Packaging
How IPI made its purchasing process more structured and efficient with Compri
With Compri, IPI's purchasing team manages around 700 active suppliers using objective, traceable data, giving buyers more room for higher-value activities and strengthening on-time delivery monitoring.
IPI: 40 years of leadership in packaging
IPI produces aseptic packaging solutions for the food & beverage sector and has been part of the Oji Holdings Group since 2023.
Headquartered in Perugia, the company exports aseptic carton packaging materials, filling machines and technical services to more than 60 countries, providing solutions for milk, juices, wine, soups and sauces.
Since 2023 IPI has been part of Oji Holdings Corporation, a Japanese group and a leader in the paper and pulp industry. In 2025, the Oji Group established Oji Liquid Pak (OLP) in Vietnam, a sister company of IPI dedicated to developing the APAC market.
IPI is organized into two complementary business units: one designs and builds filling machines for aseptic products, the other operates as a paper mill, producing carton packaging material.
This dual nature makes IPI's supply chain particularly complex. The purchasing team manages around 700 active suppliers, many of them international, across dozens of product categories with widely varying volumes. Over 6,000 orders are handled every year, in a context where machine bills of materials are extensive and the on-time arrival of every component is a key factor in production continuity.
Ours is a very complex supply chain: we manage over 700 suppliers and more than 6,000 orders. That makes it essential to have control, clear priorities and reliable data.
Managing a complex and fragmented supply chain
A journey of evolution that led the team toward smarter, more integrated and collaborative tools
In recent years IPI's purchasing team, made up of 6 people, has handled a growing workload.
A significant share of the information on supplier relationships, price lists and order history was spread across individual buyers, each with their own portfolio of suppliers.
Expediting, too, was largely managed without centralized visibility over open orders — a setup that demanded constant effort from buyers.
One example is the analysis of purchase prices for raw materials and semi-finished goods. Every month Matteo spent significant time analyzing the main suppliers and their respective order lines: accurate work, but hard to scale across a total scope of more than 700 suppliers.
We needed to bring the data within a click's reach: it wasn't a question of manpower, but of tools that would let us make better use of it.
Growing with smarter tools: Compri's contribution
With Compri, IPI was able to integrate new digital tools in support of the purchasing team, simplifying price analysis and making the expediting flow more structured and collaborative.
The purchasing flow, from order confirmation through follow-ups, has been unified in a single environment. Compri generates the order request email with the PDF attached, and each subsequent follow-up automatically includes the Excel file with the relevant order lines. This structured communication makes it possible to interact effectively even with less digitalized suppliers: follow-ups are sent automatically and Compri's AI agent processes the replies, including the more complex ones with attached files or handwritten changes. The platform also supports updating order lines directly in the ERP, reducing duplicate work.
On the expediting side, automatic alerts on price differences between the order and the supplier confirmation allow buyers to focus only on the cases that genuinely require attention, without having to re-read emails. The time recovered is reinvested in higher-value activities such as supplier negotiation, also supported by Compri's AI Assistant.
The centralized flow also provides a shared view of open orders: at any time the AI assistant can be asked for a report on open order lines by supplier, useful for preparing periodic meetings and keeping the team aligned.
With the Price Intelligence module, year-on-year price variance analysis is now available in just a few clicks: this makes it possible to identify critical cases in time and to add a more strategic view of purchasing alongside day-to-day work.
Supplier performance analysis has also become more structured. Today the Performance module makes it possible to monitor each supplier's Vendor Rating in a single view. In line with IPI's ISO 9001 certification, being able to measure supplier quality KPIs in fine detail is an important plus, and Compri has proven a concrete ally in this respect.
Having the data always available lets us work dynamically as a team: everyone can check the status of an order on the colleague who owns it, and that makes the whole flow smoother for everyone.
Who would you recommend Compri to?
For Matteo Guadagnini, Compri is a good fit for those working in procurement with lean teams and complex supply chains
Based on his experience using it, Matteo sees Compri as particularly suited to manufacturing companies with a broad supplier base and diverse product categories, where the ERP alone is not enough to cover all the analytical and operational needs of the purchasing team.
Integrating Artificial Intelligence into day-to-day work has helped raise the quality of the work and strengthen collaboration within the team, while leaving more room for strategic decisions.
The platform encourages information sharing among buyers, reducing dependence on any single person and making data accessible at all levels of the organization.
The benefits don't stop at the purchasing department: management now also has a faster, clearer view of performance, supporting governance decisions.
Compri hasn't changed what we do, but it has allowed us to do it with smarter tools, adding value to the team's work.
