How Harney & Sons digitized production and unified its data with Forge

Digitizing production at a heritage tea manufacturer

How Forge by Structify digitized production and unified data across Harney & Sons Fine Teas - without disrupting the systems already running the business.

Results at a glance

The story at a glance

Before. Harney & Sons ran much of its production on paper, then re-typed it into spreadsheets by hand. That slowed decisions, introduced errors, and made the numbers impossible to trust.

With Forge. Forge replaced paper capture with validated digital workflows, added a semantic layer for business context and improved cross-dataset analysis, and automated order processes using read-only access and specialized permissions - so high-impact automation never came at the cost of security.

Impact. Adoption now spans four teams organization-wide, queries run on established rules and context drawn from a single source of trustworthy, current data, and live governance and connector approvals keep automation safe while giving leadership control over who can access sensitive information.

Who is Harney & Sons

Harney & Sons Fine Teas is a heritage tea manufacturer and distributor with a reputation for quality - and a growing appetite for running operations on better data. Behind the brand sits a real operational engine: multiple production and operational workflows powered by a mix of paper-based processes and business systems. The people driving change span leaders focused on digitization and reliability, as well as team members planning integrations and owning day-to-day outcomes.

Harney joined the Forge engagement to improve operational consistency and accelerate company-wide decision-making through access to clearer, more trustworthy data - without introducing risk to the systems already running their business.

What Forge built - and why it matters

Fragmented, paper-based capture. Production manually filled out 20+ paper forms across sachets, filling, blending, and bagging - then re-typed handwritten details into tools like Smartsheet, creating delays and limiting validation. Forge replaced this with validated digital capture and an improved PIM: structured digital forms validate data at the point of entry, while a dedicated product information layer keeps product data consistent across the business.

Limited cross-dataset visibility. Data sat in disconnected silos, leaving leaders unable to analyze across sources or reliably match records at scale - including against 100k+ SAP records - without slow, manual effort. Forge built a unified, queryable data layer: a semantic layer adds business context and links data across sources, enabling direct querying and reliable record matching - connected to SAP through read-only access by default.

Manual order operations. Ingesting documents, applying business logic, routing approvals, and updating downstream systems were all handled by hand. Forge delivered automated order workflows: inbound purchase orders are ingested, classified, and previewed for approval before any write.

Governance gaps as automation scaled. Automation was scaling faster than the controls meant to govern it - making approvals, access control, and business rules inconsistent. Forge added controlled access and lasting context: every automation runs on narrowly scoped permissions and requires approval before it connects or acts, while business rules and context - captured from sources like Slack - stay consistent over time.

Workflows built to last

Forge's workflows are built to last, not quick fixes that break the moment a form, a vendor, or a connected system changes. Data is checked right where the work happens, the business rules are written down in one place the system follows every time, and edits stick instead of getting lost. Important know-how is captured straight from Slack, so the rules and context that keep each workflow correct stay with it over time.

The result is automation that Harney can consistently rely on. As things change and the business grows, the workflows hold their shape, behave predictably, and keep producing trustworthy and reliable outcomes without constant rebuilding.

Adopted across the business

What began as a production digitization effort has spread across Harney's teams. Production runs structured capture at the point of work, procurement leans on PO-to-Sales-Order automation, and product teams use the product information management (PIM) experience for consistent and reliable product data. This adoption is reflected in the expansion to 15 users company-wide, with employees across the organization now working from the same trustworthy data rather than across multiple disconnected tools and programs. The result is a more connected, efficient operation where teams move faster, decisions rest on information they can trust, and the business runs with far less manual effort.

Leadership stays on top of the business

Beyond automating individual tasks, Forge gives Harney's leaders a much clearer view of their own operations. They can now analyze data across different sources and reliably match records at scale - including matching against 100k+ SAP records - so questions that once took hours of manual work can be answered directly. Leaders can see what's happening across production, procurement, and sales from data they can trust, and make faster, better-informed decisions because the picture is always current and consistent.

Results and value delivered

Expansion and future plans