While you’re stopped at your next railroad crossing, take a look at railcars passing by and you’ll likely see the letters “TTX” painted in red at the bottom of each car. TTX Railcar Pooling Experts, commonly known as TTX Company, is a leading provider of railcar pooling and freight car management services in North America. Established in 1955, TTX offers a diverse fleet of railcars, including flatcars, boxcars, and intermodal well cars, which are shared among railroads to optimize efficiency and reduce costs. By pooling resources, TTX helps railroads improve asset utilization, reduce empty car miles, and enhance the overall fluidity of the rail network.
The company’s centralized approach to railcar management enables it to meet the dynamic needs of the rail industry, providing reliable and cost-effective solutions to its customers. Owned by a consortium of North American railroads including Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific, and BNSF, TTX’s primary mission is to lower the overall cost of freight through efficiency and pooled cost-savings. Cost optimization and the wise management of physical assets are critical components of their strategy, regardless of market conditions. Because of this, TTX’s finance team looked for an AI solution that could handle the complexity of its Oracle Fusion based finance processes while driving significant cost savings.
In 2023, TTX turned to Kognitos to help reduce manual labor costs tied to a variety of financial processes, including general scrap weight ticketing and Oracle Fusion accounts payable.
Prior to partnering with Kognitos, the TTX Asset Disposal team manually reviewed scrap weight tickets daily and individually entered the data into Excel. The file was then reviewed by Inventory Accounting for accuracy and served as the data the Accounts Receivable Team used to manually create A/R invoices in Oracle Fusion.
Kognitos automated this process by extracting and entering scrap weight ticket content into an Excel file that can be quickly validated by business users. The data is then automatically entered into Oracle Fusion as the next step in the process. These advancements significantly reduce manual labor and improve process cycle time.
In TTX’s original processes, Lease Invoices were received from lessors via email, then manually entered into Oracle Fusion to be paid. Depending on the lessor, the payment terms of the invoices may be more or less time sensitive. In some cases, invoices may even be due the same day they are received. By manually processing lease invoices for payment, it’s possible that users could over or under pay or mark incorrect payment dates, resulting in re-work. This process was challenging and time- consuming due to the wide variety of document types and invoice formats. The wide variability of inputs and complex business rules prevented legacy systems like RPA from effectively automating these processes as the development and maintenance needed proved to be untenable.
In the enhanced process, lease invoices are emailed to Kognitos for processing. Kognitos automatically classifies the invoice, extracts the data, and enters the information into Oracle Fusion. Kognitos also generates a summary of the information extracted and forwards this to business users, along with the associated invoice. If at any time the workflow would benefit from business user input, Kognitos provides opportunities for the user to take a one time action or teach Kognitos how to handle the situation in the future. Kognitos provides a complete system of record in a business user- friendly format, enabling the business to view when and how invoices were processed at any point in time.
Using Kognitos, TTX has begun the first portion of their AI transformation journey to drive productivity improvements throughout their organization- particularly across finance value chains and within their Oracle application stack. Rapid invoice processing enables TTX to unlock pay-early discounts offered by suppliers, reducing cost and improving cash flow. Error rates have decreased, supplier relations have improved, and rework is prevented. TTX is revolutionizing the employee experience and embracing human + AI collaboration across the organization with an AI solution that employees work with and trust.
If you grew up watching satellite TV, chances are that Dish Network made it possible. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, Dish Network is known for its satellite television, pay-per-view services, and streaming options through DISH TV and Sling TV. Established in 1980, Dish Network expanded its offerings to include a wide range of entertainment and communication services, including investment in mobile services like Boost Mobile.
Boost Mobile, a subsidiary of Dish Network, focuses on providing affordable prepaid wireless services without annual contracts. Targeting budget-conscious and younger demographics, Boost Mobile offers flexible, no-contract plans with nationwide coverage, leveraging Dish’s infrastructure and network agreements. It provides a range of devices, including the latest smartphones, and maintains a strong retail and online presence to cater to its customer base. Boost Mobile’s operations and focus align with Dish Network’s strategy to penetrate the wireless market and enhance its service portfolio through the development of its own 5G network.
