Cementos Pacasmayo lays solid foundations for innovation with Google Cloud Cortex Framework

Cementos Pacasmayo is a leading producer of construction solutions in Northern Peru whose mission is to "build together the future we dream of.”

The company provides its services through a distribution network of more than 3,500 hardware stores and independent retailers. In recent years, Cementos Pacasmayo has transformed its business model to put the customer at the center. In addition to offering high quality cement, it expanded its portfolio with more specialized and eco-efficient construction solutions that support a more environmentally friendly future.

Cementos Pacasmayo is a signatory on the Peru Cement Roadmap 2030 alongside the Inter-American Cement Federation (FICEM) and the Association of Cement Producers of Peru (ASOCEM) in efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The company received an award for its sustainable management for 10 consecutive years and is the only Peruvian cement company in the Dow Jones MILA 2022.

In addition, for the second consecutive year, they are part of the Sustainability Yearbook published by S&P Global, which only selects companies that have obtained excellent results in SAM's annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA).

Greater transparency in the cement sector

Cementos Pacasmayo is a long-time user of SAP ERP and has developed more than 50 remote function calls (RFCs) for communication between SAP systems and other applications, including the legacy Data Warehouse. This required hiring external experts in SAP's ABAP programming language, which was costly and slowed down data analysis. In addition, these RFCs became "black boxes" due to the lack of transparency about precisely which database tables served as sources of information to build them.

In the absence of easy-to-use business analytics tools, managers frequently explored SAP data in spreadsheets. This required a lot of time and manual labor, which in turn led to potential data security issues and errors in formulas and calculations. Meanwhile, sales related to building solutions could be hampered due to a lack of timely information on product availability, as key data was only updated every 24 hours.

In this context, Cementos Pacasmayo built a data lake using BigQuery to improve access and take advantage of data from SAP and other sources, improving decision-making by all business units. The company also migrated its SAP S/4 HANA platform to RISE with SAP on Google Cloud.

Further, the Google Cloud Cortex Framework provides Cementos Pacasmayo with pre-defined BigQuery data modeling to make it quick and easy to analyze data from SAP.

Faster than setting concrete

Cementos Pacasmayo uses a combined solution for a process that stores base tables, creates replicated tables, and synthesizes new tables. The team arranges its data processing pipelines with Cloud Composer and syncs updates to its data lake every five seconds to the raw layer.

“Using the Google Cloud Cortex Framework with a key integration partner allows our staff to quickly generate an instant, on-the-spot look at what the data was like on a given date. This is a business need that arises very frequently," says Abrahan Puelles Taboada, Data Architect Leader at Cementos Pacasmayo.

Since most of its staff speaks Spanish, the company appreciates that the names of all the fields appear in this language instead of English or German with the simplified view that the Cortex Framework provides to the data modeler. By connecting the data to Looker for analysis and visualization, the tables are also in Spanish.

“Our data modelers save a lot of time because the information is already in a language that all of our collaborators understand,” says Miguel Loayza, Tribe Leader Data & Analytics for Cementos Pacasmayo. "Between the ease of data access and the linguistic advantages of the Cortex Framework, our modelers can interpret results up to 60% faster."

Franz Zárate, Technical Tribe Lead Data & Analytics for Cementos Pacasmayo, has also received positive feedback from stakeholders across the company. “Before, three people had to work for eight hours to generate a business analysis. Now business users don't have to wait for computer scientists or data analysts. They can act autonomously to immediately gain valuable insights thanks to automation and rich, centralized information,” Zárate said.

The solution is also cost effective. “When we factor in the cost of the solution and the money saved by eliminating the need to hire specialized ABAP developers, we are saving approximately 66% in terms of total direct costs and realizing greater business benefits,” added Loayza.

Innovation under construction

Google Cloud Cortex Framework provides Cementos Pacasmayo with machine learning (ML) code samples using Vertex AI. The company is excited to work on a pilot for a gen AI-based virtual assistant through Vertex AI and Looker that will expand business user access to AI.

In a pilot project, the company will analyze the volumes of products shipped and track the location of the trucks to examine the punctuality of the deliveries and the efficiency of the routes. The initiative is expected to help increase customer satisfaction and deliverability.

The team also plans to leverage 110 metrics generated from SAP data for an upcoming operations project. Cementos Pacasmayo integrates IoT sensor data from the production area to BigQuery. Through this approach, the company can develop models that optimize the production process and better adjust to factors such as changes in moisture levels or variations in the performance of additives in its products.

“With the ecosystem we have built using the Cortex Framework, SAP, and Vertex AI on Google Cloud, we provide stakeholders across all departments with fast, broad, and deep visibility into data. This allows us to improve product quality, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction with strategies based on improved data,” concludes Puelles.

Learn more about how the Google Cloud Cortex Framework can help drive value for your business.