Sant’Orsola

Technology in servicing the quality of nature without any compromise

In the heart of the Valsugana valley in Trentino you can find the new, future-oriented plant of Sant’Orsola, Italy’s leading cooperative for the production and distribution of soft fruits. Inaugurated in 2019, the facility is not only an architectural gem and a lighthouse for sustainability, but also the symbol of a strategic vision that has placed technology at the center of its development. A radical transformation enabled by the partnership with NTS and the innovative solutions by Cisco.

We met with Severino Perenzoni, CTO, and Gilberto Osler, IT Manager of Sant’Orsola, to understand the significance of this change. They have shown us how state-of-the-art infrastructure can become the most valuably ally to guarantee the freshness and quality of delicate fruits such as raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries.

A challenge as big as Italy

“Our cooperative was established in the 1970s in Bersntol and now has over 700 members all over Italy, from Sicily to South Tyrol”, recounts Severino Perenzoni. “This country-wide presence allows us to offer Italian soft fruits 365 days a year. A unique feature, but one that also brings with it several organizational challenges.”

Before 2019, the company operated from an inadequate location with a fragmented and hardly scalable IT infrastructure. “We worked in ‘silos’ and with systems that did not communicate with each other,” explains Gilberto Osler. “This led to inefficiencies and risks: from suboptimal temperature monitoring, in the cooling cells, to the difficulty of keeping a real-time overview of the goods in stock, which posed the risk of selling the same product twice or of not selling it at all.”

The game-changer decision to build a new plant in Cirè di Pergine provided this opportunity. “We wanted the new location to be more ‘data-centric’ in order to gain additional value out of each individual piece of information,” adds Osler. “The biggest challenge was to size an infrastructure that not only met current requirements but that could also support future growth.”

The selection of a partner and not of a supplier

The search for the right technology partner was a decisive moment. “We were in a tendering phase,” remembers Perenzoni. “For us, the decision to go with NTS and the technologies by Cisco was a bet on innovation at a time of profound change. Two fundamental aspects were crucial: the reliability of the partner and the proposed solutions as well as the prospect of establishing a long-term strategic partnership.”

NTS did not present themselves as a simple supplier, but as a consultant who understood the needs of Sant’Orsola and who translated them into a tailor-made project. “I was fed up with talking to suppliers that told me: ‘Tell me what you need, and I will do it for you’”, explains an enthusiastic Perenzoni. “I needed to talk to someone who could teach me something and who could show me a credible direction for development. At NTS, we found expertise, authority, and above all – trust.”

A human relationship that makes the difference, as Osler emphasizes: “Despite their size, NTS has an almost family-like approach. We never felt isolated behind the impersonal surface of a ticket. We always had a direct dialogue with competent and helpful people who shared their aim at bringing the project to completion, even when the actual working hours exceeded the estimated ones by far.”

A robust infrastructure for delicate fruits

The solution that has been implemented by NTS is based on three pillars: network, data center, and security. “These three elements are inseparably linked and operate in harmony,” explains Osler with a fitting metaphor. “The network is the circulatory system of our plant, the veins and arteries that transport the data. The data center is the pulsating heart, which processes and stores information. The security is our immune system that protects this vital ecosystem.”

A solid architecture that proved its effectiveness from the first, critical day. “Up to April 8th, 2019, we worked from the old plant. On April 9th, we opened here with all new systems. On the same day, at 4 PM, we loaded all trucks and printed all delivery notes. Everything worked right away. A small miracle that was made possible by impeccable planning.”

The partnership with NTS also allowed us to solve one of the most complex challenges for Sant’Orsola: the connectivity of the collecting points that are spread-out all-over Italy and that can be found very often in rural areas with poor network coverage. “Thanks to the SD-WAN solution by Cisco that was proposed by NTS, we were able to connect all our remote locations with each other reliably,” recounts Osler. “Since we installed this system, we have never had any connectivity problems. It was like a new life.”

From intuition to innovation: the added value beyond data

Today, the IT infrastructure of Sant’Orsola is not only functioning on a stable operational basis but also remains a real driver of innovation. The data that is collected in real time makes it possible to optimize every stage of the supply chain and to ensure flawless quality of the end product.

“We have developed a system that controls the cooling equipment dynamically by analyzing more than 6,000 variables based on the energy production of our photovoltaic plant”, reveals Perenzoni. “This has enabled us to achieve energy savings of 26% while ensuring ideal storage conditions of our fruits. This is concrete proof that an investment in IT technology is not a cost, but a strategic instrument for growth and sustainability.”

A farsighted vision that Perenzoni persistently defended: “I had to persuade even the biggest skeptics of the fact that the bet on the technological development was the right way to go. I have done this by trusting in the competence of my employees and the passion of partners such as NTS. Today, the results demonstrate that we were correct.”

Severino Perenzoni (CTO) and Gilberto Osler (IT-Manager), Sant’Orsola

© Text & photos: ueberall.com