Sada Group, with over a hundred years of history behind, produces high quality corrugated cardboard packaging and paper products. The Group has seven factories located throughout Italy, a strong propensity for technological innovation and is constantly expanding and evolving its business
Sada Group, founded in 1870 and initially specialized in the production of wooden packaging, transformed the core business of its activity in 1960 when it decided to start producing corrugated cardboard packaging, constantly expanding the product range, following the evolution of the market until 2006 when the production of cardboard and microwaveable cases was also implemented.
The company has always stood out for its research of cutting-edge management and production models in the corrugated cardboard and paper converting sector. The packaging market has always pushed towards technological innovations, making room for digital, also and above all, as regards production process.
Dynapack by Noratech: continuously evolving software since 2018
In the corrugated cardboard industry, 2018 saw the arising of Dynapack, an ERP system designed specifically for the packaging sector, capable of gaining the trust of over 30 companies operating worldwide in the cardboard field in just five years.
What distinguishes Dynapack is its ability to interconnect with other management software, including financial ones and the Manufacturing Execution System (MES).
Over the years, to meet the different needs of production companies, additional modules have been developed such as the Warehouse Management System (WMS) to manage both raw materials and finished products, as well as a mobile app dedicated to sales force.
Each improvement made to the solution has not only found application for Sada Group, consolidating a fruitful partnership, but has also been successfully adopted by other companies
Dynapack stands out for its ability to standardize processes, including financial and scheduling. This ensures perfect alignment between the different companies part of Sada Group, optimizing flows and procedures.
Face to face with Francesco Galdi, IT manager at Sada Group
What drives Sada Group to look for ERP software that is “different” from those on the market?
“Our Group currently has 6 companies and 7 production sites located throughout Italy. This often leads the staff of a site to move to another location for organizational, production and system issues. The need that pushed us to search for an ERP solution “different” from those on the market and which I was able to propose as an evolutionary technological investment to the ownership of Sada Group, arose from the need to find a common thread in the IT system of the entire group for the management of business flows. The reason is due to the fact that, while ten years ago corrugated cardboard producers had corrugated cardboard as their sole core business, instead now the machinery we adopt allows us to have mixed activities with varied production. I’m talking, for example, about the production of corrugated cardboard which is subsequently printed in the converting industry. This represented a great leap forward for companies in the sector, allowing them to create qualitatively and technologically innovative products. The other side of the coin concerns the need to consequently manage the “company system” as a single, perfectly functioning and efficient organism. We have been thinking for a while to equip ourselves with a single ERP software and standardize the company process management system for our corrugated division and our folding cartons division, to have a single working tool but with the flexibility to manage the peculiarities of each division. Before Dynapack, a solution of this kind did not exist”.
What made you realize that Dynapack was the right solution for you?
“I have personally known the people who would accompany us on this adventure for some time and I have always appreciated their professional skills. Noratech software house embodies a marked experience in our sector, thanks to the analysts of a team with mature knowledge of packaging production processes, specialized know-how and propensity to cooperate to achieve our objectives. Dynapack consultants, analysts and developers can understand the difficulties and opportunities of evolution of our reference market. The guys of the Dynapack team are reactive, ready to change and acquire all the skills necessary to achieve our constantly evolving goals. They can acquire ways of working which, although in a niche and uncommon sector, fully satisfy our needs, with a notable passion for the work they are doing. Dynapack exploits cutting-edge technologies and programming methodologies, which have allowed Noratech to race against time and make the software flexible, adaptable, dynamic, easily implementable and updatable. Furthermore, the possibility of managing all the business units with the same software allows us to carry out consolidated analyzes and monitor the work of the various divisions, taking advantage of the information organized with the same operating logic for all sites. This is a significant plus for us as well as a requirement. Another significant factor concerns having found in Noratech a single interlocutor and supplier to manage the entire active and passive flow in our companies”.
How did the collaboration with Noratech develop?
“From scratch is the most appropriate description. We started from a known and shared objective, typical of many companies in the sector, to develop an analysis starting from a blank sheet of paper. Dynapack is a software designed to be malleable and realizable, immediately defining possible verticalizations that can be implemented during development. In close collaboration with Noratech consultants, the area managers of Sada Group and their know-how, I dictated the guidelines on which Dynapack team based its analysis and customization of the software, starting from the guiding case represented by one of our factories newly acquired and not equipped with process management software at the time. From that prototype, the company organizational flow model was generated and, once the standard functions typical of the cardboard sector had been implemented, the software was literally tailored to the specific needs of the group, to accommodate our peculiarities. After 6 months of development “in the laboratory”, implementation began at site, a period in which analysts and end users of the ERP worked closely for the horizontal and vertical growth of a tool that currently permeates every activity of the group. The project progressed by moving to the other business units, where specificities and needs were collected. Thanks to all this, after 6 years from the beginning of what we can define as an adventure, the software satisfies 100% of the needs of a typical factory in the sector”.
The greatest and most stimulating satisfaction of this collaboration, which soon became a solid partnership, is that Dynapack software has no intention of stopping development and will continue to follow Sada Group in further implementations and possible future actions.