To continue driving profitable growth, Boost Mobile needed an AI solution able to handle its wide-ranging customer complexity, yet approachable and user-friendly enough for its business users to leverage for significant impact. Having tested other automation and RPA solutions just to come up short, Boost Mobile turned to Kognitos’ AI platform to see if it was up to the challenge.
Boost Mobile began their journey with Kognitos by automating Lease Audit Processing. This process has a monthly volume of 2,500+ leases associated with many vendors. Lease Audit documents are extensive, each consisting of several pages and amendments. On average, it takes an experienced team member at least 30 minutes to manually perform a single Lease Audit. Because this labor-intensive process doesn’t scale well, Boost sought out automation opportunities rather than increasing headcount with the substantial budget allocation associated with hiring and onboarding.
The automated Lease Audit Process is initiated with an email to Kognitos that contains the associated lease agreement documents. Kognitos extracts relevant information from the agreements based on learnings applied by business users. Then, driven by established business rules and standard operating procedures, Kognitos assesses each agreement, integrating directly with Boost’s systems like LexisNexis and Snowflake. The workflow doesn’t just end with just the assessment, it also generates a summary of the information extracted and forwards this information to the relevant business users. What previously took more than 30 minutes for an individual team member to perform can now be accomplished in less than one minute, and Kognitos is able to run countless number of processes simultaneously in that same timeframe.
With Kognitos, Lease Audit Processing now only requires minimal time for one business user and is a truly scalable solution for continuous growth. Lease Audit Processing time went from an average of 30 to 60 minutes to under one minute per lease, saving 29,500 hours annually. Boost Mobile was able to slash processing time by 97% while also addressing a backlog of over 40,000 leases.
Boost Mobile has been able to create capacity without hiring, driving towards management’s goals of capturing greater market share. As Boost offers services like a 30-day money back guarantee, it is critical to have strong front and back office services, and by leveraging AI, Boost’s employees can spend their time ensuring customers receive the best experience. With a trained team of “Kreators” (Business users equipped to build workflows with Kognitos), Boost is set to expand their AI initiatives and enter a new era of productivity that extends into all areas of the business.
Top consumer retailers like Amazon, Abecrombie and Fitch, and other major players rely on the work and technology of Century Supply Chain Solutions, a global logistics and supply chain service provider that focuses heavily on integrating advanced technology to enhance its offerings. Century provides a wide range of services, including origin cargo management, e-commerce fulfillment, customs brokerage, domestic freight management, and end-to-end supply chain optimization. They have a significant global presence with offices and warehouses strategically located worldwide, ensuring efficient logistics and supply chain operations for Fortune 100 companies, North American retailers, and other major clients.
Their proprietary platform, VIZIV, utilizes predictive AI to provide comprehensive visibility and real-time management capabilities across the entire supply chain, enabling their clients to achieve high levels of flexibility and optimization.
The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, paired with a highly competitive market, resulted in a downturn in the volume of items shipped globally. Century’s CIO Jim McCullen and COO Ian Menear, looked for ways to reduce costs across operations while still improving responsiveness to customers’ needs. A tech-forward firm, Century engaged explored with Kognitos to explore how to optimize back office business processes, particularly in the back office after experiencing the limitations and growing costs associated with robotics process automation (RPA). Century needed a solution that didn’t require a team of developers, was flexible enough to accommodate the high degree of document variance across their many global shippers and customers, and would provide a detailed audit trail of AI and human activity to ensure SLAs and other contractual obligations were met.
Kognitos worked closely with Century’s Hong -Kong team to automate two high-volume, business-critical, and 24/7 operational processes: bill of lading (BoL) and carrier booking. Both processes entail processing challenging documents and data formats, with high degrees of unstructured and tabled data.
The BoL process involved more than 15,000 monthly bills in many different languages and formats. As one can imagine, processing this volume required a significant amount of human labor and expertise. After implementing Kognitos, the platform learned each supplier’s document format, extracted the data, and then converted and validated it against Great Plains data. As a result, Century has been able to offer services to more customers and perform audits in much less time by returning significant human capacity back to the business.
