Case Study
Leader in Sustainable Packaging Modernizes Their Sample-to-Order Platform
50% Faster Feasibility Reviews, 80% of Approved Samples Converted into Full-Scale Orders
About the Client
The client is a leader in sustainable thermal packaging, acclaimed for its high-performance plant-based insulation. The company’s compostable packaging solutions are a sustainable alternative to expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation, which are impossible to recycle and pose severe environmental pollution. What began as a kitchen-table idea in 2015, has enabled more than 50 million sustainable shipments.
Business Challenge
The company’s sample-to-order application reached its technical and operational limits, failing to keep pace with business growth. The legacy system worked only for a limited set of product types, materials, dimensional rules, and calculation formulas, making it difficult to accommodate new sample requirements.
This technological bottleneck forced sales representatives to manage the customer requests offline through emails and phone calls. The reliance on manual workarounds made the downstream processes, including feasibility assessments, cost and timeline estimates, and internal approvals, lengthy, cumbersome, and opaque to customers. Ultimately, sample production stretched into weeks, pushing subsequent customer acceptance and mass production timelines out by months.
Trigent Solution
Trigent identified the need for an integrated workflow to streamline sample request intake, feasibility assessment, and customer approvals. We designed and implemented an end-to-end sample-to-order product configuration platform comprising three human-in-the-loop (HITL) automation workflows: feasibility validation, internal approval, and customer acceptance.
Feasibility Validation: The System Validates the Request for Technical and Commercial Feasibility
Trigent rearchitected the legacy PHP application using a modern tech stack featuring Node.js on the backend and Vue.js on the frontend. Unlike the previous system, which supported only a limited range of specifications, the application enables users to input a far wider range and variety of packaging characteristics, including preferred materials temperature, and payload characteristics. Once submitted, an asset-built calculator performs an automated feasibility assessment that evaluates valid material-product combinations, structural constraints, tooling requirements, plant capabilities, and quality standards.
Following the assessment, the system classifies each request into one of four categories
- Request is feasible
- Request is feasible with modifications
- Engineering review required
- Request is not feasible
Internal Approval: The Manager Validates the Configuration, Quote, and Timeline Approved by the System
A client manager then reviews the system’s recommendation to determine the next action. Within the platform, they can approve the system’s recommendation, modify the cost and timelines, select a different manufacturing plant, request an engineering review, or reject the opportunity. Microsoft Entra ID was integrated to enable secure role-based access, while automated workflows streamlined internal collaboration and approvals.
Customer Approves the Proposal
The customer receives the original request specification along with the proposed manufacturable specification. They could approve or reject the proposal or request further modifications. If modifications are required, the system automatically initiates a revision loop, repeating the previous process until the customer accepts the final dimensions, materials and configuration, cost, timeline, and delivery commitment.
Once the customer accepts the proposal, the system generates a sample production job, seamlessly sending the approved data to the corresponding operational systems.
Phase Two: From Sample Production to Commercial Order
The platform is currently integrated with the internal systems to ensure end-to-end visibility of the sample order status from production and inspection to shipment and delivery. Once the customer accepts the product and proceeds to place a commercial order, the system automatically generates a final quote and converts the request into a full-scale production order.
Client Benefits
- 50% Faster Feasibility Reviews: Automated configuration and capability check accelerated sample validation.
- 4 Feasibility Outcomes: Requests were instantly classified as feasible, modifiable, engineering-led or unfeasible to streamline downstream routing.
- 3 HITL Workflows Unified: System validation, managerial approval, and customer approval were consolidated into a single cohesive platform.
- 100% Order Lifecycle Visibility: Customer gained real-time tracking across every stage from feasibility and approval to production, inspection, shipment, and delivery.
- Higher Sample-to-Mass Production Conversion: Real-time visibility built early customer trust, elevating the brand’s perception to a strategic partner and driving seamless conversion from sample requests to commercial orders.
- Elimination of Administrative Friction: Replaced time-consuming emails and phone calls with digital self-service, eliminating wasted man-hours and accelerating sales cycles
Technology Stack
