Digitalization in food retail: The fax lives on
You think the fax is dead? Far from it. Faxes are still being sent today, for example to place orders. What seems absolutely anachronistic due to advancing digitalization is still a reality in many companies. This is also the case with a large network of food retailers. Here, various products are sent by fax to suppliers via a uniform order form. Although faxes can now be received and sent digitally via e-mail using fax software, there is still the problem that the data must be manually transferred to the ERP. It was the same with our customer 3Bears, a startup for healthy porridge products known from the show “Die Höhle der Löwen”.
Media breaks in the ordering process at 3Bears
As I said, 3Bears receives orders from the food retailer network by fax, converted into a PDF using fax software and then forwarded by e-mail to the appropriate recipient. This finally enters the order into xentral's ERP system and creates an order. This is what the process looked like until recently. A process that took unnecessary time and had to be changed.
A cloud-based OCR solution for automated processes
We from ruhr.agency were commissioned to automate the process and then developed a script. What is special about this script? It is based on OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and automatically reads contained text fields from PDFs or images. However, the key to the success of such process automation is not just extracting data.
Structured data extraction using OCR technology
It is important that the relevant data is read out and that it follows a specific structure and can therefore also be assigned and further processed. Our specially developed script was specially programmed for the LEH provider and from now on 3Bears ensures that an order is generated directly from the incoming order in Xentral ERP.
Technical implementation with AWS and xentral API
As I said, the solution we developed for 3Bears is based on OCR technology and is serverless, cost-effective and cloud-based hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This in turn ensures high scalability and low maintenance costs. From a technical point of view, the script is automatically activated when a new fax email is received and first reads in an attached PDF or image file. It then extracts the contained text data, validates it and processes it further.
Automated order entry including discounts
During this process, predefined information such as the customer's order date, GLN and delivery address, order items with quantity and article number or EAN are read out and transmitted to the Xentral API in such a way that a new order is automatically created. The special feature: Our script also takes customer-specific discounts and payment terms into account.
Last step: approval by the employee
Once the order has been created in the ERP system, it only needs to be checked and approved by an employee. Of course, if necessary, changes can also be made at this point if information is missing and incorrect.
Conclusion: Automation reduces errors and effort
This example shows how useful process automation using scripts can be. There is no need for tedious, manual work and, on the other hand, fault tolerance decreases as data is automatically validated. This solution can of course be transferred to other processes. If you are also struggling with processes that hinder or slow down your daily work, simply contact us. we will find a suitable solution for you too.
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