Based in Dobele, Latvia, Dobeles dzirnavnieks is a leading grain processor in the Baltics and the largest pasta producer in Northern Europe. The company’s products include flour, pasta, cereal flakes, groats, pearl-barley, semolina, animal feed, and more.

Employees:

420
Production area:

21 hectares
Exports to:

70+ countries

Summary

Challenges

Improve operational efficiency by replacing labor-intensive and time-consuming paper processes with digital workflows.
Avoid an increase in back-office headcount as the business grows.

Solution

Selected a secure, flexible content management solution.
Replaced paper processes with digital workflows.
Enabled seamless integration with key business systems including Microsoft 365 and Dynamics.

Results

Empowered employees to find information in seconds
Saved 3.5 FTEs and avoided headcount increases
Cut paper consumption by 80%

Challenges

Labour-intensive, time-consuming paper-based processes
Managing thousands of invoices and suppliers
With rapid business growth, manual processes would require more resources

Employing 420 people, Dobeles dzirnavnieks is one of the leading grain processors in the Baltics. Exporting to over 70 countries, the company produces flour, pasta, cereal flakes, animal feed, and more.

To build on its industry-leading position, Dobeles dzirnavnieks set out a long-term growth strategy, with several acquisitions underway. Juris Mosans, digital transformation manager at Dobeles dzirnavnieks, said, “Growth by acquisition will help Dobeles dzirnavnieks expand our geographic reach and our product portfolio—opening up valuable growth opportunities across Europe and beyond.”

To integrate the new acquisitions into the business effectively, Dobeles dzirnavnieks focused on digital transformation. By implementing modern, integrated solutions—including a new ERP platform, business intelligence (BI) systems, and warehouse management applications—the aim is to shape standardized, efficient processes across the group.

Mosans continued, “In the past, we relied on paper processes in practically every department, but these presented significant challenges as the business grew. For example, during audits, we needed to assign several full-time employees to collate the required documents—a process that often took three weeks of painstaking work. And in accounts payable [AP], employees spent hours manually re-keying data from 2,500 invoices into our ERP system every month.”

As part of the transformation program, Dobeles dzirnavnieks decided to phase out paper by implementing a content management platform. Mosans confirms, “As well as reducing our dependence on paper, we wanted to leverage digital documents to accelerate and streamline our business processes. This would enable us to be more effective and continue to expand while keeping our back-office headcount flat.”

Unloading wheat grains into a cargo truck trailer

In AP alone, we are saving 3.5 full-time equivalents, and we predict that the OpenText content management solution will allow us to unlock time savings in other areas of our operations in the future.

Juris Mosans
Digital Transformation Manager, Dobeles dzirnavnieks

Solution

Working with Digital Mind, Dobeles dzirnavnieks selected OpenText Extended ECM as its central document management platform. Integrated with the company’s new Microsoft® Dynamics ERP platform, the solution enables streamlined, automated workflows.

Products deployed

OpenText™ Extended ECM

Enterprise content management that securely governs the information lifecycle by integrating with leading enterprise applications

Selecting a secure, flexible content management solution

Following an in-depth evaluation process, Dobeles dzirnavnieks determined that the OpenText solution was the optimal choice to support its digital transformation effort.

Aiga Stabulniece, member of the management board at Dobeles dzirnavnieks, commented, “We considered a number of potential solution vendors during our RFP process, including the top-ranked content services specialists according to Forrester and Gartner. From a shortlist of four vendors, OpenText scored the highest against all our key selection criteria.”

Mosans added, “When we put the content management solution to the test, the first things that stood out to us were its strong workflow automation capabilities and user-friendly interface. We quickly realized that the solution would enable us to create sophisticated digital processes backed by robust security and data governance.”

Replacing paper processes with digital workflows

Working closely with its trusted technology partner Digital Mind, Dobeles dzirnavnieks mapped out its existing paper processes and designed new digital workflows in Extended ECM.

