If the Work Is Already Done, Why Is the Data Still Late?
Most operations don’t count the time spent re-typing data into SAP. In this episode of Neptune Talks, we look at why the same information is so often captured twice, and what changes when it’s captured once.
Frontline work happens at the dock, the machine, the shelf and the customer site, while SAP usually sits on a desktop in an office. So the work splits in two: people record data on paper, in spreadsheets or on their own phones, and someone types it into SAP later. Often, the person entering the data never saw the work.
Using a goods receipt at the warehouse dock as an example, the conversation follows what happens in between: the delivery note waiting in a tray, a best guess at hard-to-read handwriting, and stock that SAP can’t see until the receipt is posted. The cost goes well beyond the minutes spent typing. Errors travel into stock levels, plans and invoice matching, decisions are made on old information, and detail like photos and notes gets lost. Data that sits on paper also gives AI agents nothing to act on.
The discussion then turns to capturing data once, at the point of work, with Business Applications that are prefilled from SAP, support scanning and photos, work offline and post through native SAP integration. It closes with a practical way to build the business case, starting with a single paper form.
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In this episode
- Why frontline data is captured twice and owned by neither
- What a paper-based goods receipt costs in time, accuracy and visibility
- Why data captured at the source is what makes AI useful in operations
- How Neptune customers start with one form and scale from there
- A four-step approach to measuring the cost of double entry
Listen to the full episode, then ask your own teams which information they write down first and type into SAP later.
