Fferrer: 80% Fewer Order Errors with Email-to-SAP Automation

Frigorífics Fferrer receives customer orders through email in many different formats: PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, and plain-text emails. Each order had to be manually opened, interpreted, validated, and then entered into SAP, a slow and error-prone process. Together with us, Frigorífics Fferrer built an AI-powered order ingestion, validation, and automation pipeline that connects the company’s email inbox directly to SAP. Orders now flow automatically from email → AI processing → validation UI → SAP in less than one minute.

• 80% fewer order errors

• 172 h / month saved vs. manual

• 6x ROI ROI vs. cost

Key Results

• 80%+ reduction in manual order errors

• Email-to-SAP processing in under 1 minute

• Thousands of orders processed from PDFs, Excel files, and emails

• Minimal human validation thanks to an intuitive UI

• Scalable automation across multiple order formats

Overview

Frigorífics Fferrer receives customer orders through email in many different formats: PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, and plain-text emails. Each order had to be manually opened, interpreted, validated, and then entered into SAP, a slow and error-prone process.

To solve this, Frigorífics Fferrer partnered with us to build an AI-powered order ingestion, validation, and automation pipeline that connects the company’s email inbox directly to SAP.

The result: orders now flow automatically from email → AI processing → validation UI → SAP in less than one minute.

The Challenge: Inconsistent Orders at Scale

Every day, the operations team handled orders with problems such as:

• Multiple document types (PDF, Excel, EML providers, email body)

• Incorrect or missing product codes

• Units expressed differently (kg, boxes, cases, informal text)

• Customer-specific naming conventions

• Formatting that didn’t match SAP requirements

This forced the team to manually:

• Open emails

• Download and inspect attachments

• Interpret product descriptions

• Re-enter data into SAP

• Double-check for errors

For example: “7 kg of hake” might need to be interpreted as: “1 case (CA) of hake – 7kg”.

Each order required human validation against:

• Historical customer behavior

• Internal product definitions

• Company formatting rules

With hundreds or thousands of orders per week, this manual process created bottlenecks and frequent errors.

The Solution: AI-Powered Order Interpretation & Validation

The implemented system automates the entire workflow:

1. Automatic Email Ingestion

The AI continuously monitors the order inbox and:

• Reads incoming emails

• Detects and downloads attachments (PDFs, Excel)

• Identifies valid orders automatically

2. Multi-Format Document Processing

Using OCR and structured extraction, the system processes:

• PDFs

• Excel files

• Plain-text emails

• Mixed layouts

All orders are converted into a standardized digital format.

3. Intelligent Order Interpretation & Validation

The AI:

• Interprets natural language orders (e.g., “3 kg of hake”)

• Maps them to internal product codes and correct units

• Cross-checks against historical customer data

• Applies Frigorífics Fferrer’s internal formatting and business rules

• Automatically detects and corrects inconsistencies

4. Cross-Checking Against Historical Customer Data

The model validates each order by comparing it with:

• The customer’s historical purchasing patterns

• Previously accepted product formats

• Known unit conversions

This ensures consistency and prevents anomalous or invalid entries.

5. Automatic Error Detection & Correction

The system instantly detects:

• Wrong product codes

• Invalid unit formats

• Mismatched quantities

• Non-compliant order structures

and automatically corrects them according to Frigorífics Fferrer’s internal rules.

6. Human-Friendly Validation UI

A lightweight validation UI allows operators to:

• Review extracted orders in seconds

• See highlighted edge cases

• Approve or correct data with one click

As accuracy increased, most orders no longer required manual validation.

7. Direct Integration Into SAP

Once validated, each order is:

• Structured in SAP’s required format

• Inserted automatically into SAP

• Ready for fulfillment and logistics

From inbox to SAP: less than one minute.

Results

After deployment, Frigorífics Fferrer achieved:

• More than 80% reduction in manual order errors

• Near-instant order processing (email → SAP in under 1 minute)

• Thousands of orders processed automatically

• Dramatically reduced operational workload

• Higher data consistency and reliability

Why It Matters

Even small mistakes in food distribution orders can lead to:

• Wrong deliveries

• Stock mismatches

• Customer dissatisfaction

• Operational delays

By automating interpretation and validation, Frigorífics Fferrer created a system that:

• Scales with volume

• Learns from historical behavior

• Enforces internal business rules

• Integrates directly with SAP

• Improves reliability across the entire order pipeline

Next Phase

Together with Frigorífics Fferrer, the next phase focuses on:

• Expanding automation to more order channels (WhatsApp, Calls)

• Increasing accuracy on complex edge cases

• Integrating deeper with ERP and logistics systems

• Achieving near-zero manual validation

The long-term goal: fully autonomous order processing from inbox to SAP.

“What used to take minutes of manual checking now happens automatically, directly from our inbox to SAP in less than a minute.”, Operations Team, Frigorífics Fferrer