“Digital Mind supported us through every aspect of the project, from sizing and deploying new on-premises IT infrastructure to implementing and configuring the OpenText content management platform,” recalled Mosans. “Throughout that process, Digital Mind went out of their way to show us what was possible with Extended ECM and share best practices to help us optimize our new digital business processes.”

Enabling seamless integration with key business systems

Through its partnership with Digital Mind, Dobeles dzirnavnieks has successfully deployed the OpenText content management system. The solution is now integrated with Microsoft 365 and Dynamics, enabling documents and data, such as invoices, to flow between the two systems without the need for manual data entry.

“With support from Digital Mind, we are making our content more easily accessible and searchable,” said Mosans. “When it came to digitizing our processes, we decided to start with the low-hanging fruit, such as AP. Today, we work with a data capture partner to convert paper invoices into digital records, which we store, review, and approve in an OpenText workflow. At the end of the process, we use an integration with Microsoft Dynamics to carry out the final steps.”

Mosans added, “This was a highly complex project with many moving parts. Even though we were implementing new ERP, BI, and content management solutions at the same time, this was one of the smoothest implementations I’ve worked on—thanks in significant part to the efforts of the Digital Mind team.”

Rice Harvesting Machine in the Paddy Field

Digitization with OpenText saves us around €2,000 a year in paper-related costs and helps Dobeles dzirnavnieks to advance our sustainability objectives.

Aiga Stabulniece
Member of the Management Board, Dobeles dzirnavnieks

Results

With OpenText content management at the heart of its business, Dobeles dzirnavnieks now has a central, secure platform to process and store digital documents—from supplier invoices and contracts to human resources records and external correspondence.

Empowered employees to find information in seconds

By digitizing its business processes, Dobeles dzirnavnieks is helping its 120 back-office employees to find the information they need in seconds, not hours or days—accelerating everything from audit preparations to supplier payments.

“Today, everything is all in one place, which means employees no longer comb through filing cabinets to find the information we need,” said Mosans. “For example, we now store all the information associated with our 6,000 trading partners in OpenText content management, including contracts, correspondence, and invoices. As a result, it’s easy to identify any holdups and take action to keep our processes running smoothly.”

The ability to drive back-office processes digitally was a significant benefit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mosans confirmed, “Despite work-from-home mandates, we were able to operate without any significant interruptions thanks to digital solutions from OpenText.”

Saved 3.5 FTEs and avoiding headcount increases

With integrated, digital operations powered by OpenText and Microsoft solutions, Dobeles dzirnavnieks is in a strong position to grow its business while keeping its operational costs lean.

Mosans explained, “Once we complete our in-process acquisitions, the business will grow by around 15%—and because OpenText content management is helping us to work more efficiently, we won’t need to increase our back-office headcount significantly. In AP alone, we are saving 3.5 full-time equivalents, and we predict that the OpenText solution will allow us to unlock time savings in other areas of our operations in the future.”

Cut paper consumption by 80%

The move from paper to digital processes also brings environmental advantages for Dobeles dzirnavnieks. Year on year, the company has cut its paper consumption by 80 percent—saving the equivalent of 100+ kilograms of paper annually.

Stabulniece commented, “Today, 73% of our supplier contracts and 88% of our correspondence is digital, and we also digitized 100% of our quality management documents. Digitization saves us around €2,000 a year in paper-related costs and helps Dobeles dzirnavnieks to advance our sustainability objectives.”

In the future, Dobeles dzirnavnieks plans to continue its collaboration with Digital Mind to digitize more of its business processes. Next, the company plans to implement a central, collaborative approach to product packaging designs, enabled by OpenText content management.

“Our digital transformation initiative is helping us to increase our agility and do more with the same resources,” concluded Mosans. “We are looking forward to working with Digital Mind to find innovative ways to use our OpenText content management solution to drive more efficient operations across our growing business.”