Gira automates inbound order confirmations with Retarus IDP

Gira, an expert provider of smart home technology, processes its inbound order confirmations using Retarus IDP (Intelligent Document Processing). By way of a middleware, the captured documents are then automatically transferred directly into the company’s SAP system. This allows Gira to achieve substantial cost savings and allocate new tasks to staff previously engaged in manually capturing data.

Initial Situation

Manual capturing of data

Based in Radevormwald, Germany, Gira Giersiepen GmbH & Co. KG (www.gira.de) produces intelligent system solutions for controlling buildings and facilities by means of electrotechnical, networked digital systems. The family-owned business was founded in 1905 and also manufactures complex system components from plastic. The Gira Group, comprising various subsidiaries and shareholdings, generates approximately €370 million in turnover with a staff of around 1,800 employees (2024).

In the past, Gira relied on effort-intensive manual data entry to capture order confirmations (OC) related to materials procurement in its SAP system. The process is time sensitive, as Gira’s incoming goods team is generally only allowed to book the receipt of consignments once the respective order confirmation has been placed in SAP.

Objective

Automated capturing of OCs in SAP

Gira wanted to reduce the manual effort required by automating the processes for capturing order confirmations as far as possible. To guide its search for a suitable solution, the company compiled a functional specifications document listing 25 objective, weighted criteria provided by the IT and other specialized departments. In the ensuing selection procedure, Retarus was able to win out over four other providers by virtue of its AI-powered IDP solution, which possesses built-in “intelligence” far exceeding basic character recognition (OCR).

Prospectively, Gira is aiming to process about 10,000 OCs per year using the Retarus solution. The service will be ramped up in successive phases and has already been concluded for the procurement of production materials. In addition to this, very large suppliers are connected directly to the system by way of EDI, which Gira runs and manages in-house.

The usability is extremely good. Everything is well laid out and highly intuitive. To be honest, we’re very happy with the service.

Dinah Henseler , Materials Procurement Manager and Head of the Retarus IDP Project , Gira

Special Challenge / Approach

Double onboarding due to project overlap

Gira initially opted for Retarus’ former solution known as Intelligent Capture Service (ICS). Its implementation at the end of 2024 coincided with the launch of Retarus’ AI-powered IDP solution. After Retarus had presented the new solution to Gira during their regular project meetings, the customer decided to switch over to Retarus’ cutting-edge, future-oriented approach.

Of course, a change of this nature involves substantial effort. For instance, the services had to be trained twice – each time with roughly 1,000 typical order confirmations. This effort paid off, however, and the new service was introduced without any issues, on schedule and within budget.

Benefits

High degree of automation, low amount of manual work

Due to the high quality of the data provided by the customer, it didn’t take long for Gira to achieve a degree of automation clearly exceeding 90 percent with Retarus IDP. With a brand-new architecture based on an open-source, state-of-the-art 24B language model provided by Mistral already in the works, the degree of automation is due to receive another substantial boost. For instance, the new architecture will support functions such as instant learning or sub-line item splitting.

A team of eight Gira employees, each with a separate worklist and able to set their own confidence parameterization within the IDP portal, are supporting this process and on hand to intervene as a “human in the loop” (HITL) if required. Gira praises the Reatrus UI/UX as self-explanatory. Straightforward, uncomplicated user training was provided to Gira’s employees by a key user who had been given detailed instructions by Retarus.

Key Facts

Retarus IDP for capturing order confirmations
Fed directly into SAP via Retarus Cloud EDI Gateway
Degree of automation clearly exceeds 90 percent
Contractually assured service level (SLA)

It’s also great that we’re able to make a lot of our own adjustments when it comes to parameterization. For instance, we can set the confidence level per field ourselves and have a significant influence on the degree of automation we achieve.

Philip Plock-Göbbel , IT Expert SCM & Procurement , Gira

Conclusion and outlook

Through the introduction of Retarus IDP, Gira was able to substantially reduce the manual efforts previously required for capturing order confirmations in SAP, freeing up resources for other tasks. The AI-powered solution has already achieved a high degree of automation, which is set to rise further with the introduction of the upcoming new architecture with instant learning capabilities. In future, there is a good chance that the NPM team (non-production materials) may join the production materials procurement in switching over to Retarus IDP.

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