The carrier booking process is driven by a volume of more than 50,000 emails per month, containing essential confirmed booking information. The processing of bookings may be subject to stringent service level agreements (SLA). Kognitos worked with Century to transform their carrier booking process, resulting in reduced mis-routings and delayed shipments. The new process also allowed their team to respond to carrier changes with ease, and provide a higher level of service to their customers.
Kognitos uses AI that enables business users to teach the system how to read new or updated document formats, ensuring that the process advances and grows more automated as it encounters new exceptions.
With Kognitos, Century is able to handle a greater degree of volume and customer orders while maintaining consistent staffing levels. Additionally, Century is able to bring some previously outsourced services back in- house, providing greater control and visibility into processes for further optimization. The serverless nature of Kognitos enables Century to respond to customer demand in real-time, accommodating peaks without having software on the shelf, and without the need for complex orchestration.
By using AI, Century is reducing costs, error rates, and re-work, enabling staff in the Hong Kong office to focus on higher value added activities, and creating a system of record of all activities for process optimization and customer management. Building on this success, Century aims to use Kognitos more broadly across the organization, including in areas throughout the finance and accounting value chains. When the market—and shipping volumes—heat back up, Century is now positioned to scale dynamically.
Norco Industries, founded in 1964, is a privately-owned company headquartered in Elkhart, Indiana, with additional facilities in Compton, California. The company specializes in manufacturing vehicle structural parts for recreational vehicle (RV), industrial, and automotive sectors. Their product range includes seating systems, slideouts, trailer frames, chassis components, brake systems, and lifting equipment. Norco also provides various services such as engineering and design, testing, assembly, welding, and warehousing.
Norco Industries operates several brands under its umbrella, including ADNIK for seating systems, BAL RV Products Group for RV components, and FLO-DYNAMICS for automotive maintenance equipment. They also offer custom industrial lifting solutions through Freedom Industrial Hydraulics and provide E-coat and powder coat finishing services via NORCOAT.
A third-generation, family- owned business, the Norco leadership sought a way to bring AI into the organization, improve the experience of both employees and customers, and scale on demand. In a highly cyclical industry, having a solution that could scale up and down on demand—, without having to hire more support staff—, created significant capacity and helped alleviate the traditional “Hire and Fire” cycle. Norco deeply cares about their employees and community and viewed the use of Kognitos across the organization as a way to avoid the typical disruption of the market cycle, and smooth out both operations and cash-flows over time. However, Norco needed a solution that would not require significant effort on behalf of IT, or extensive training for the business.
Norco sought to drive not only efficiency throughout the organization, but also provide insights to management on the processes both on the factory floor and in the back-office. They laid out a three year plan with Kognitos to transform the organization starting with Finance, before progressing to HR, Sales, and Production (Engineering).
Kognitos AI initially automated four processes within Norco’s Accounts Receivable department. Legacy, purely logical systems like RPA were not suitable due to the variability of the documents and the amount of exceptions that could occur from different customers. Kognitos’s exception handling enableds Norco’s AR SMEs, many who have worked with each customer for more than a decade, to work collaboratively with AI to handle each exception and teach the system how to handle that process.
One example from Accounts Receivable: Norco set up an inbox for Kognitos to receive incoming pack slips. Kognitos then splits the PDFs (often 10 pages or more) into individual invoices in Epicor based on the business logic and rules for each customer. Logic could include tax from different states, freight charges based on location, etc. These inputs are then validated against the stored knowledge in Epicor. If any mismatches occur or if Kognitos is not able to find required information, Kognitos flags the exception to the business users in the AR department who previously handled the processes manually. The business user is able to converse with Kognitos, teaching the workflow how to rectify the situation and handle similar situations in the future.
In addition to AR, Norco has embarked on a wider use of AI including:
Lastly, Norco rolled out “Ask Koncierge” company wide for the HR function. Kognitos answers employee queries on HR related questions such as “How many vacation days do I have left?”, logging each prompt and answer for deeper analysis and process revision.
