Resin arrives fully traced from the dock, with no ERP keying

The problem

Resin is 60-70 % of the cost, and its traceability rests on typing.

Resin receiving is the origin of all traceability in a PET plant, and today it is a manual bottleneck. Resin represents between sixty and seventy per cent of product cost: if the batch is not properly linked to the silo, and the silo to production, the plant's material balance can never be closed. The conflict is one of timing. Keying it properly means an hour of ERP work with the truck on the dock; keying it fast produces badly linked batches that resurface weeks later, when a bottler complains and somebody has to say which silo that bottle came out of. With recycled resin blends the problem gets worse. To stand behind the recycled content declaration handed to the customer you need to know exactly which batch went into which silo and in what proportion. Today that rests on spreadsheets and good faith. On top of that, the supplier's certificate of analysis — declaring intrinsic viscosity, moisture, acetaldehyde and color — is filed away and never looked at again, when it is precisely the data that would explain half a dozen process incidents.

• Resin receiving is the origin of the plant's entire traceability, and today it is a manual bottleneck.
• If the lot is not properly linked to the silo, and the silo to production, the plant's material balance can never be closed.
• The conflict is about time: capturing properly takes an hour in the ERP with the truck at the dock; capturing fast produces badly linked lots.
• And the failure reappears weeks later, when a bottler raises a complaint and the trail leads nowhere.

How it fits the IRIS system

Connect in photo mode — delivery note, certificate and package labels.

Connect, "photo of the analogue" mode with posting to the ERP. Step by step:

The certificate of analysis stops being a loose PDF: its declared values — intrinsic viscosity, moisture, acetaldehyde, color and recycled content — end up tied to the lot, and transitively to everything made from it.

• Photo of the delivery note. Vision AI recognises each supplier's format without asking them to change it, and extracts the tabular structure: supplier, reference, quantity, batch.
• Photo of the certificate of analysis. The declared values are extracted: intrinsic viscosity, moisture, acetaldehyde, color and recycled content.
• Unit label reading. GS1-128, QR, barcode or plain OCR on every big bag or octabin.
• Early human verification. The receiving supervisor validates the summary with one tap on the industrial tablet.
• Posting to the ERP. Everything enters via API, with the resin batch linked to its destination silo.
• Available downstream. The certificate stops being filed paper and becomes structured data, cross-referenceable with lab tests and drying conditions.

See the full IRIS architecture →

Before and after

Today's receiving versus captured receiving

Aspect	Today	With iLEAN Connect
Receiving blocked	45-60 minutes	5-10 minutes
Carrier demurrage	Recurring	Eliminated
Lot → silo → pallet linking	Partial and manual	Complete and automatic
Certificate of analysis	A PDF in a folder	Values tied to the lot
Material balance	Cannot be closed	Closable, because the origin is properly tied
Receiving and warehouse licenses	Two or three	One, the supervisor who validates

Impact estimate

Estimated impact — to validate with your own numbers.

The block below is an estimate to be validated against your plant's actual data. We put it forward so the committee has an order of magnitude; we refine it during the assessment.

• 💰 CFO angle: the receiving and warehouse module typically requires two or three active licenses. With Connect only the supervisor validates, without entering the ERP: typical 50-70 % reduction in recurring licenses.
• From 45-60 minutes of dock blockage to 5-10, trailer after trailer.
• Carrier demurrage eliminated.
• And the enabler of the flagship case: without the resin lot properly linked to the silo, the material balance never closes.

CFO angle — direct ERP license savings. The receiving and warehouse module typically requires two or three active licences (receiving supervisor, support and manager). With Connect only the supervisor validates, without entering the ERP. Typical reduction of 50-70% in receiving/warehouse module licences, plus the removal of bulk data capture module costs. Estimated payback 3-8 months, combining licences, avoided demurrage and freed-up receiving time. *Estimate to be validated.*

And the fair question from the production manager

«Does it recognize every supplier's delivery note?» — yes, and without asking any of them to change theirs: the model extracts the table structure with no need for a per-supplier template. Package labels are read by standard symbology where present and flat optical recognition where not. It is an anchored task, where the best models drop below 1.5% error [1], and the receiving supervisor validates the summary before anything enters.

^[1] OpenAI paper "Why Language Models Hallucinate", 2025 — on the reliability of AI in anchored tasks.