How Terreal leverages RPA to boost accuracy and efficiency

ABOUT

With 626 million euros in sales in 2020, and more than 3,300 employees worldwide, Terreal is a European key player of clay building materials. For more than 150 years, Terreal has been imagining responsible solutions by capitalizing on the beauty and durability of clay, as well as on the innovation of solar energy.

THE CHALLENGE

Terreal’s solution to tracking their pallet inventory had multiple steps, was likely to contain input errors, and required IT to spend many hours each week correcting the data. The purpose of tracking was to be able to reflect the inventory efficiently and accurately in their ERP. Another challenge the company faced was interrupted workflow. Many tasks were performed by individuals, so if they were absent the work was delayed. Not only was this delay inefficient, much of the work was manual copy and paste and subject to human input error.

730

Hours gained each year

100%

Accuracy

Up to 98%

more efficiency

Workflow

continues regardless of illness or vacation

“With Automation 360, we save 730 hours per year, if these tasks are manual. Regardless of company size, I think RPA is a must."

-Benoît Daupeyroux, Applications Project Manager quote

THE SOLUTION

Utilizing Automation 360 on premise the entire pallet inventory process was automated efficiently tracking nearly 60,000 stock movements per year, each being reflected in Terreal’s ERP. The solution of interrupted workflow due to employee absence, this instance being the integration between health insurance accounting and bank statements, was solved by automating the process. Integration occurred early in the morning before accountants arrived, regardless of whether or not someone was absent. Automation also solved the challenge of human input error, achieving desired efficiency and accuracy in each of these instances.

THE WHOLE STORY

Terreal has a service provider who sorts recyclable pallets and repairs them. The company wanted the various related pallet inventory actions reflected daily on their ERP. In the past, there was an attempt at automation using roundabout tools but because of input errors from external data received, the reports were usually wrong.

Presently, using automation, the bot efficiently performs all the operations to track the pallet inventory. It retrieves the files from the provider’s SFTP, performs several checks, integrates the data into an SQLite database, and then reports the stock movements directly in SAP. As a result, there are very few errors and pallet stock are more up to date. Another added benefit of automating this process for Terreal is that they now are able to use their own data to challenge related contracts.

One of the first processes automated at Terreal solved the challenge of interrupted workflow. Terreal receives bank statements and daily postings from the health insurance company, both of which require integration into their ERP. Before automation the processes were done manually, and when the employee responsible was absent the process was delayed and would not resume until the employee returned. Now, with automation, there is no interruption in this daily process. The bot reads the original file and transcribes it into postings in SAP. Once that process is finished, the bank statements are integrated, and processing summaries are sent. Both of these processes are completed efficiently, without the opportunity for human input error, before the accountants arrive each morning.

THE FUTURE

Recognizing the proven efficiency and scalability of automation, Terreal plans to expand the technology to other departments such as HR and customer service. A bot creation template is ready, integrating everything one needs to create a bot in just a few hours. And while there are many opportunities for future implementation of RPA in its home office in France, Terreal also plans to eventually implement RPA to its other company locations.