Norco’s AI- first approach is driving results across the organization. The automation of AR processes speeds up collections, reducing “Accounts Receivable in Days”, and improves working capital. In addition, the use of Kognitos has identified different areas for process improvement as repeat exceptions are investigated and addressed. Norco’sNoroc’s HR team now can focus more on individual candidates, rather than spending their timecycles engaged in administrative tasks and scheduling. This has a big impact on an organization with over 700 factory workers spread out across various locations. With a scalable AI solution put in place, Norco is now prepared to capture more revenue as the RV market heats back up, without having to hire additional people to meet demand. More agile, with lower back office costs, Norco can drive growth profitably while boosting productivity and maintaining the family culture that has driven its success.
Norco’s business model involves high variability in the product manufacturing whereby engineers cater to customer’s requests and design the product or make revisions prior to the manufacturing cycle. The adoption of AI- driven technology brings consistency to engineering-driven manufacturing allowing them to explore the unprecedented benefits like reduction in machine downtime, increase in production output, and optimization of maintenance schedules. “Nobody else is doing it like this,” commented Norco Industries CIO, Chris Richner, onfor how the new technology is empowering his business. “Kognitos is not UiPath, they’re not RPA—–they’re a lot more than that.”
EOS Group, a leader in receivables management, leverages over five decades of expertise to provide top-tier services globally. With a workforce of over 6,000 professionals across more than 20 countries, EOS serves pivotal sectors such as banking, real estate, telecommunications, energy, and e-commerce. Despite its robust infrastructure, EOS faced significant challenges in processing a substantial volume of structured and unstructured data from court orders. The company aimed to enhance its debt collection capabilities but needed a solution that could efficiently manage and extract data with high accuracy, thereby improving its receivables management process.
To address this challenge, EOS Group collaborated with ableneo, Slovakia’s pioneering IT consulting firm specializing in generative AI solutions, and Kognitos, a leading generative AI automation platform. The partnership aimed to automate the extraction of information from court orders and match it with corresponding payment data. This initiative was crucial for EOS to achieve a return on investment by surpassing a 60% accuracy threshold without human intervention.
The solution developed by Kognitos, integrated by ableneo, significantly exceeded expectations with a 92% success rate in handling unstructured document processing. This high level of accuracy was instrumental in streamlining EOS’s operations. Martin Borský, CFO of EOS KSI Slovensko, acknowledged the impressive performance of the partnership, highlighting the efficiency and reliability of the implemented solution.
“AbleNeo and Kognitos were able to address our unstructured document processing challenges with an impressive success rate of 92%.”
Martin Borský, CFO of EOS KSI Slovensko
The integration of Kognitos’s generative AI platform had a transformative impact on EOS Group’s workflow. By automating the extraction and matching of data from court orders, the company significantly reduced the manual effort required in the debt collection process. This automation allowed collection agents to focus on handling exceptions and mismatches, enhancing their productivity and operational efficiency.
The strategic adoption of Kognitos enabled EOS to generate payment orders within the system seamlessly, further optimizing the collection process. This not only streamlined EOS’s receivables management but also underscored the substantial benefits of combining advanced automated solutions with skilled human oversight. The collaboration set a new benchmark for innovation and operational excellence in the financial services sector.
EOS Group’s successful implementation of Kognitos serves as a prime example of how technology can revolutionize receivables management. It showcases the effectiveness of generative AI in tackling complex data processing challenges and reinforces EOS’s position as a frontrunner in the industry.
Kognitos can streamline workflows vital to your business, such as quote generation, invoice processing, credit card payment reconciliation, bills of lading entry, or any other important processes. Interested? Schedule a demo today.
JBI Interiors, a longstanding leader in the interior decor and architectural millwork industry, was launched over 50 years ago through a strategic partnership with McDonald’s, serving as the exclusive provider of their restaurant interiors. This enduring relationship continues to this day, with JBI remaining the largest supplier of construction materials to McDonald’s. Over the years, JBI has expanded its reach to other quick-service restaurants and, more recently, established a significant partnership with Starbucks, achieving over 20% annual growth since 2018. With a legacy of completing over 35,000 projects and expanding its team organically and through acquisitions, JBI has become a prominent player in the industry.
David Calvert, the CFO of JBI, brings a wealth of experience from the advertising and manufacturing sectors, including managing 15 plants across mainland China. With a strong background in both COO and CFO roles, David joined JBI to help steer the company through its next phase of growth.
