Smart Automation, RPA  /  Energy and utilities

Customer Order Automation: A Successful Project to Transform Processes 

As part of a project to improve Customer Order Management, Novelis partnered with Nexans, global leader in cabling and electrical systems. The goal of this collaboration was to enhance the speed and efficiency of order processing through an automated system that reads email orders and integrates them into the commercial ERP.

The client's challenges and objectives

For Nexans, amidst a reduction in Customer Service (ADV) resources across Europe, the objective was to accelerate order processing while minimizing the risk of human error to maximize operational efficiency. Previously, manual data entry into the SAP ERP caused significant delays in order handling and execution, as well as increased the risk of human error. Nexans needed a solution to automate the reception, entry, and archiving of orders to improve efficiency and reduce turnaround times for customers. 

Our achievements

Our Solution: Tailored Automation 

To meet these needs, we deployed ABBYY’s FlexiCapture solution, seamlessly integrating it with Nexans’ existing systems. The key components of our solution included: 

  1. Integration with Exchange Server: This step enables the automatic reading of incoming emails containing purchase orders, facilitating data capture and processing.
  2. Configuration of the FlexiCapture tool: Custom-tailored to analyze customer orders and cross-reference them with ERP data. The solution is also configured to rapidly scale up for new order formats, leveraging AI capabilities built into the tool. 
  3. Development of a SharePoint Connector: For optimal document archiving, we developed a connector to store all orders processed by the solution, accessible by company, year, and supplier.
  4. ERP Integration: The orders processed by FlexiCapture are integrated into the ERP by leveraging an existing client EDI integration at Nexans. 

By automating the retrieval, extraction, and integration of data into Nexans’ ERP, our solution transforms the order process into three simple steps: email processing, data reading and validation, and data submission + archiving. Using technologies such as PowerShell, Exchange Server, ABBYY FlexiCapture, and C#, we created a universal, adaptable process capable of handling any order format. 

Results

Significant Reduction in Order Processing Time 

Our collaboration with Nexans drastically reduced the time required to process orders. What once took much longer is now automated and verified, with each order now processed in just a few minutes on average. 

Operational efficiency has greatly improved, human errors have been minimized, and the time saved has been reallocated to higher-value tasks. Nexans can now handle a larger volume of orders without increasing resources, thereby optimizing overall performance. 

 

Efficient Management through Automation 

At Novelis, our strength lies in our combined expertise in Intelligent Automation and Intelligent Document Processing (IDP). We have the ability to transform unstructured documents into actionable data, enriching our overall approach to information management. 

Our Business Analysts provide a strategic outlook, proposing solutions aligned with investment objectives and the required architectures. Together, we aim to deliver solutions that not only meet immediate needs but are also sustainable and scalable for the future. 

From Complex Processes to Efficient Management 

Our partnership with Nexans perfectly illustrates how intelligent automation can transform complex, time-consuming processes into streamlined, efficient workflows. We are proud to have supported Nexans in this innovation journey, and we remain committed to providing solutions that not only meet but exceed our clients’ expectations, delivering tangible, measurable productivity gains. 

We continue to position ourselves as strategic partners for businesses looking to harness the benefits of automation and digital transformation, creating tailored solutions that meet their specific needs. 

Novelis' added value

Our expertise in Intelligent Automation

Through our expertise in RPA, AI, NLP and IDP, we are able to help our clients to deliver efficient automation projects: Intelligent Automation.    

This means taking into account a general vision of the technology and its contributions in order to deliver a relevant solution to manage both structured and unstructured data, always with the concern of being aligned with the IT roadmap and impacting the economic performance (ROI). 

In addition to our software robots, we also add a particular expertise in the “process mining” or “process assessment” dimension in order to allow the rapid identification of processes and tasks to be automated in priority.   

Our Business Analysts complete this system in the capacity to propose a high vision of the potential of the technology, the investments to be made, the architectures to be deployed and of course the expected ROI. 

Learn more

Luc Fossier

Head of Commercial IT

Implementing the FlexiCapture solution with Novelis’ expert assistance has dramatically improved the speed of customer order entry, especially for orders containing hundreds of lines, which are now integrated into SAP in just a few minutes, compared to the four hours it used to take to manually input them. This solution is particularly relevant for mid-sized customers who haven’t yet sent their orders to Nexans via EDI.