Sustainable and efficient: the paperless office of thyssenkrupp rothe erde Italy

The journey to a paperless office

Printed emails are a part of the past here. Colleagues in the Italian office have been working in a paperless environment for over a decade. "It was undoubtedly a process. Initially, we only printed documents that we absolutely needed in paper form, such as invoices or delivery notes. Over time, we also sought an alternative archiving solution for these documents and transitioned to a digital document management system," says Lucrezia Perotti. Alongside standard devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones, the entire process is made possible with the help of scanners and monitors in the production and quality departments.

However, there is one exception: delivery notes for external parties, like customers and suppliers, as well as export documents still require printing. Hence, the logistics department is the sole user of the printer. Overall, this unit saves 97% in paper consumption annually.

A great number of positive effects

The shift to a paperless workflow brings several advantages: "We have significantly increased our efficiency. This is primarily due to the elimination of tasks associated with paper documentation, resulting in the simplification of many processes," explains Lucrezia. The paperless approach also involves the use of electronic documents. This has an impact on collaboration between the teams: "Documents can be exchanged, edited and commented on in real time, regardless of where the team members are located. This not only improves teamwork, but also speeds up our decision-making processes, embodying the spirit of lean thinking," says Lucrezia.