Sappi streamlines operations with intelligent automation

Like any global organization, Sappi has a vast network with diverse departments. From finance and HR to logistics and manufacturing, there’s a multitude of repetitive tasks. “In every department and every team,” explains Wojciech Bazarnik, robotic process automation Lead at Sappi Cracow Center of Process Excellence, “There are tasks that, until recently, required someone to sit and process in the same way, over and over again.”

The sheer volume of these recurring processes presented a significant automation opportunity for the company. Not just in administrative and financial functions, but across other departments too. Sappi began exploring advanced automation possibilities four years ago. Before, Bazarnik had frequently encountered the limitations of traditional continuous improvement projects.

“We would often reach out to IT for custom solutions or rely on skilled individuals,” he recalls. But we wanted a more complete solution that could meet the bigger needs of the business. While external consultancy firms provided ad-hoc solutions, Sappi sought to build internal expertise in automation too.

This quest for a sustainable, scalable solution led Sappi to UiPath and its partner Office Samurai.

We wanted to learn from others’ experiences. Office Samurai provided valuable training and insights on UiPath, which helped solidify our decision.

Wojciech Bazarnik • robotic process automation Lead at Sappi Cracow Center of Process Excellence

Bazarnik says UiPath is easy to use. This means Sappi can connect it to its current systems and applications without specialist knowledge. “UiPath works seamlessly with the tools our employees use every day, such as spreadsheets and PDFs,” he says. This blend of easy-to-use technology and expert guidance laid the foundation for Sappi’s automation journey.

Entering the parthenon of automation

With UiPath and Office Samurai training under its belt, Sappi’s internal team was eager to demonstrate the power of automation. The first creation was a robot named Hermes, after the Greek god of messengers. It was made to automatically make a weekly report for the finance director.

“We wanted to show that we could implement automation quickly,” explains Bazarnik. “Hermes allowed the finance director to focus on analyzing the data, rather than compiling it.” Before, the report was a manual, long job, often taking about an hour to prepare. With Hermes, it could be generated in under three minutes. Moreover, any request to rerun the report with different parameters could be made almost instantly.

Hermes was an instant success. While senior leadership was already supportive of automation, Hermes provided tangible evidence of its potential across the business. Sappi continued its distinct naming convention for its robots to further engage employees, drawing inspiration from Greek mythology and historic characters.

Naming the robots helped to humanize them and improve internal communication. Instead of referring to ‘the robot that reads documents,’ we would say ‘Hermes delivered the report.’ It gave them a personality.

Wojciech Bazarnik • robotic process automation Lead at Sappi Cracow Center of Process Excellence

Each robot’s name was carefully chosen to reflect its function or purpose, aiding quick identification and creating a sense of camaraderie within the team. Bazarnik jokes, “Sisyphus, named after the figure condemned to endlessly push a rock uphill, was tasked with the repetitive job of verifying VAT numbers every month. It’s a perfect example of how automation performs the same, repetitive tasks.”

However, the introduction of automation has raised concerns among employees about job security. To deal with these worries, Sappi took a careful and open approach. “We had discussions with staff, acknowledging their concerns,” Bazarnik adds. “We started with small, low-risk automations to demonstrate that robots were there to support them, not replace them.”

After a year, the team was flooded with requests. They had deployed about 80 automations, saving around 5,000 hours in the European region alone. As demand for automation grew, Sappi recognized the need to balance quick wins with larger, more impactful projects. This paved the way for an automation project named Gutenberg.

The Gutenberg story

Sappi identified the perfect large-scale opportunity: processing booking confirmations from freight carriers. “Every day, the logistics team receives booking confirmations in PDF format,” explains Bazarnik. “They had to manually read each document, extract key information, and store it in the correct folders with appropriate naming formats.”

This process was not only tedious but prone to errors. One person worked on this task all day, spending hours looking through documents. Bazarnik adds, “This information was also used by other logistics teams, such as transport planners and managers, for analysis. Any errors here could have consequences down the chain.” He pauses, “If we calculate the time spent on this process, it was close to 2,000 hours per year.”

The process involved several complex steps, including identifying the most recent booking confirmation for each order, sifting through countless emails, and extracting specific data from each PDF file. “This would include carrier names, arrival times, container numbers, destinations and so on,” explains Bazarnik.

With numerous freight carriers in its supply chain, each with its own unique document formats and layouts, the process became an ideal proof of concept for UiPath’s Document Understanding. The bot now gathers and sorts emails before extracting the required data.

Gutenberg processes around 12,000 documents annually, with 80% requiring no employee intervention. The robot does what a human does, but much faster and more accurately. But there’s always a human-in-the-loop to handle any exceptions.

Wojciech Bazarnik • robotic process automation Lead at Sappi Cracow Center of Process Excellence

The impact of Gutenberg was significant. The project has saved Sappi around 600 hours since its implementation so far, a substantial reduction.

More importantly, it showcased how the internal team—with the right support in place—can automate an entire end-to-end process. “After Gutenberg, we received even more project ideas from the same team,” Bazarnik adds. “They saw what was possible and wanted to apply it to other processes.”

Expanding horizons

Sappi has put in place 132 automations. This has saved about 13,000 hours in Europe alone in the last year. This shows how important the team's RPA efforts are, a key contributor to the company’s mandate of digital transformation. The success of these initiatives has fueled a steady stream of projects from across the business. “We’ve also seen a significant increase in the number of people asking about how to build robots and get involved in automation,” Bazarnik notes.

Looking to the future, Sappi is poised to expand its automation capabilities even further. “We’re currently launching our communications mining project,” Bazarnik reveals. “It’s to support our sales team in order processing, and we’ve spent the last five months developing it.”

Communications mining will help Sappi process the large volume of customer orders received via email. Bazarnik explains, “These emails often contain unstructured data and technical information, which our sales representatives process manually.” The Communications Mining tool will instead categorize these emails, and extract relevant order information, which will then be passed onto Sappi’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

In addition, Sappi is also exploring the potential of agentic AI. “It’s a very new topic for us,” admits Bazarnik. “But we see a lot of potential, and we'll ask UiPath and Office Samurai for help when we have a good business plan.” While Sappi is taking a cautious approach to agentic AI, there’s a strong appetite for it within the business. “We’re excited about the possibilities,” Bazarnik adds.

For organizations considering their own automation journeys, Bazarnik offers valuable advice: “The time is now,” “Don’t miss the chance to adopt these tools, or risk falling behind your competitors.” Bazarnik adds, “Focus on building confidence among employees and demonstrating the value of automation today.”

Sappi’s journey shows the transformative power of automation. By embracing innovation, the company is driving efficiency, enhancing productivity, and positioning itself for continued success in the digital age.