Jamie Zepeda

IT Technical/Functional Analyst II, Ring Container Technologies

Ring Container Technologies, a global private company located in Oakland, TN. We have grown to be one of the largest plastic container manufacturers in North America, our products probably grace your pantry. Focused on finding sustainable solutions for over 50 yrs, our growth and success are rooted in:

  • A corporate culture in which people are challenged to be leaders, innovators, encouraged to enjoy their work
  • A "focused plant" philosophy that ensures we have plants with the most advanced technology, geographically located near our major customers to meet their needs and help them grow
  • A commitment to be fiscally, socially, and environmentally responsible every step of the way

We are a sister company of RAPAC, the largest recycler of polystyrene in the U.S.

Supernova Award Category: 
Tech Optimization and Modernization
The Problem: 

With over 1.5 million bottles produced annually, we adhere to the guiding principle of 'Stronger, Faster, Lighter' to swiftly deliver to customers quality containers designed for increased strength and reduced weight. Similarly, the IT department is aligned with this principle,deliver lightweight, robust application capabilities, faster. The goal is to empower plant users to concentrate on manufacturing containers that meet customer specifications, rather than being tethered to a computer.

With 19 plants operating worldwide, there was an opportunity to automate and standardize Bill of Lading management across all plants using RPA. We process approximately 1500 Bill of Lading documents from shipping every week, and each plant manages them in different ways.These processes involved file cabinets, local file systems, etc which were time-consuming and became problematic when having to locate documents to resolve a customer issue promptly.

There was also an opportunity to enhance the efficiency and precision of post-production auditing using AI. Physical inventory is reported into the ERP by accounting for each finished goods unit by its unique identifier. With a manual reporting process, it took a day to find gaps in physical inventory. Users need to know which finished goods were not accounted for promptly and reconcile this because it impacts the accounting of raw materials and the availability of inventory in our ERP to fulfill a shipment when needed.

The Solution: 

As an Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise customer, Infor RPA is an integrated service, providing an automated and efficient way to digitize and manage Bill of Lading documents. In minutes, Infor RPA processes and centralizes hundreds of documents in Infor IDM without requiring human intervention and eliminating the need for paper documents. By linking all documents to customer, order, and shipment details, customer inquiries that used to take days are now resolved within seconds or minutes. 

Similarly, Infor AI is an integrated service with the Infor OS Platform, providing a fast solution to automation post-production auditing across all plants. In a matter of minutes, AI finds missing unique identifiers in the sequence that was expected in the past and presented in the Infor Birst dashboard. With instant insights, users are empowered to quickly take action to address inventory discrepancies and reconcile all the inventory with an audit trail of how that process was working.

The Results: 

Signed Bill of Lading document management challenges:

  • Time-consuming and error-prone when filing away papers or manually digitizing
  • Customer complaints when it takes too to locate documents when an inquiry is made

Infor RPA bots to process, tag, and upload documents in Infor IDM:

  • Lower operational costs– employees save time in storing and retrieving documents
  • Better customer service – resolve customer inquiries on shipment or traceability quickly 
  • Happier employees – staff focus on manufacturing high-quality bottles rather than spending time shuffling and searching for documents 

Post-production inventory management challenges:  

  • Delays in accounting for missing/damaged inventory due to manual and delayed reporting.  
  • Extra costs due to incorrect procurement of raw materials and inability to fulfill shipments due to inaccurate accounting of inventory 
  • Unable to understand and resolve post-production or shop floor issues that contribute to missing/damaged inventory 

Infor AI finds missing units, presented in the Infor Birst dashboard:

  • Swifter operations – Hourly report of missing physical inventory to work on a resolution right away 
  • Lower costs - improved on-time delivery, precise procurement of raw materials, automated/accurate reporting 
  • Optimal operations – proactively resolve post-production issues contributing to missing/damaged inventory
Metrics: 

The value of Infor OS Platform allows users to redirect their time and efforts toward the production of high-quality bottles and better serve customers. 

Ring Container can now manage Bill of Lading documents more efficiently and reliably with Infor RPA:

  • Lower operational costs: Achieved $102,000 US annual savings with 2700 hours saved annually in centralizing documents online and 4125 hours saved annually in customer inquiries 
  • Enhanced customer service: Achieving a 96% faster resolution for customer inquiries related to shipment or traceability, within seconds instead of hours or days.
  • Rapid value realization: Experienced tangible benefits within 60 days 

Ring Container can now manage inventory more efficiently and accurately with the new AI dashboard providing the following value:   

  • Swifter operations: Achieved 24X faster inventory reconciliation, from daily to hourly.
  • Lower costs: Saved $75,000 US or 4,940 hours annually with automated, accurate reporting. 
  • Rapid value realization: Experienced tangible benefits within 90 days. 
The Technology: 

Infor OS Platform is a cloud innovation platform to help achieve real, lasting value from digital transformation and is powered by Infor OS (Operating Service). It delivers everything you need to tackle any use case and is the fabric that connects your entire enterprise ecosystem. We used the Infor Value+ solutions built for Infor CloudSuites so you can deploy modern technology like AI and Enterprise Automation/RPA in record time.

Disruptive Factor: 

We pride ourselves on having the latest and greatest manufacturing technology in our plants. But we're getting to a point now where the information technology and user adoption of that technology such as RPA and AI are going to be necessary to walk alongside to improve our operational efficiency. 

The guiding principle of ‘stronger, faster, lighter’ in creating easy-to-use applications with the least number of keystrokes was key in identifying the RPA and AI use cases and successful user adoption.  Users don’t want to interact with a computer on the plant floor, so with this in mind, the innovation strategy must streamline the processes and minimize the number of keystrokes required to ship a truckload of plastic bottles produced.  This requires knowing your end users and fostering collaboration with regular meetings to bring teams together to share their experiences and collectively identify improvement opportunities that can be implemented across all plants.  

If we were to imagine running our business today without the power of the Infor OS Platform, it would be very difficult, if not unimaginable as we grow as a company.  We obviously don't grow with resources, so we are very dependent on the Infor OS the constant evolution of our applications as we grow as a company.

Shining Moment: 

A requirement in moving to Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise from on-prem Infor LN was not to disrupt the business and we 100% achieved this. Transitioning to Infor’s cloud multi-tenant architecture positioned us to expand and customize without business disruption in theory. This theory was successfully proven when we integrated RPA and AI automation capabilities into business processes, enabling our employees to better focus in getting quality products to the customers.

About Ring Container Technologies

Ring provides cost-effective, quality packaging solutions and support you can rely on. We’re more than just a vendor. You can count on our team to serve as a true partner in supply chain management. Our long-term customers choose Ring because we’ve proven our ability to be consistent, reliable, and responsive.