RTS plans the future together with customers thanks to the centrality of the new RTS HUB platform, a new cloud-based tool that acts as data integration between the different systems of the cardboard supply chain. In an event dedicated to customers and prospects, RTS traced the path for the evolutions of the future by talking about data, integration, Artificial Intelligence and digital eco-system
In a world where company data are constantly growing and whose analysis is the basis of a correct and modern company management, RTS organized last May 24th an event at Garda Lake, inviting interested customers and prospects to understand more, around 80 people, for a day of in-depth analysis and workshops on these increasingly central issues also in the world of cardboard packaging production.
“We want to plan the future together with our customers and for this reason we have organized a new event, in order to share our dream and our vision on the future of the sector”, comments Robertino Piazza, CEO of RTS at the opening of the meeting.
“RTS Visionary Network 2024” aims to be the starting point of a journey to be undertaken together with customers, with those who use these solutions daily, avoiding pre-packaged and studied proposals in arbitrary way. RTS therefore proposes itself as a driver of the digital eco-system in the packaging supply chain.
RTS digital ecosystem and co-design together with customers
In an increasingly digital world in all sectors of life and business, the digital ecosystem is made up of all those heterogeneous technologies that allow the corporate and inter-company subsystems of the supply chain to communicate, to share internal and external data and generate in this way added corporate value.
“In continuity with what has been done so far, we think of the Webord solution, presented by RTS about 20 years ago, which allowed corrugators to communicate with box factories, creating real value within the supply chain”, adds Piazza.
Starting from this example, RTS today proposes the evolution of its systems through the concept of RTS HUB through which different applications and data can communicate and integrate, inside and outside the company.
When we talk about company data we talk about IT security, in fact RTS HUB is based on a series of tools capable of guaranteeing it. RTS’s first choice was to become ISO 27001 certified, the next to adopt communication via API, a communication standard in the technological world, and finally to rely on Datacenters (cloud); a decision that allowed RTS to continue to operate without problems even during the terrible floods in Romagna last year.
RTS HUB: center for integrating company data into the digital ecosystem
All these tools are the basis of the new RTS HUB proposal, which represents the evolution of Global, the platform of the Forlì software house, developed to simplify communication between the different systems in the supply chain, inside and outside the company.
“To create a solution of this kind, several important investments are needed, starting with people. Precisely for this reason, in the last two years 7 young collaborators have joined our staff, they are training to be able to face the market with a solid know-how”, comments Robertino Piazza.
Furthermore, a fundamental point of this new project is the involvement of customers from the early design stages, to propose to the market solutions capable of satisfying their real needs, intervening immediately with the necessary corrective measures and not after the release with subsequent updates.
For customers who decide to work with RTS at this new model of development of the software solutions dedicated to them, there will be the advantage of being able to use these innovations before others, therefore an advantage in time and competitiveness, and last but not least also an economical advantage on the purchase of the solution, having contributed significantly to its development.
The RTS HUB platform therefore represents a significant step forward for the corrugated cardboard industry, improving the workflow and the collaborative relationship with customers.
As explained by Andrea Danielli, RTS R&D Manager, Big Data are constantly growing and more and more devices are interconnected; but quantity does not mean quality of the data which must still be analyzed and verified.
Big Data are not limited to the world of work, social media is a clear example of how this amount of information is increasing exponentially in the world around us; one of the problems of modern society is the attention of employees who are bombarded every day by external stimuli; just consider that, on average, each person looks at his mobile phone 150 times a day. This inevitably leads to being distracted and not paying the right amount of attention to the information.
To help the company deal with this “distraction”, the Highlights module is released among the RTS HUB tools: this module allows the customer to create activities to carry out when certain events occur; in this way it is possible to dynamically feed a user’s “to-do-list” in order to organize the activities that need to be carried out; fundamental feature is the integration with the ERP which allows direct access to the functions centralizing everything in a single solution.
Tools for the sales force and advanced features for management control
Marco Trastu, Product Manager of RTS, highlighted how with the new HUB platform, based on cloud, all the tools can be immediately usable, by anyone and at any time. Therefore, a tool like Smart Sales Extended is, for the sales force, the equivalent of a portable office through which it is possible to view all customer information, including payment status, order details and price list, create new real-time estimates, monitor activities and deadlines, communicate with customers quickly and easily and, finally, analyze personal sales performance from any device.
Gianni Piolanti, Product Manager of RTS, presented the advanced functions for management control within a cardboard packaging company through the Data Warehouse which allows you to collect data from the various sources of the company ecosystem, verify validity and normalize them to improve the quality of datum, making it usable for querying.
Today, data can be analyzed using Business Intelligence, a fundamental tool for understanding performance and supporting the company in strategic decisions. The strong point of the Data Warehouse is the possibility of having information from multiple sites (for comparative analyses).
In this sense it is also interesting the testimony of engineer Corrado Trasforini, Divisional CEO ReLife Group and Dr. Irakli Bano, Group CIO ReLife Group, representatives of ReLife spa, made up of a holding company and 4 divisions: Recyling, Paper Mill, Paper Packaging and Plastic Packaging. Their commercial strategy identifies with circular economy through the collection of paper and plastic (recycling), their reuse (paper mill, plastic and paper packaging) and commercial re-proposal as new consumer goods: paper reels for tube factories, plastic bags for rubbish but also clothing and corrugated cardboard packaging.
Eng. Corrado Trasforini told the story of the path that led to the integration of the various acquisitions over the years: from the first, which gave birth to the Packaging division within the ReLife group in 2021, to the latest which took place at the end of 2023 , while Dr. Irakli Bano, thanks to his previous work experience, illustrated the technical aspects that supported the integration with acquisitions and the interface between RTS and SAP for invoicing. RTS obviously played an active role as a protagonist throughout this process.
The Packaging division of the ReLife group can now use the RTS application with a single multi-site license which allows the unified management of all company activities, automatically managing invoicing operations via a single connector to the group ERP – SAP 4/ Hana, to have a global vision of the company’s business. A certainly ambitious project which however has been perfectly realized by RTS.
The new digital eco-system launched by RTS through the new HUB includes a roadmap by October 2024 with 4 releases that will implement the solution by the end of the year.
The in-depth discussions held in the afternoon were also very interesting. In separate groups, customers and prospects were able to delve deeper into the co-design method presented by Robertino Piazza. The consultants from Induvation, a company specializing in lean production, moderated these in-depth discussions on the topics of RTS Hub, new modules and Data Warehouse.
The in-depth study in co-design mode allowed RTS managers to gather many reflection hints on which developing the new functions of the modules and customers could understand how active collaboration in the development phase of RTS solutions is an important benefit for all of them.
