CASE STUDY

Röhlig Logistics unlocks savings and

boosts productivity with intelligent
AP invoice automation

Working with Shipamax, Röhlig is rolling out a standardized, automated AP

reconciliation process across more than 20 global sites, demonstrating the

value of digital transformation

4 MON TH S O N E I M M E D IA T E
Rapid implementation and go-live for Standardized AP invoice processing Increase in straight-through processing
Röhlig’s UK operations workflow for the whole business rates from day one

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 Sven Manott,
ABOUT RÖHLIG Director,
Global Shared Services, Blue
Team: Operations, Accounting Founded in 1852, Röhlig’s mission is to create Services GmbH, Röhlig Logistics
and IT Process Improvement chains of trust within the logistics and freight
forwarding industry.

Business Size: 2,200 employees

With operations in over 30 countries and more Bianca Heitmann,
than 2,200 employees, Röhlig builds trusted, long- Head of Global Commercial
term partnerships with its customers through its Operations,
TMS: CargoWise
focus on quality, expertise, personal commitment, Röhlig Logistics
and forward-looking technologies.

Johanna Stambro
Global Program Manager,
Röhlig Logistics

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The Challenge
At a strategic level, Röhlig aims to build a foundation for future growth
and innovation by adopting digital solutions to drive internal efficiencies
and enhance customer service.

To demonstrate the value of digitalization, Röhlig’s Röhlig has previously successfully centralized,
operations team looked for processes that were standardized and streamlined the AP invoicing
ripe for automation. process in its own global shared service center.

Accounts payable (AP) invoice reconciliation However, because this approach still relied on
quickly rose to the top of the priority list, as a manual invoice processing, it was not easily
relatively simple process with the potential to scalable and offered limited potential for process
deliver big savings. optimization.

Röhlig manages hundreds of thousands of To take efficiency to the next level, the operations
shipments per year, and receives multiple AP team began evaluating digital solutions that
invoices for each shipment—so even a saving could automate AP invoicing workflows and
of a few minutes per invoice would add up enable straight-through processing (STP),
to significant time and cost savings for its while also providing analytics to help identify
operations and accounting teams. bottlenecks and opportunities for optimization.

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The Solution
Röhlig’s operations team evaluated solutions from five vendors, ranging
from traditional OCR to modern AI-driven solutions, and selected
Shipamax.

The team felt that the use of artificial intelligence Röhlig decided to move forward with an
to capture data from AP invoices, combined with implementation of the Shipamax solution at its
powerful exception management and analytics four largest regional AP invoice processing sites,
capabilities, made Shipamax the most mature in the UK, US, France and Australia/New Zealand.
and cost-effective solution.
The rollout began with the UK, where the team
Moreover, the openness, flexibility and integrated the solution with CargoWise and went
responsiveness of the Shipamax team during live in under four months.
the evaluation process stood out from the other
vendors. Impressed with the success of this first project,
Röhlig decided to expand the scope to 20
additional sites worldwide.

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 Results on Day One
Unlike solutions that rely solely on optical character recognition (OCR),
Shipamax’s artificial intelligence-based approach does not require
“Within six weeks of the go-live,
teams to create and manage templates to capture data from each
our operations team could see the
different type of AP invoice.
benefits of Shipamax.

Even stakeholders who had originally Instead, the solution learns from each invoice it In addition, the teams at Rohlig were able to
sees, and refines its data capture algorithms—so identify improvements to their accruals process
been skeptical became strong
the results improve over time. which could increase their accuracy and audit
supporters of the project.” accountability.
Röhlig saw tangible benefits immediately. The
solution enabled straight-through processing of Meanwhile, the solution provides a powerful,
a significant number of AP invoices from day one, intuitive dashboard that makes it easy for
Sven Manott, and Shipamax quickly identified ways to double operators to manage and resolve exceptions
Director, the STP rate in a matter of weeks. quickly.
Global Shared Services, Blue Services
GmbH, Röhlig Logistics

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 Outstanding Invoices

Revealing new
insight
Like many technology projects, the
implementation uncovered issues
with Röhlig’s existing AP invoicing
processes that had previously
been hidden. Creditor 1 Creditor 2 Creditor 3 Creditor 4 Creditor 5 Creditor 6

Data for illustration purposes only

While this caused some teething problems, the

team regards the increased transparency as a “Before, we had no visibility of where the problems were. With
positive outcome.
Shipamax, we can measure everything, understand the root
Today, Shipamax’s reporting and analytics tools causes of exceptions, and make targeted improvements to
enable Röhlig to monitor process flows, identify increase quality and efficiency.”
bottlenecks, and create a culture of continuous
improvement.
Bianca Heitmann
Head of Global Commercial Operations
Röhlig Logistics

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Taking an agile
approach
Like many technology projects, the
implementation uncovered issues
with Röhlig’s existing AP invoicing
processes that had previously
been hidden.

From the start of the project, Röhlig recognized

that the implementation of Shipamax would have
“In this type of project, you have to expect the unpredictable
to run in parallel with the standardization of its AP
invoice processing workflows, which vary between and be ready to roll with it. We’ve learned a lot from the
regions. Shipamax team’s flexible, agile mindset, which has helped us

To deliver digital transformation successfully in

maintain momentum and keep moving forward.”
the midst of business change, the project team
needed to take an agile approach. Johanna Stambro
Global Program Manager
Röhlig Logistics

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 Data for illustration purposes only

Invoice Count: Percentage of Total

Discarded Posted with Correction Outstanding Posted without Correction

Building a long-
term partnership
As Röhlig’s Shipamax solution learns to
recognize and capture invoice data with
ever-greater accuracy, the company
should see STP rates continuously
increase, and is confident that it will hit
its initial target of processing AP invoices
with no human intervention in the near
future.

“In the big picture, this project is helping us prove that Röhlig’s
As STP rates rise, the company is unlocking
productivity gains and cost reductions by freeing
digital strategy has real practical applications that can deliver
up its operators to focus on more valuable work. tangible value to our lines of business. We’re excited to work
with Shipamax to take the business with us on that journey.”
At the same time, increasing automation means
that it can pay invoices faster and more reliably,
helping to build better relationships with key Sven Manott
suppliers and potentially even negotiate more Director
favorable terms. Global Shared Services, Blue Services GmbH, Röhlig Logistics

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Learn how Shipamax can help you achieve your automation potential

Our Mission at Shipamax

is to make it simple for A U T O M A T I O N L O G IST ICS PRO CESS
any logistics organisation A S A S E R V I C E D NA EX CELLENCE

to automate data entry.

Shipamax is a platform for data entry automation within logistics. Our full service solution makes it simple to deliver
data entry automation across your entire organisation. By automating data entry with Shipamax, we’ll help your
business scale profitably, unlock process improvements, and ensure compliance in a way that vanilla OCR and
manual data entry just can’t.

Interested in learning more about how Shipamax’s AP Invoice

Request Demo
reconciliation solution can help you scale your business?

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