Tollman is a contract chemical manufacturer that formulates, blends, packages and distributes chemicals, primarily for agriculture customers. Tollman manages a complex supply chain, in a regulated environment, and must be able to respond quickly to customer demand, which can be highly seasonal.

The challenge: Manual systems were time consuming and limited visibility across the team

Before adopting ChemCloud, Tollman's raw materials procurement process was managed primarily on their ERP, with multiple workflows supplemented on spreadsheets and over email. 

Gathering prices and availability of raw materials required the purchasing team to manually send emails to suppliers for updated prices.

"When we needed pricing, we would manually send emails to suppliers to get quotations for various products, and record them in a spreadsheet for review"
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Shivangni Goundar, Purchasing Administrator

Tracking deliveries, chasing supplier responses, and coordinating between purchasing, operations, and the warehouse all relied on email chains and manual follow-up - which was then all recorded in a spreadsheet.

"Communication was all over email. If you wanted to know what was happening with an order, you had to dig through email threads and copy people in."
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Nick Morgan, Managing Director

Solution: ChemCloud's AI-Powered Procurement Platform

As a lean business, Tollman was looking to streamline their operations, to save time and ensure production ran on time.

In 2024, Tollman adopted ChemCloud’s AI-powered procurement platform to centralise their procurement and supply chain processes - resulting in a more streamlined operation, allowing the team to focus on other areas of the business.

"With ChemCloud, internal communication is now much simpler. We can now coordinate our team between purchasing and operations with much more transparency - everyone has a view on the same information."

Nick Morgan, Managing Director

Tollman has focused on adoption of the following features to streamline and automate their purchasing.

Automated Delivery Tracking & Follow-Ups

‍ChemCloud’s AI agent automatically tracks delivery status and sends follow-up notifications for orders that haven't been confirmed by suppliers, replacing the manual process of checking and chasing.

"Now all our order tracking is automated. It’s all in one place, and rather than looking in the spreadsheet and looking in seven different places, if you look for something it's all on ChemCloud."

Shivangni Goundar, Purchasing Administrator

Automated RFQs & Supplier Communication

‍Rather than manually emailing individual suppliers for quotations, the team now sends RFQs at the press of a button. When suppliers respond, quotes are captured automatically, for review.

"You just press a button, RFQs get sent, and then the suppliers get back to you in one or two days - with ChemCloud AI uploading the quote for review. It has overall streamlined the raw materials procurement process."

Shivangni Goundar, Purchasing Administrator

Price History and Analytics

‍Price and purchase analytics tools allow the team to track market trends and get quick insight into the price history of 150+ different raw materials.

"We've still got great relationships with our suppliers, but now we're able to better track our own price and order history to make sure we remain competitive in the market."

Nick Morgan, Managing Director

ChemCloud Supplier Network

‍Access to a broader network of suppliers through ChemCloud's marketplace, enabling competitive sourcing for new raw materials.

"When we’re sourcing new materials, there are various suppliers on ChemCloud whom we can reach. We're sourcing many materials now and ChemCloud is the software to do this."

Shivangni Goundar, Purchasing Administrator

Centralised view of Orders

‍Instead of scrolling through spreadsheets, the team can instantly see the most recent ETA of an incoming delivery from a supplier - which can be accessed by the whole team.

Terry Branch, Operations Manager, uses ChemCloud to make sure the warehouse knows which deliveries are coming in, when.

"I print off the list of incoming orders daily (Standard and Blanket) for delivery verifications. This gives our warehouse an up to date view of what is supposed to arrive each day."
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Terry Branch, Operations Manager

Since adopting ChemCloud, Tollman has seen benefits in three main areas

Since adopting ChemCloud in 2024, Tollman has seen tangible improvements across their procurement and operations workflows.

20-30 hours per month time saving - Saved 20-30 hours per month in tracking deliveries, chasing suppliers and requesting quotes

5+ alternative suppliers discovered for new raw materials - ChemCloud has helped us find new, local alternatives for raw materials in their supplier network

Fewer production stops - Automated delivery tracking has allowed us to identify potential raw material shortages earlier, and shift our production schedule

Collaboration on features

Tollman has worked closely with the ChemCloud team to provide feedback on features that can further help streamline their operations, which has been a valuable partnership, helping to further improve the ChemCloud platform.

“We’ve worked with ChemCloud over the last 18 months, and my main thing is that if there is an issue, or you suggest an improvement, it gets done.”

Nick Morgan, Managing Director

Recommendation to other manufacturers

“I’ve been in the industry for more than 20 years, and I’d recommend ChemCloud to any chemical manufacturer looking to streamline their internal purchasing and operations processes.”

Nick Morgan, Managing Director