Recognizing the potential of AI to drive competitive advantage, JBI’s leadership, inspired by interactions with venture capitalists, initiated a strategic move towards AI utilization. Despite initial concerns about readiness and security, the leadership team saw AI as a crucial tool for future success. “Our leadership urged us to be pioneers in this space… to drive competitive advantage,” David Calvert shared, emphasizing the tech-forward approach that propelled JBI towards AI.
The integration of AI, particularly through Kognitos, was met with a mixed but generally positive response within JBI. Younger employees were particularly enthusiastic, which indicated a generational divide in the acceptance of AI. Over time, as employees across the organization grew comfortable with the technology, the cultural integration of AI proved successful.
“Kognitos answered each of our questions, making us comfortable very quickly, helping us leap after we asked all the questions we needed.”
David Calvert, Chief Financial Officer, JBI
To address initial hesitations about security and technological adaptation, Kognitos provided tailored assurances and a supportive approach. David Calvert noted, “Kognitos answered each of our questions, making us comfortable very quickly, helping us leap after we asked all the questions we needed.” This partnership laid the foundation for a smooth AI integration.
JBI chose to start their AI implementation with AP invoice processing through a direct integration between the Kognitos platform and Epicor. This decision that highlighted the immediate and practical benefits of AI. Calvert humorously referred to this initial implementation as picking “fruit on the ground,” underscoring the ease and quick value derived from automating previously manual processes.
The partnership between JBI and Kognitos has been marked by collaboration and mutual growth. The implementation of Kognitos’s AI automation solution significantly improved JBI’s workflow efficiency. By automating AP invoice processing, JBI was able to streamline a time-consuming, manual process, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic tasks.
David Calvert praised Kognitos for their responsiveness and effective follow-up, which built confidence in JBI to scale their AI initiatives further. “The team has been very good at responding… and with proper follow up gave us confidence to ramp things up further,” he said. Encouraged by the initial success, JBI now plans to expand their use of Kognitos to automate processes in sales order entry and quote building.
This AI-driven transformation not only enhanced operational efficiency but also positioned JBI as a forward-thinking leader in their industry. The successful integration of AI has empowered employees and laid the groundwork for capturing new business opportunities. JBI is now set to extend its historic legacy beyond the quick-service restaurant market, exploring new initiatives in areas such as millwork for hotels, museums, and full-service restaurants.
JBI Interiors’ journey with AI and Kognitos, under the leadership of CFO David Calvert, exemplifies a strategic and innovative approach to digital transformation in a traditional industry. The case study highlights the importance of leadership, partnership, and a clear vision in successfully navigating the adoption of new technologies. With AI-empowered employees and streamlined processes, JBI is well-positioned to continue its growth and capture new business opportunities, reinforcing its status as a leader in interior decor and architectural millwork.
Kognitos can streamline workflows vital to your business, such as quote generation, invoice processing, credit card payment reconciliation, bills of lading entry, or any other important processes. Interested? Schedule a demo today.
This customer is a comprehensive logistics service provider offering dedicated and regional truckload services, warehousing, brokerage, and maintenance across the United States. The Vice President of Process Improvement & Management (“VP”), has been with the company for over a decade, specializing in analysis and trucking. His primary responsibility is to enhance process efficiencies throughout the organization.
Despite the trucking industry’s slow adoption of new technology, VP recognized the necessity for a more adaptable automation solution. The company had previously utilized robotic process automation (RPA) tools, but their rigidity proved problematic. The logistics sector demands agility, with frequent modifications to workflows being a necessity. Restarting from scratch each time was neither practical nor cost-effective. Therefore, our customer sought a solution that could adapt to the company’s evolving needs seamlessly.
“We needed to extract data from a customer’s bill of lading. The challenge is that each customer is unique and how their data is recorded on the computer is unique. Kognitos automated the workflows so the BOL can be inserted into the database automatically.”
VP of Process Improvement & Management
After extensive research into various RPA tools, VP identified Kognitos as the ideal solution for the company. Kognitos’s cloud-based platform offered easy integration with the company’s diverse operating systems and the flexibility required for their dynamic operations. The primary goal for the company was to automate the extraction of data from customer bills of lading (BOLs) and input this data into their database. Given that each customer has a unique setup, this process presented a significant challenge.
