Luca Pirovano, Business Developer Manager at Fratelli Pirovano S.p.A., tell us about your company.
Fratelli Pirovano S.p.A. manufactures and markets metal components, washers, disc springs, shims and spacers. Our products are all speciality products, and we work mainly with the automotive, agricultural and related sectors. We are about seventy people and our head office is in Casatenovo, we have another production site in Barzago where we also manage the whole raw material side.
All stages of production are carried out within the production facilities: mould preparation, normal and fine blanking, heat treatment of components, machining and final automatic selection for shipment.
How did you learn about Cloudia Research?
Through a network of professionals. Our company needed to automate the process of creating sales orders as it is currently done completely manually. The amount of time that is spent on this simple process at the moment is out of proportion to the value added by the operator.
What kind of service was Cloudia Research proposing, then?
We needed to automate the purchase order acquisition process through the use of artificial intelligence. The solution implemented by Cloudia Research starts directly from the files that are emailed by our customers, which can be of any type and extension (PDF, Excel, Word…), the artificial intelligence identifies all the parameters in the file such as customer, article, quantity, and price. Subsequently, the data is imported directly into our ERP system creating a sales order. The operator merely checks that the data entered is correct.
What benefits has the implementation of this technology brought to your business?
The benefits were evident right from the start. By reducing the time the operator invested in order entry by at least one man-day, we reduced repetitive and lower value-added processes. Our employees can then concentrate more on more qualified activities, improving not only the quality of the process, but also the economic results that the company requires.
How did the consultancy activities take place, and what kind of teamwork was organised for the service?
From the very first moment, the consultancy was very professional and very attentive to the needs of the company I represent. Right from the start, all the consultants were proactive towards our needs and tried to get to the bottom of the peculiarities of our industry without taking anything for granted. This in my opinion allowed Cloudia Research to fully understand what we needed.
Would you choose Cloudia Research consultants again?
Absolutely, without any doubt. Compared to the consulting world my company is used to, the proactivity shown by Cloudia Research’s consultants was remarkable from the very beginning. The variety of services they manage to put on the table is also very interesting, and we will certainly continue the collaboration. One hypothesis that has already been considered is the possibility of using artificial intelligence to identify surface defects in certain types of products that our sorting machines are currently unable to detect due to technological limitations. We are convinced that the adoption of this technology implemented by experienced consultants such as those of Cloudia Research can bring enormous benefits in this respect as well.
