From Scattered Spreadsheets to a Real-Time Inventory System
How TTP cut dashboard load time by 85% for a manufacturing client — by rebuilding the entire data layer.
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The Challenge
Our client manufactures finished goods built from a defined Bill of Materials (BOM) — every unit produced consumes a specific combination of raw materials. Like most growing manufacturers, they were tracking this the way most businesses start out: across disconnected spreadsheets for purchases, production runs, and wastage.
The problem wasn't that spreadsheets don't work. It's that they don't scale. As the volume of daily entries grew, three things broke down:
- ✓No real-time answer to "do we have enough stock?" Checking whether raw materials could cover a planned production run meant manually cross-referencing multiple sheets — a process prone to human error and too slow to support same-day decisions.
- ✓No single source of truth. Opening stock, purchases, production consumption, and wastage lived in different places, so nobody could see the full stock movement picture at a glance.
- ✓No access control. Anyone with sheet access could edit core formulas or approve entries, with no accountability trail.
They needed a system that behaved like software, not a spreadsheet with more tabs.
The Solution
TTP designed and built RMS — a custom, browser-based inventory and production management system running on Google Apps Script with a Google Sheets backend, built specifically around the client's real production formula:
Every module was built to make that formula visible, live, and trustworthy:
- ✓Dashboard with flow-bar visualization — stock movement at a glance, no digging through tabs
- ✓BOM Availability Check — instantly confirms whether current raw material stock can support a planned production run, before a single unit is made
- ✓Stock Movement Ledger — a single, auditable trail of every stock-affecting event
- ✓Production, Purchase, and Wastage entry forms — structured data entry replacing free-form spreadsheet rows
- ✓Printable Production Challan — generated directly from entered data, no manual formatting
- ✓CSV bulk upload — for migrating existing historical records without re-typing months of data
- ✓Password-protected BOM Manager — only authorized users can edit the raw-material formulas that drive every stock calculation
The Performance Problem Behind the Scenes
Early in the build, the dashboard was technically complete but slow — over 15 seconds to load. The root cause: every dashboard section was independently re-reading the same sheets. For just 2 items, that meant 14+ separate reads; at 5 items, 26+.
TTP rebuilt the data layer around a single cached read: all source sheets are read once per session, and every dashboard section — stock summary, BOM availability, today's production, recent purchases — draws from that one cache instead of hitting the sheet again.
This is the kind of fix that doesn't show up in a feature list but defines whether a system actually gets used every day.
Built to Grow With the Business
RMS wasn't a one-time delivery — it's been extended in direct response to how the client actually works day to day:
- ✓Timestamped purchase entries for better audit tracking
- ✓A dedicated Wastage Adjustment tab that feeds directly into the final balance stock calculation
- ✓Password-gated status changes (Pending → Verified) on purchase/GRN entries, so approvals carry accountability
- ✓Rebranded from an internal working name to "RMS" as the client began treating it as a permanent operational system, not a project
Why It Matters
For a manufacturer running on tight production schedules, the difference between a 15-second dashboard and a 3-second one isn't just convenience — it's the difference between a tool people actually open every morning and one they quietly go back to avoiding. RMS gave the client a system that's fast enough to trust, accurate enough to rely on, and structured enough to grow alongside the business.
