The problem
Where fast-moving lines sit, and how many pickers are on at each hour, should follow the data, but turning a month of order lines into answers takes time. If the operations manager spends 5 hours a month building pivot tables from the warehouse system's export, that's 5 hours of spreadsheet work, and in a busy month it doesn't happen.
What the AI does
Copilot in Excel analyzes workbook data, applies formulas and shows insights as charts, PivotTables, trends or outliers. The operations manager exports a month of order lines from the warehouse management system and asks plain-English questions: which SKUs make up most picks and where they sit now, how orders arrive by hour and day, which clients' volumes are growing. The manager checks the totals against the warehouse system's own reports and uses the results to plan re-slotting and shift start times. Copilot runs within the Microsoft 365 service boundary and doesn't use prompts to train the models.
A worked example
A 3PL warehouse in Northampton picks about 2,000 order lines a day for 12 clients and already pays for Microsoft 365 Business Standard. The operations manager adds one Copilot Business license for the monthly analysis.
Before
5 hours a month building pivot tables from the warehouse system's export
After
About 1.5 hours, including checking totals against the system's reports
What it's worth
About $140£105€125A$202C$197 a month in operations manager time saved, against $21£16€19A$31C$30 for one Copilot Business license paid yearly. 3.5 hours saved a month, at an assumed $40£30€36A$58C$56 an hour.
How to set it up
- Buy one Copilot Business license for the operations manager, $21.41£16.10€19.16A$30.91C$30.27 a month paid yearly or $25.70£19.32€22.99A$37.09C$36.32 monthly, excluding VAT, on top of the existing Microsoft 365 plan.
- Export a month of order lines with order date and time, client, SKU, quantity and pick location, leaving out end customers' names and addresses.
- Ask Copilot which SKUs make up the most picks and where they sit, and how orders arrive by hour and day, with charts.
- Check the totals against the warehouse system's own reports before acting on them.
- Use the results to plan re-slotting and shift start times, and ask the same questions next month to see what changed.
What goes wrong
- Copilot can misread a column or group data wrongly. Check figures against the warehouse system's reports.
- Large exports are slow to work with in Excel. Export only the columns and dates you need.
- Whether free Copilot Chat works inside Excel depends on licensing; analysis in the workbook needs the Copilot license, charged per user.
- Peak season looks different. Compare the same month last year before planning peak staffing.