Operations at Scale

Greenpaper's Journey: A Story of Technology and Sustainability

Imagine an employee walking through a massive warehouse in the scorching heat of Monterrey, Mexico, manually counting the inventory of waste paper day in and day out. That was Greenpaper's reality, a leading paper and cardboard for packaging manufacturing company with 82 years of experience, whose business is based on sustainability. Its raw material is 100% recycled paper, but the lack of a centralized inventory management system forced them to keep excessive amounts of waste paper. This practice was not only inefficient, it also went against the company's core values.

It was impossible to know exactly how much raw material was in stock and and to keep proper traceability. To comply with both government and customer requirements, it was essential to demonstrate which raw material was used for each product. These challenges, combined with a commitment to innovation, led them to seek a solution. In 2015, they found it in Epicor ERP.

Gustavo Carrillo, who at the time was Greenpaper's IT Director and led the implementation, explains their selection: "We evaluated several ERP providers, and Epicor ERP was the clear leader due to its flexibility in meeting the specific requirements of our industry."

A Step Forward in Efficiency and Sustainability

With Epicor ERP, Greenpaper transformed its operations. The system provided the control they needed to reduce inventory levels significantly. More importantly, it enabled more accurate classification of raw materials, leading to better quality control and a significant increase in production line efficiency. The success of the on-premise system paved the way for even greater change.

The Leap to the Cloud

Building on this success, Greenpaper's strategic plan included moving to the cloud. In 2022, they migrated their system to Epicor Kinetic, a decision that brought them numerous benefits. Not only did it provide robust security, better disaster recovery, and scalability, but it also significantly reduced their environmental footprint.

Carrillo noted, "By not needing on-site servers and all the space and resources they require, the company's environmental impact was significantly reduced."

The Next Frontier: Automation with Fluent

In late 2022, Greenpaper took a bold step in its digital transformation journey by adopting Fluent, the AI-powered automation platform from Technology Coast Partners (TCP). This strategic partnership introduced powerful artificial intelligence (AI) and automation agents to optimize its operations further, increase efficiency, and address persistent challenges.

In a recent conversation with Iván Rebolledo, CRO of Technology Coast Partners, Gustavo Carrillo, now Operations Planning Manager at Greenpaper at Greenpaper, shared the experience and the clear, immediate benefits that the Fluent platform brought to the company.

Operational Empowerment and Maintenance Efficiency

Greenpaper operates a manufacturing plant that runs 24/7, 3 shifts a day, 365 days a year, where continuous maintenance is essential. The machines are colossal, comparable in length to a football field.

Carrillo explains that the most impactful change came from the Fluent WhatsApp integration, directly with the Epicor Kinetic maintenance module, allowing for seamless communication and data transfer. The most notable results have been:

Real-time incident reporting: The Fluent WhatsApp integration has replaced computers on the production floor, allowing operators to report incidents in real time from their phones, and even attach a video of the problem.
Data-driven decision-making and cost reduction: Historical data collection on failures and root causes, directly from the operators on the production floor, has enriched decision-making. This has made it possible to identify root causes by pinpointing "which sections of the machine we have been investing more in corrective than preventive expenses."
Staff savings and effort reduction: People dedicated to manual reporting were reassigned. Manual data entry was replaced with direct operator interaction, and information is classified using dashboards. This helped focus efforts on "significant cost reduction in the maintenance department." The staff's role in this transition empowered them to take control of their tasks and contribute to the company's efficiency.

Automation of Critical Workflows

Fluent automated several key workflows, eliminating manual processes, the risk of errors, and freeing up valuable time. Highlights include:

Financial Accuracy and Data

Exchange rate updates: Before Fluent was implemented, manually updating exchange rates caused transaction disruptions and inaccurate data. With Fluent, the system now automatically synchronizes global exchange rates—primarily the U.S. dollar—in Epicor Kinetic, ensuring complete data integrity and eliminating errors from manually entered information. This manual task was performed religiously by an accounting staff member "from home, starting at 6:00 am." He was able to "stop working overtime" and the process became "accurate and transparent".

Optimized Communication and Customer Service

Automatic document delivery: Sending payment receipts to suppliers was a manual and irregular task that strained relationships. With Fluent, invoices, credit notes, payment receipts, and account statements are now automatically formatted, attached, and emailed. This has improved communication and relationships with suppliers, strengthening the entire supply chain. Fluent also automated sending of invoices and remittances to customers at the time of shipment.
Error Elimination and Rapid Response: Automation eliminates the risk of sending the wrong document, or a document to a mistaken email address. It also provides online information for customers, which previously could take one, two, or even three hours after shipment.
Freeing Up Customer Service Staff: At least 12 customer service staff members spent 20-30% of their time manually sending emails with documents and invoices for approximately 100 shipments per day, time that is now freed up and dedicated to other strategic customer service activities.

Mobility with Fluent

Gustavo Carrillo explains that Greenpaper is a company with more than 1,000 employees, and that the number of requests generated across the company is extremely high. He points out that among the most notable benefits of implementing Fluent are:

Requisition approval: The requisition approval flow, which was previously a very manual process, often done on paper, has been automated. Now, when a requisition is submitted, it is automatically routed to the appropriate approver based on predefined rules, significantly reducing the time and effort required for approval.
Global access: Field staff and the Directive Committee/CEO can now approve or request requisitions "from anywhere in the world." This was previously impossible, as they had to be "glued to their computers."
Immediate acceptance: The leadership team now sees it as a tool they can't imagine working without.

Leadership and Sustainability

The combination of Epicor Kinetic and Fluent has not only optimized Greenpaper's internal processes but also reinforced its legacy as a sustainable and technologically advanced industry leader.

For a company whose mission is to turn recycled paper into valuable products, this new era of digital efficiency is the expression of that core value.

For Carrillo, the advantages of Fluent were apparent and immediate. "The cost-benefit ratio and return on investment (ROI) have been rapid, especially considering the company's transaction volume and future growth plans."

Future Challenges and AI-Focused Strategic Vision

For Greenpaper, the future strategy focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) and leveraging historical data for decision-making, taking advantage of the data and history available since 2018. The next challenge will be integrating data from Epicor Kinetic's native fields, creating additional fields within Epicor Kinetic, and even from other systems for AI to use.

A Long-Term Partnership with TCP

"The support service from TCP has been hands-on throughout all processes, step by step, and given our 24/7 operation, after-hours and weekends, support has been key. They have adapted to our needs. Over time, the relationship has evolved from support to solving new challenges. Rather than talking about fixing something, we now talk about new needs. It is clear to us as a company that TCP is an ally, not a supplier.” —says Carrillo.

Today, Greenpaper continues to lead the industry, producing paper and cardboard from recycled materials on machines the size of a football field. By embracing technology, they have created a perfect synergy between their business goals and their commitment to a greener planet.

From a company that once relied on manual processes to a digitally transformed leader that leverages cloud computing and artificial intelligence, Greenpaper's journey is a powerful testament to the perfect symbiosis between technology and sustainability.