The analysis where we would have advised doing nothing
A distributor wanted to automate complaint handling. The measurement shows the money would have been burnt: the bottleneck sits outside the company.
The bottleneck sits at the supplier, outside the company. Automation for €18,000 would change nothing — it would even make the bottleneck worse.
12.8working days
In 8 of 10 cases between 4.1 and 34.0 days.
Klärung mit Lieferant
In 74 of 100 simulated runs this step was the hold-up.
€61,000
Per year. Estimated between €47,000 and €79,000.
€4,000
Per year — against €18,000 of one-off cost. It does not pay off.
Complaint handling
- Industry
- Technical wholesale
- Size
- 120 Mitarbeitende
- Cases per year
- 1,900
- Fully loaded rate
- €62 / h
- Simulated runs
- 500
- Date
- May 2026
Complaints take a median of almost 13 working days. Customer service is frustrated, and so are customers. On the table: a vendor quote for workflow automation at roughly €18,000 plus ongoing licence.
Before signing, the process is modelled: five steps, four roles, 1,900 cases a year, €62 fully loaded rate.
Six steps, four roles, one measurable path
The process modelled in FlowVisual. ↯ marks a media break — the point where data is retyped from one system into the next.
| Step | Role | System | Duration P10–P90 | Bottleneck |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01Reklamation erfassen | Kundenservice | Ticketsystem | 8–20 min | 4 % |
| 02Interne Prüfung | Qualitätssicherung | ERP | 20–60 min | 13 % |
| 03Klärung mit LieferantBottleneck | Einkauf | E-Mail (extern)↯ | 15–45 min | 74 % |
| 04Entscheidung | Qualitätssicherung | ERP | 10–30 min | 5 % |
| 05Gutschrift / Ersatz | Buchhaltung | ERP | 10–25 min | 4 % |
500 runs, one clear answer
Every chart below shows before against after. Values are labelled directly — the colour is a second signal, never the only one.
38
Fälle/Woche
17 %
4.1–34.0working days
Klärung mit Lieferant — 74 %
In 74 % of runs the bottleneck is clarification with the supplier. That step costs 15 to 45 minutes of work — and then waits an average of seven days for a reply nobody in the company controls.
All four internal steps together account for under 20 % of lead time. No role is overloaded; purchasing sits at 59 %.
Complaints cost the company around €61,000 a year. But the cost driver is waiting on the supplier, not internal handling.
The simulated automation scenario
Instead of buying and hoping, the proposed automation was run through the model: portal intake, rule-based pre-check, automatic credit note.
All internal processing times were set as optimistically as the vendor promises — the best case.
Median lead time down 7 %
- How long it takes
- 12.8 → 11.9 working days
- Throughput
- 38 → 40
- Days over capacity
- 17 % → 14 %
- Saving per year
- €4,000
Even in the best case, median lead time drops only from 12.8 to 11.9 days. That is 7 % — for €18,000 of implementation cost. The labour saving is about €4,000 a year. Payback would sit beyond four years.
The reason is already in the model: you cannot automate away a step that happens outside your own company. The supplier step's bottleneck probability actually rises from 74 % to 82 % — the bottleneck sharpens, it does not weaken.
The recommendation would therefore be: shelve the automation. Instead, agree a response deadline with the three suppliers causing 80 % of complaints. That would cost nothing but three conversations — and it attacks exactly where the time is lost.
This case is in the archive because it shows the uncomfortable half of the truth: sometimes the result of a measurement is that you do not need to buy anything.
What this analysis cannot tell you
Every measurement has limits. A measurement that hides them is advertising.
- 01
This is a sample analysis. Process and figures are constructed, not collected at a client.
- 02
Supplier response time is modelled as a long-tailed distribution. That is plausible but not evidenced without real log data.
- 03
The automation scenario was deliberately calculated optimistically. A pessimistic assumption would look worse still — the conclusion does not flip.
- 04
Soft effects such as customer satisfaction or staff relief are not priced in euros. They may still influence the decision.
Your process will look different.
This analysis is a sample. Your numbers are not. With FlowVisual you model your own process and get the same evaluation — on your machine, with your values.