
Personas Involucradas | Nivel de Cargo Promedio | Average Monthly Salary | Real Company Cost with Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
5 | Mixed: Technical Director (Level 1, x1), Quality Coordinator (Level 3, x1), Quality Supervisor (Level 4, x1), Operator (Level 6, x2) | 4.500.000 | 6.899.850 |
Monthly Operational Cost | Annual Operational Cost | Estimated Monthly Savings |
|---|---|---|
13.630.855 | 163.570.260 | 6.815.428 |
Estimated Annual Savings | Year 1 Investment | Net Benefit Year 1 |
|---|---|---|
81.785.130 | 10.170.000 | 71.615.130 |
Cumulative Net Benefit 3 Years | FTE Equivalente Liberado |
|---|---|
216.825.390 | 3.18 |
Power in Numbers
704
ROI Year 1 (%)
1.5
Payback (months)
8
Cost/Benefit ratio
✅ Automate
50% of this process is automatable, with a conservative estimate that depends on how much of the technical package the health regulator allows to be digitized. The process consumes 3.2 FTE and COP $163,570,260 per year. Automating it saves COP $81,785,130 annually against a COP $10,170,000 Year 1 investment, a 704% ROI with a 1.5-month payback. The operators carry most of the cost: they are fully occupied, and every minute spent chasing information is a minute not spent producing. The strategic case is growth. Quotations depend on one saturated person and much of that effort never becomes a sale, with no conversion data. Delivery is not tracked after shipping, and regulatory audits require digging through paper records from previous years. The company is growing, and this is the moment to systematize the process before volume makes it unmanageable.
Signs of inefficiency detected
High manual follow-up: quotations for 5 to 6 sales representatives are handled by hand, with no tracking or visible status. Critical dependency on one person: a single person prices every quotation and is saturated each morning when representatives need urgent answers for physicians. Effort without conversion: significant time goes into quoting formulas that do not become orders, with no conversion metrics. Approvals outside the system: quotations and orders are coordinated by email, WhatsApp and phone. No status visibility: production, invoicing and logistics cannot see where each order stands. No delivery tracking: once shipped, nobody knows whether the order arrived, and some clients have reported missing formulas after eight days. Regulatory retrieval: production records are printed and filled by hand, so locating a formula from previous years during an audit is slow.