Customer Spotlight: Quaker Houghton

For manufacturing companies, digital transformation is key to remaining competitive. According to Gartner, 36% of manufacturing enterprises realize above-average business value from IT spending in digitalization when compared to peers.

Manufacturing becomes more efficient and the benefits trickle down. Implementing these technologies and automating processes drive growth and profitability for the company in the long run. However, the first step in digital transformation is identifying processes to be improved before anything can be automated. Let’s take a look at how Quaker Houghton digitized their processes with the help of Nintex.

Quaker Houghton is the global leader in industrial process fluids, with operations in more than 25 countries and more than 4,200 employees. Its customers work in advanced and specialized steel, aluminum, automotive, aerospace, offshore, can, mining, and metalworking companies. The global manufacturer’s business is to make other businesses run better by optimizing their processes, reducing their costs, and advancing their safety and sustainability around the fluids they use to make, roll, cut, or cast metals.

Sales and service personnel send customer samples to Quaker Houghton labs to analyze and resolve customer problems—but those reps needed a better, faster way to know which labs should receive their samples – and a method for tracking, approving, and reporting on the work activities. They wanted a workflow solution to address these needs and after considering their options, Quaker Houghton chose Nintex.

Complicated workflows simplified with automation

Quaker Houghton adopted a solution using Nintex Forms and Nintex Workflow to automate the process of initiating lab requests and determining which lab is most appropriate for any given request and then assigning tasks to specific associates.

The new process goes as follows:

• Customer-facing sales and service personnel access the lab request form from an online portal and complete with details on the fluid type, how the customer uses it, and the resulting defect.
• Calculations behind the Nintex Form then identify the lab that the service rep should direct the request and send samples for analysis.
• Nintex Workflow routes the request to appropriate reviewers and approvers, keeping them in the loop.
• When the lab completes its analysis, the resulting report is sent to all relevant parties and archived in SharePoint for easy access whenever needed, eliminating the need to make time-consuming requests for additional copies.

A better, faster customer experience

In the last 12 months, the solution saved the EMEA-based labs about 200 hours in administrative time – and after a successful test in the EMEA region, Quaker Houghton has rolled out the solution globally.

Sales reps can now access and complete the form immediately, customers see the immediate response and can be confident that Quaker Houghton is taking appropriate action. And there’s no time-consuming back and forth of emails between the service reps and the labs, so customers get faster turnarounds on their requests.

Best of all, leveraging Nintex at Quaker Houghton makes it easy to empower the end-user.

“Nintex is having a dramatic impact on our business. If we didn’t have Nintex, we’d have to invent it.”

Teresa Fisher, SharePoint Architect, Quaker Houghton

Read the case study to learn how Quaker Houghton speeds customer service with Nintex-based automated workflows.

Hear Quaker Houghton’s story firsthand from the company’s own Teresa Fisher, SharePoint Architect, and Jessica Bijlemeer-Kroon, Service Chemist, in their Workflow Wonders episode.

To learn more about how we can help your organization with process automation, get in contact with the Nintex team or request a demo today.