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Sappi: Enhancing Supply Chain Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction with IoT
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Paper & Pulp
- Transportation
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Last Mile Delivery
- Supply Chain Visibility
The Challenge
Sappi Europe, a division of Sappi Limited, is a leading global provider of pulp, paper, packing, and sustainable wood fibre products and solutions. Despite its dominant position in the market, the company faced significant challenges in optimizing its supply chain and improving customer service. The increasing supply in the market resulted in overcapacity, necessitating cost reduction and a greater customer focus. Sappi also faced mounting pressures to digitize operations, with their supply chain being a key area of focus. A significant challenge was that 50% of their customer service enquiries were related to the status of shipments, demanding a considerable amount of time and administrative effort.
About The Customer
Sappi Europe is a division of Sappi Limited, a South Africa-based leading global provider of pulp, paper, packing, and sustainable wood fibre products and solutions. The company produces 3.7 million tons of paper and 1.12 million tons of paper pulp each year across ten mills, employing over 5,600 people. Despite its dominant position within the market, Sappi faces challenges due to increasing supply in the market, prompting the need for cost reduction and a greater customer focus.
The Solution
Sappi partnered with Shippeo to provide a single platform that connects with over 300 forwarding agents and subcontracted carriers, allowing all supply chain collaborators to share the same real-time singular view of shipments. This platform also gives Sappi the flexibility to onboard carriers more easily and collect real-time insights on carrier performance. The solution was deployed across multiple countries, with plans to add more. The platform also helps meet evolving B2B customer expectations by sharing more delivery information, reducing the number of contacts the customer service center receives. By sharing automated notifications proactively on shipment statuses and delivery ETAs, the number of enquiries was dramatically reduced. This relied on highly accurate and reliable ETA predictions, with Sappi finding Shippeo’s ETA calculation to be the most developed, taking into account more than 200 data parameters.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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