Exhibition stand builder: every project visible, every show date met
- INDUSTRY
- Production: exhibition stands and display units
- LOCATION
- Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- ENGAGEMENT
- 4 months
- FOCUS
- Project flow, operations digitalisation, cash and receivables
The challenge
In exhibition work the date is fixed, and the show opens whether the stand is ready or not. The company was winning more projects, often several for the same event, but each one was run from phone calls, WhatsApp groups and memory.
Design, production, graphics, electrical and site teams all worked from different versions of the job. Late changes slipped through, rework ate into margins, and final payments came in weeks after handover. The company was delivering 60 to 70 projects a year, with up to 8 for a single show. Rework and overtime cost about SAR 35,000 a month, and SAR 2.1 million was outstanding in receivables.
What we found
We followed live projects from enquiry to dismantling, sat in the workshop during a peak week, and costed each delay and repeat job.
-
01
No single view of the work in hand.Nobody could see at a glance which stage each project was at, who owned it, or what was due that week. About 3 in 10 projects were handed over late or finished overnight on site, with overtime and penalties of around SAR 20,000 a month.
-
02
Changes after approval went unrecorded.Client changes reached the workshop by word of mouth, so stands were built twice. About 15% of workshop hours went into rebuilding parts after late changes.
-
03
Billing was not tied to project stages.Invoices went out when someone remembered, so cash trailed the work. Final invoices were raised on average 18 days after handover, and collection took 55 days, tying up SAR 2.1 million.
What we built
Across the layers of the Organise to Grow model.
The results
Every project is now visible from enquiry to final payment, on one screen. The workshop plans its week ahead instead of reacting to calls, changes are caught before they turn into rework, and invoices go out at each milestone. On-time handovers rose from 70% to 95% and rework hours fell 40%. Final invoices are now raised within 2 days of handover, and the average collection time fell from 55 to 30 days.
