Packstyle and Omnys Cut Fulfillment Times by 94% and Triple Production Rates Using AWS

Packstyle launched in 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns hit Italy. This added to the challenges of building the state-of-the-art manufacturing plant and associated IT systems it wanted. The flexible packaging the company makes is primarily for food manufacturers. Its innovative manufacturing systems offer a sophisticated printing and laminating system, along with a range of different packaging materials that must all be compliant with strict food safety regulations. In addition to needing to automate manual order processing, Packstyle wanted an easy-to-use interface so that factory staff could use ruggedized tablets to manage orders and better understand customer requirements. It needed systems that would not be too expensive to run because, as a startup, it had limited funding. But it also needed systems that would be ready to scale fast as its customer base grew.

Although it could take orders through its website, Packstyle had to manually process those orders. This was particularly difficult because its business model relied on its ability to deliver many small orders quickly. Orders were taken from the website, entered into a spreadsheet, and reordered manually so that jobs with the same materials were next to each other. That spreadsheet was then printed out and taken to the factory floor. This system inevitably led to errors and misplaced orders.

After trying on its own to tailor a generic manufacturing execution system (MES) to its needs, Packstyle turned to AWS and Omnys to build the platform to support its business. The AWS Partner was already working with the company to fix its customer order software. Packstyle was pleased with the work and asked it to build the platform. Process automation was a key challenge for Omnys to eliminate the errors caused by the manual process. To achieve this, they had to build a deep understanding of the current system. “The guys from Omnys spent the time on the factory floor seeing how we worked and finding ways to improve our processes,” says Nicoletta Garbo, chief executive officer at Packstyle. “I love their expertise, but also having an external pair of eyes is a big help to us.”

Backend systems use AWS Fargate, a serverless solution providing the scalability and cost-effectiveness that Packstyle requires. Data is sent automatically from Packstyle’s ERP system into the MES platform, giving staff across the company near real-time order information. Staff on the factory floor have ruggedized tablets to view orders and other data. “The staff are mostly young guys and they love the system,” says Garbo. “And they helped with suggestions to improve it, too.” The MES platform is used to manage production workflows that cannot be interrupted. To enable this Omnys chose to use AWS Lambda to offer high-availability and elasticity and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) to decouple the MES software from third-party platforms and to maintain message order.

The infrastructure uses several AWS services for security and resilience, including AWS WAF as a web application firewall, AWS Shield for denial of service attack protection, and Amazon GuardDuty for intelligent threat detection. AWS Backup is employed for automated and centrally managed data protection. Data is stored on Amazon Aurora, which offers high performance and availability along with full MySQL compatibility.