Customer story

Aker QRILL is growing capacity 50%. Without growing overhead to match.

11 applications built — five deployed, six in development
10% shipment error rate targeted for elimination
300K NOK annual freight errors caught, fully retained in-house
About Aker QRILL Company is an Antarctic krill-harvesting company dedicated to improving health across species. They develop krill-based ingredients for nutraceutical, aquaculture, and animal feed applications, backed by rigorous science and research. This case study represents their journey to scale operations through AI-assisted business process transformation.
Headquarters Oslo, Norway
Industry Krill harvesting / marine ingredients
Employees 650
Antarctic Endurance — krill harvesting vessel

At a glance

Operations, on one builder-driven layer.

Riff apps run directly on the systems Aker QRILL already uses. Domain experts ship working software in weeks, not 18-month IT cycles.

Before Riff

  • ~10% error rate on shipping document verification
  • Manual, multi-step order allocation
  • Hours spent checking each supplier invoice
  • 400K NOK in invoice errors found—50% kept by external auditors
  • Supplier statement reconciliation largely unaddressed
  • Manual market decks, always stale
  • 6–18 months to deploy a new app (custom IT)

With Riff

  • Shipping errors on track to zero, fewer delays
  • Order allocation without manual steps, faster customer response
  • Supplier invoices checked in 2.5 min (95% time saved)
  • 200K NOK recovered in invoice errors, kept in-house
  • Supplier statements reconciled in 2 min, stronger relationships
  • Real-time dashboards leadership reviews daily
  • New apps deployed in 2–3 weeks (10–20× faster)

People do judgment work, not manual work.

Teams review exceptions instead of checking every page.

Customers and suppliers feel it.

Fewer errors, faster confirmations, same-day responses.

AI capabilities that compound.

Each app is a building block, all without adding headcount.

Use cases
Order management Supply chain & procurement Finance Leadership intelligence
Aker QRILL vessel

Aker QRILL is the world's largest krill producer. PE-owned carve-out from Aker BioMarine, 650 employees, 150 customers in 50+ countries. Around 70 people handle all onshore admin and sales.

They're investing 3bn NOK to grow capacity by 50%. A new vessel is joining the fleet. The question wasn't catching more krill. It was running the business behind it without growing overhead to match.

They'd run early AI pilots but nothing had reached production. With Riff, they scoped a focused program: admin and support functions only, real pain points, one app per area. Small team, domain experts in from day one, builders-first mindset. Six apps shipped in three months. 23 more in the sandbox.

Webjørn Barstad

“We need to scale volume and complexity without scaling headcount and overhead at the same pace.”

Webjørn Barstad CEO @ Aker QRILL Company
Operation applications live today
Impact
10% → 0

Shipment-document mismatch rate. On track from one-in-ten holds toward zero, on the way to elimination.

Exceptions only

Team reviews only flagged documents instead of reading every page. Hours per shipment returned to complex work.

Fewer holds

Customs delays drop as mismatches are caught before goods leave.

Problem

Every shipment needs documents to match: container IDs, product names, invoice values. The team checked each one by hand. One in ten still had mismatches that triggered customs holds.

Solution

The app scans each document set, extracts key fields, and flags mismatches before anything ships. The team reviews only the flagged exceptions instead of reading every single page.

Impact
Manual out

Manual work eliminated from the allocation workflow. One decision no longer spawns 150+ emails over months.

Faster

Faster order confirmation as PO requirements, inventory, and preferences align in one pass.

Self-serve

Care team freed from questions. Sales gets stock visibility without emailing the team.

Problem

Matching orders to inventory meant juggling PDFs, packaging specs, and import rules across scattered systems. A single allocation decision could generate over 150 emails spanning months.

Solution

The app extracts PO requirements, checks live inventory, applies customer preferences, and recommends allocations. Sales gets self-serve stock visibility without emailing the team.

Impact
400K NOK

Errors caught annually. Previously 50% of every recovery was kept by the external auditor — now 100% stays in-house.

~2.5 min

Per invoice, down from hours. 100+ supplier invoices monthly, up to 20 line items each, multi-currency.

Auditor out

External audit vendor eliminated. Clean invoices pass; exceptions get flagged for review.

Problem

Over 100 supplier invoices monthly, up to 20 line items each, in multiple currencies. Too complex to check by hand, so it was outsourced to auditors who kept 50% of every error found.

Solution

The app reads each invoice, extracts line items, validates currency conversions via live rates, and verifies the math. Clean invoices pass straight through; exceptions get flagged for review.

Impact
~2 min

Per statement, down from hours. Statements covering 300+ invoices reconciled against live ERP data.

Fewer charges

Interest charges reduced as payment status gets answered instead of ignored.

Relationships

Stronger supplier relationships when every statement gets a ready-to-send status report.

Problem

Suppliers send statements covering 300+ invoices and want payment status. The volume was too high to handle manually, so most statements simply went unanswered — straining supplier relationships and risking late-payment charges.

Solution

The app accepts statements in any format by email or upload, reconciles each invoice against live ERP data, and generates a ready-to-send status report. Low-confidence items get flagged.

Impact
Daily

Used by leadership for strategic decisions. Manual PowerPoint decks replaced by live dashboards.

Real-time

Market position, competitive dynamics, seasonal patterns — current at the moment of decision.

Chat-in

Built-in chatbot answers follow-up questions on the dashboard data without another meeting.

Problem

Market position, competitive dynamics, and seasonal patterns all drive planning decisions. Leadership tracked this through manual PowerPoint decks where data was always stale by the time it reached a meeting.

Solution

The app pulls official industry reports, integrates internal data, and presents real-time dashboards with auto-generated summaries. Leadership uses a built-in chatbot for follow-up questions.

Eyvind Haaland

“We go from business problem to production software in weeks, not months, at a fraction of the cost.”

Eyvind Haaland CIO @ Aker QRILL Company
How it happened

Three months, 11 apps,
one new operating model

Aker QRILL didn’t hire more developers or implement generic enterprise software. They mobilized domain experts from Order Management, Finance, Supply Chain, and Operations, then worked intensively with Riff to translate business processes into working applications. Five are in production today, with six more in development.

01

Mobilize domain experts

Order Management, Finance, Supply Chain, and Operations teams brought the knowledge of how work actually happens.

02

Translate processes to software

Working with Riff, business rules and exceptions became production-ready applications in weeks, not quarters.

03

Deploy with governance

Role-based access, audit trails, and security gates from day one. No shortcuts on compliance.

04

Train internal builders

Internal teams now own and evolve applications going forward, reducing dependency on external vendors.

Day 0 Month 4.5 Month 9 Month 13.5 Month 18
Old model
Need identified
IT backlog
Scoped
18-month custom build
Reality shifts
before it ships

Ships 18 months after the need. The business has already changed.

New model
2–3 week build
In production, adapting to current reality

Ships in weeks. Production always adapts to current reality.

For a company facing 50% capacity growth with limited headcount expansion, this difference is existential. It’s the difference between scaling profitably and scaling into a cost crisis. This isn’t just automation. It’s strategic leverage.

Ready to turn your expertise into leverage?

Talk to our team about how Riff can help you scale.

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