Kognitos developed customized automation workflows integrating directly with Truckmate to manage BOLs, enabling efficient data extraction and database insertion. This automation significantly reduced the manual data entry tasks that previously bogged down the company’s operations. Unlike other business automation platforms, Kognitos’s no-code or low-code environment allowed the company to implement and scale the solution without needing to hire a technical team, making it a perfect fit for their requirements.
“One of the best parts about Kognitos is that anyone with mid-level technical abilities can use it. Kognitos has a user-friendly interface, and there’s no coding experience required.”
VP of Process Improvement & Management
The implementation of Kognitos brought transformative improvements to the company. By automating repetitive tasks, the company achieved remarkable efficiency gains, including:
This automation not only streamlined the company’s workflows but also enabled them to manage exception cases more effectively. The flexibility and ease of use of Kognitos’s platform allowed the organization to overcome the limitations of incumbent automation technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) that rely on substantial technical expertise and have high implementation and maintenance costs. The VP is now a proponent of Kognitos, highlighting its benefits to other trucking companies that are hesitant to adopt automation due to the complexities inherent to RPA.
Looking ahead, VP and the company plan to expand its use of Kognitos to other divisions, including accounting and safety, further leveraging the platform’s capabilities to enhance overall operational efficiency.
Automation is essential in the logistics industry, where it enables companies to do more with less. By automating labor-intensive tasks, companies can reduce labor costs while boosting productivity. According to the Deloitte, AI automation solutions like Kognitos outperform traditional RPA in customer experience, accuracy, and analytics.
This customer’s success with Kognitos exemplifies the significant business impact that a well-implemented automation solution can deliver, driving both cost savings and operational improvements.
Kognitos can streamline workflows vital to your business, such as quote generation, invoice processing, credit card payment reconciliation, bills of lading entry, or any other important processes. Interested? Schedule a demo today.
Our client, one of the world’s largest multinational food and beverage companies, operates in over 200 countries with more than 250 production facilities and a workforce of 280,000 employees. The company was committed to reducing operational costs and enhancing customer experience. They faced significant challenges with their ticket management system in ServiceNow, which relied on a third-party service to interpret and manually assign tickets to appropriate internal departments. This process was costly and slow, with tickets being received in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
Additionally, Kognitos reviewed their popular global rewards program that allowed customers to submit a photo proof of purchase to earn rewards. This process was inefficient and required manual review of up to 2 million receipts each year to mitigate fraudulent submissions.
To address these issues, the company partnered with Kognitos, which leveraged GPT technology to automate the interpretation and assignment of ServiceNow tickets. Kognitos implemented a solution that runs continuously, 24/7, 365 days a year. The platform utilized a custom endpoint to seamlessly update ticket data, ensuring that service requests were directed to the correct departments immediately upon receipt, regardless of language. This automation replaced the need for third-party intervention, streamlining the workflow and significantly reducing the time required for ticket processing.
Kognitos also helped our client streamline their workflows for more effective management of rewards submissions to improve handling time, run around the clock, reduce fraud, enhance the customer experience, and improve efficiency.
The implementation of Kognitos resulted in dramatic improvements in the client’s workflow and cost efficiency. The automation of ticket assignment led to a substantial reduction in BPO spend by 70%, translating to over $1.1 million in annual savings with room to drive increased return. The client completely eliminated the need for third-party services, leading to more streamlined operations and improved customer experience. Service requests were now assigned to the appropriate group within less than 30 minutes, ensuring prompt and accurate responses. Additionally, the Kognitos platform enabled the company to scale operations efficiently, managing up to 2 million receipts per year. This enhanced scalability and operational efficiency underscored the transformative impact of Kognitos on the client’s ticket management process, solidifying the partnership’s value.
The rewards program efficiently handled 2 million rewards submissions. Review time went from roughly 3 minutes per receipt to under 15 seconds, a 92% reduction of handling time that saved our client 92,000 hours annually.
Kognitos can streamline workflows vital to your business, such as quote generation, invoice processing, credit card payment reconciliation, bills of lading entry, or any other important processes. Interested? Schedule a demo today.
