Streamlining Procurement Governance for Zochem with InitusApprove

Client Profile

Zochem is one of the largest producers of high-quality zinc oxide in North America, serving industries ranging from rubber and tires to chemicals, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals. With manufacturing facilities in both the U.S. and Canada, Zochem operates a complex, bi-national supply chain that requires rigorous oversight of procurement and capital expenditures to maintain its industry-leading standards. Their customer base spans both Spot customers, who place individual orders based on current availability and pricing, and Contract customers, who operate under pre-negotiated pricing agreements, specific technical profiles, and defined delivery terms. Managing these two distinct customer types within a single ERP environment demands precision at every stage of the order management process, from initial intake through departmental validation to final fulfillment.

The Challenge: Manual Bottlenecks in the Approval Chain

As a high-output manufacturer, Zochem manages a high volume of Customer Purchase Orders (CPOs) that must pass through a multi-stage departmental review before conversion to a Sales Order. Each CPO touches multiple teams: Customer Service validates order details and technical specifications, Finance checks credit and payment terms, Sales confirms pricing for Spot customers, and Production confirms ship dates and capacity. Before implementing InitusApprove, there was no system to orchestrate this sequence, the process relied entirely on manual coordination, email communication, and individual follow-up, all of which proved increasingly unsustainable at scale.

Critical Pain Points:

• Email-Based Approvals: Approvals were buried in overflowing inboxes, leading to lost requests, missed follow-ups, and significant delays in getting orders into production. With no visibility into where a CPO stood in the review process, Customer Service staff spent considerable time chasing down sign-offs from Finance, Sales, and Production teams.

• Complex Routing Logic: Zochem’s CPOs required sequential review by Customer Service, Finance, Sales, and Production, with different routing paths depending on whether the order came from a Spot or Contract customer, all of which were impossible to reliably enforce without an automated system.

• Lack of Audit Trails: Tracking who approved what and when required manual reconstruction of email threads, creating challenges for internal audits and compliance. There was no reliable record of when a CPO moved between stages, who had reviewed it, or what notes and changes had been made along the way, making post-order disputes and financial reviews difficult to resolve.

• No Cross-Departmental Coordination: Customer Purchase Orders required sign-off from Finance, Sales, and Production, but there was no structured mechanism to route, track, or enforce each department’s review in sequence. Departments were often unaware a CPO was awaiting their attention, and there was nothing in place to escalate stalled reviews or notify managers when orders aged past acceptable thresholds.

The Solution: Native NetSuite Approval Orchestration

Zochem deployed InitusApprove, a NetSuite-native bundle designed to handle complex, hierarchical approval workflows without the need for external software or custom scripting. The solution was configured to manage Zochem’s multi-stage CPO approval process, spanning Customer Service, Finance, Sales, and Production, enforcing distinct routing paths for Spot and Contract customers alike. A central principle of the implementation was that the CPO status field in NetSuite would serve as the single source of truth, automatically advancing as each department completed its review, and providing full visibility into where any order stood at any given moment.

Key Implementation Features:

• Dynamic Routing Engine with Intelligent Auto-Approvals: Initus configured multi-tier CPO approval workflows that automatically route orders through Customer Service, Finance, Sales, and Production based on Zochem’s business logic. The engine also incorporates smart auto-approval rules to eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks: Finance review is bypassed when a customer’s available credit covers the order and there are no overdue balances; Production review is skipped for standard-grade products with delivery dates beyond 30 days. For specialty grades (USP, EP, or T-suffix products), Production sign-off is always required regardless of lead time.

• Consolidated Approval Portal: A dedicated CPO dashboard was built within NetSuite, allowing managers and Customer Service staff to see all pending approvals across the organization in a single view. The dashboard supports filtering by PO number, date, subsidiary, customer, and CPO status, giving each team a focused view of what requires their attention without needing to run manual searches or rely on email chasers.

• Email-Based Approval Notifications: Responsible team members receive automated email notifications when a CPO enters their department’s review queue. The system tracks the age of each pending approval: if a CPO has been awaiting review beyond a configurable threshold (e.g., 3 days), the notification is resent as a reminder; if the delay extends further (e.g., 5 days), the system automatically escalates by copying the relevant department manager. This ensures that no order stalls silently and that accountability is enforced without requiring manual intervention from Customer Service.

• Strict Audit Logging: Every action, approval, rejection, stage transition, or delegation, is timestamped and logged directly on the CPO transaction record. Each approval stage also supports optional notes, capturing reviewer comments and context as the order moves through the workflow. The most recent note is shown as an inline field on the CPO itself, giving Customer Service immediate visibility into any flags or changes made by other departments without having to dig through separate communication threads.

The Results: Faster Procurement and Enhanced Control

The implementation of InitusApprove brought immediate structure to Zochem’s CPO lifecycle, replacing a fragmented, email-driven process with a disciplined, automated workflow that every department could rely on. The impact was felt quickly across both facilities, with measurable improvements in speed, compliance, and cross-team coordination.

• 70% Faster Approval Cycles: The time from CPO creation to final Sales Order conversion was reduced from days to hours. By eliminating manual follow-ups and routing each order automatically to the right reviewer, the system removed the primary sources of delay that had previously held up production schedules.

• Enhanced Compliance: Zochem achieved 100% adherence to its departmental review requirements, as the system enforces that no CPO can advance to Sales Order without completing the mandatory approval stages. Validation pop-ups prompt each reviewer to acknowledge key fields, such as credit limits, payment terms, technical profiles, and freight terms, ensuring accountability is built into every step of the process rather than assumed.

• Global Visibility: Leadership and Customer Service now have a real-time view of every CPO’s status across both the U.S. and Canadian operations. Whether an order is pending Finance review, awaiting a Production ship date confirmation, or ready to convert, the information is immediately accessible in NetSuite, enabling more accurate cash flow forecasting, better capacity planning, and faster responses to customer inquiries.

• Eliminated Unnecessary Delays: Intelligent auto-approval rules for Finance and Production mean that routine orders flow through without manual intervention, reserving human review only for exceptions that genuinely require it. Orders where credit is in good standing are automatically cleared past the Finance stage; standard-grade products with distant delivery windows bypass Production review entirely. The result is a leaner, faster workflow that doesn’t sacrifice control; reviewers are engaged precisely when their judgment is needed, and not burdened with approvals that can safely be handled by the system.

Client Testimonial