Smart Inventory Reorder Assistant For Manufacturing: 6-Week

The Challenge

Knowing what to reorder, when, and from whom shouldn't require checking four different screens and still ending up guessing. But that's the reality in most plants: stock levels live in one system, how fast materials are actually being used lives in another, open orders live in a third, and a supplier's track record for showing up late lives nowhere at all. Nobody puts the four together, so the answer never quite exists.

The cost adds up fast: stockouts of critical materials cost manufacturers an estimated 4–8% of annual revenue through lost production, rush shipping, and missed delivery promises.

MAQ Software's 6-Week Smart Inventory Reorder Assistant PoC builds and proves out a working solution — bringing your stock, usage, order, and supplier data together in Microsoft Fabric, and deploying a plain-language assistant that your team can simply ask: "what's running low, and who should I order it from?"

Key questions

• Can your team get a straight answer on what's about to run out today, or does someone have to go check three or four places first?
• Is your inventory, usage, and order data connected anywhere, or still living in separate spreadsheets and systems?
• Do you factor in which suppliers are reliable before placing an order, or only find out after a late delivery causes a problem?
• Would you want to test this against your real data and your real team before rolling it out everywhere?
• If this worked well for your most important materials, what would it look like to expand it further?

Our approach

1. Weeks 1–2: Bringing the Data Together — Connect stock levels, usage rates, and open orders for a defined set of important materials into one place using Microsoft Fabric. Add in whatever supplier delivery history is already available.
2. Weeks 3–4: Building the Assistant — Build a conversational assistant in Microsoft Copilot Studio, connected to the unified data, that can answer questions like "what will run out soon" and "which supplier should I use" in plain language. Set up automatic alerts through Power Automate for materials approaching a low-stock point.
3. Weeks 5–6: Testing & Handover — Have your team actually use the assistant on real questions, fine-tune the answers based on their feedback, and check the results against what really happened with stock and deliveries. Hand over a working solution plus a plan for expanding it further.

Deliverables

• Connected Data Foundation — Stock, usage, order, and supplier data brought together in Microsoft Fabric for your selected materials
• Working Assistant — A conversational tool your team can ask directly about what's running low and which supplier to use
• Alerting Setup — Automatic notifications when a material is approaching its reorder point
• Test Results Summary — How the assistant performed against real questions and real outcomes
• Next Steps Plan — A practical plan for expanding to more materials or locations once proven

Business impact

• Stop manually checking multiple systems just to know what to reorder
• Catch a potential stockout before it stops a production line, not after
• Factor supplier reliability into the decision upfront, instead of finding out the hard way
• Get a working, tested solution in 6 weeks instead of waiting on a long-term project
• Build confidence to roll this out more broadly once it's proven on your priority materials

Who benefits

Users: Inventory & Procurement Staff, Supply Chain Planners, Plant/Production Managers

Decision makers: Operations Leaders, Plant Directors, IT Leaders, Finance (tied to working capital and stockout cost)

Prerequisites

• Access to your relevant inventory, production, and ordering systems for the selected materials
• Whatever supplier delivery history is already available (doesn't need to be complete)
• A short list of which materials matter most to start with, even if informal
• Team availability for a couple of feedback sessions during the engagement

Why MAQ Software

• Built specifically for this problem — our approach is purpose-built for inventory and reorder decisions, not adapted from a generic data project
• Practical, not theoretical — we focus on a working tool your team can actually use day one, not just a recommendation document
• Built to grow — designed so it's straightforward to expand to more materials or locations once it proves out

Contact us: CustomerSuccess@MAQSoftware.com to schedule your Smart Inventory Reorder Assistant PoC and get a real, working answer in 6 weeks.