Sosennah Every, Advocacy Marketing Specialist at Esker, witnessed first-hand the paper-to-cardboard box process at Smurfit Kappa’s packaging factory in the Netherlands. The Esker team learned how Esker’s AI-powered touchless processing ensures Smurfit Kappa’s 72 hour delivery deadlines are met.
This was a customer visit like no other!
Not only did we get good news about how the team are happy using Esker’s Order Management solution, but also a delicious lunch, and to top it off a tour of their state-of-the-art cardboard box factory.
Jaap Hellemons, Sales Improvement Engineer, at the Smurfit Kappa ELCORR factory in Etten-Leur, Netherlands gave us a terrific welcome. Smurfit Kappa first signed with Esker five years ago. Now four different plants use Esker’s Order Management solution and several more are interested in implementing it.
“I have so many employees asking me, when they can train to use Esker as they can’t wait to use it! Also when new customers come on board, they are eager to get them onto Esker as quickly as possible to enable touchless processing,” says Jaap.
Smurfit Kappa’s ELCORR factory has very short delivery times from paper to box!
Currently two of Smurfit Kappa’s customers’ orders are completely touchless, with others in the ‘touched less’ category, meaning the order input process is down from approximately 20 key strokes down to 2, which still saves the customer service team an immense amount of time.
Luuk Schrijver, Functional Application Manager, from the Smurfit Kappa TWINCORR plant, says, “Esker has been fantastic in reducing the number of manual typing errors – we just don’t have any now. Any user can work with Esker, it is so easy to understand and the IT support is excellent.”
Andrew ten Broek, Application Manager at Smurfit Kappa Benelux, adds, “The Esker dashboard and set up is so intuitive. It takes me just 15 minutes to teach a new team member to use Esker now.”
Factory Tour
The cardboard box factory tour was completely fascinating. We started by the 3 tonne paper rolls that are made from wood harvested from Smurfit Kappa’s own sustainably farmed forests. These are sent to the corrugator to make four different thicknesses of cardboard. Once through the corrugator, three or five sheets of paper are stuck together using a starch based glue. This is a difficult process and drying needs to be at a precisely controlled temperature, otherwise the cardboard starts to buckle and become misshapen.
Then it’s onto the drying store before going to an inline, rotary or flat-pack die cutter. Precise production planning is required to minimise waste, so often customers’ orders are combined together to reduce waste. All boxes at Elcorr are custom-made and custom-sized.
Cardboard boxes are printed using water-based ink with a maximum of six colours available with printing only on the outside. Printing is available on all sides of the box once it is put together. All of the cardboard made is FSC certified. The machines cleverly make cuts and perforations as required and indentations for folding, making it easy for the end customer to put the boxes together. Any trims and off cuts go to shredders and are recycled in one of Smurfit Kappa’s global recycling plants, to be used all over again!
We were extremely privileged to have such an extensive tour of the factory with the highly knowledgeable Jaap guiding us through each process.
It was great to see how Esker’s Order Management solution was a key factor in enabling Smurfit Kappa to fulfil its orders smoothly, accurately and on time.
When we asked the Smurfit Kappa Customer Service team what 3 words they would use to describe Esker, they answered:
- User-friendly
- Innovative
- Intuitive
