Situation

Amcor Fibre Packaging Australasia (AFPA) is part of the Amcor Limited group of companies, a leading global packaging company, and operates 13 corrugated box manufacturing plants in Australia and New Zealand.

AFPA made a strategic decision to improve their competitive advantage in the Australian box manufacturing market. They focused efforts on improving customers’ time to market by streamlining order processes.

However implementing the strategic plan was not straightforward due to obstacles caused by negotiating multiple, disparate front-end systems. The lack of integration between these systems often meant double-handling and double-entry of order information.

Further complexity was introduced by the need for on-demand access to the system. The large and often mobile workforce is dispersed throughout Australia and New Zealand and they need secure access to the system at any time, through various types of connections.

Solution

AFPA adopted the iSpek Packaging Creator to automate the packaging specification process. This has made it possible to easily create specifications online and choose optimised solutions based on the product requirements.

As iSpek is now the primary user interface and is integrated with the legacy systems, the issue of double-entry was resolved.

 

iSpek is browser-based, which eliminates the need for individual installation and maintenance on the users' machines. This also means that users can access the system from anywhere with a browser and a low or high bandwidth internet connection.

The need for secure access is met by using SSL encryption and role-based user profiles. The profiles are used to provide and restrict access to parts of iSpek. This allows key internal staff, customers and suppliers to collaborate on projects using iSpek, without any concerns about exposing sensitive data.

Improved Business Operations

With iSpek the sales force are better equipped to provide the most appropriate solutions for customers and provide instant quotations. They can then place the order on the spot, which is then transferred to the backend sales systems for processing and invoicing.

AFPA has embraced the new system and now has over 370 users realising the benefits of iSpek.

Impact

By adopting iSpek AFPA has realised huge reductions in effort and rework across the new product specification process. Time taken to define requirements, produce a design and submit the specification has decreased by 50%. AFPA will incur additional savings as additional iSpek functionality is rolled out within the business.