Usiminas, with Enkel’s Support, Reduces R$ 9 Million in Transportation Costs by Optimizing Processes Through AWS Services

Usiminas is a Brazilian company in the steel sector, considered a leader in the production and sales of steel, and positioned among the largest flat steel complex in the world. Given its positioning in an increasingly competitive sector and its commitment to sustainability, the company recognized the need to optimize and enhance the intelligence of its freight pricing and routing processes. The client faced persistent challenges in advancing their on-premises services. Their internal IT team didn’t have the resources or development skills needed to create the solutions required by the business area.

According to Fabio Ferreira Cavalcante, processes analyst at Usiminas, by seeking a partner capable of understanding business context, who could also help implement cutting-edge technologies, the organization could overcome in-house technical and resource constraints, enhancing its capacity for innovation. By doing so, Usiminas would be able to not only reduce its environmental impact while ensuring better cost efficiency, but also reinforce its commitment to integrating sustainable practices into its operations, ultimately driving innovation and competitiveness in the steel industry.

"This is why the organization embarked on a relentless quest for excellence by seeking to optimize its freight pricing process, with the automation of routing. More than simply reducing logistics costs, we had the goal to chart new horizons, raising the efficiency of deliveries to a new level and, in doing so, leaving a positive mark on the world by significantly reducing the environmental impact of our operations", detailed Cavalcante. This endeavor was not just a quest for savings, but rather a journey toward a more sustainable and efficient future, where every step of the logistics process should be executed with mastery and precision, in harmony with the environment and the company's business objectives.

Enkel, an AWS partner specialized in artificial intelligence solutions, was chosen by Usiminas to support the development of a customized platform to address these challenges of pricing and route optimization. Cavalcante explains that Enkel was chosen as the partner because it was the only company willing to fully understand their unique needs and take on the challenge of developing a comprehensive solution, integrating both development and infrastructure, specifically crafted to address their complex requirements.

Enkel developed a proof of concept (PoC) to demonstrate how external services could drive efficiency. Then, the partner built a scalable and cost-effective solution using AWS Lambda for code execution; storage was handled by Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), while Amazon Route 53 is responsible for DNS management, directing traffic to Amazon CloudFront distributions and APIs in Amazon API Gateway. Finally, the notification process relies on Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS).

The platform utilizes serverless services on AWS and advanced algorithms to automate freight pricing, considering various factors such as origin, destination, number of axles, tonnage, among others. In addition, it optimizes freight routing, defining the most efficient routes for each delivery, including detailed information on total distance, travel time, toll values, value per ton, and also the total freight value.