CASE STUDY: CEREALES INDUSTRIALES
4,000 documents. 12 departments. Critical knowledge locked in three people's heads. Two hours to change everything.
When Cereales Industriales contacted us, their problem wasn't lack of data — it was excess. 4,000 documents distributed across 12 departments. Critical knowledge in the heads of 3 people who've been at the company for 20 years. And competition that doesn't wait.
It wasn't a technology problem. It was a problem of organizational intelligence accumulated in places no system could access. This is the story of how we changed that in less time than it takes for an executive meeting.
THE CHALLENGE
Cereales Industriales is a mid-sized Colombian company with over 500 employees in the food sector. A solid, well-established operation — and with all the classic problems of a company that has grown without systematizing.
Processes documented in Word, Excel, and PDF without structure or version control
Critical tacit knowledge not captured in any system
Extreme dependence on "those who know": 3 people with 20+ years at the company
Onboarding time for a new manager: 6 months minimum
Impossible to know what the company knows without asking those 3 people
The risk wasn't hypothetical. Two of those three people had retirement plans within the next two years.
THE SOLUTION
ODIN processed the complete document corpus of Cereales Industriales in a single session. No prior setup. No months of implementation. No consultants mapping processes on sticky notes.
4,000 documents processed: operational manuals, contracts, key emails, historical reports, internal procedures.
1,284 entities identified and categorized: processes, actors, resources, business rules, dependencies.
47 core processes with their dependencies, sequences, and owners — including processes no one had formally documented.
89 implicit business rules operating without documentation. No one had written them — everyone just "knew."
3 critical dependency alerts proactively identified before they became emergencies.
RESULTS IN NUMBERS
6 months for new manager onboarding
Knowledge in 3 people's heads
4,000 docs without structure or access
Undocumented implicit rules
Invisible operational risks
Estimated 2-week onboarding
Knowledge accessible to the entire organization
47 processes mapped with visible dependencies
89 rules documented and validated
3 critical alerts proactively addressed
WHAT THEY DISCOVERED
The most valuable finding wasn't mapping what Cereales Industriales already knew about itself. It was discovering what it didn't know it knew.
"The most impactful thing wasn't the processing speed. It was discovering that 3 critical processes depended on a single person retiring in 18 months."
The hidden patterns ODIN identified:
3 core processes depended on a single person. No documentation. No backup. An existential risk no one had quantified.
12 business rules that different areas applied contradictorily. No one knew because no one had compared them before.
5 processes executed by different departments with different names but identical objectives — duplicated work without knowing it.
WHAT'S NEXT
The first phase was mapping. The second is living. ODIN now monitors Cereales Industriales' operation in real time: detects when documented processes deviate from reality, alerts when new dependencies emerge, and updates the knowledge graph as the company evolves.
The third phase is anticipation: proactive alerts about risks before they materialize. Not just knowing what's happening — knowing what's going to happen.
Cereales Industriales didn't just document its operation — it made it visible for the first time. And what's visible can be improved.
Your company has the same opportunity
Schedule a strategic session and map AI's potential in your operation.
Services
Industries
- Manufacturing
- Retail
- Agribusiness
- Telecommunications
Contact
- info@neocortexlabs.com
- Santiago de Cali, Colombia