How Europress Turned its Baling Machines into a Profitable Digital Service Business

Executive Summary

Europress Recyclingtech partnered with Autonoma to launch EP:Insight, a digital platform that gives operators clarity on production output, energy consumption, and true baling costs. This transparency enables customers to optimize margins, streamline operations, and proactively manage maintenance across their machines.

By delivering insights customers immediately value, Europress established a digital service offering that became ROI-positive within the first year. EP:Insight is now sold through the service organization, helping Europress strengthen long-term customer relationships and drive recurring revenue — without building or maintaining a software business in-house.

With EP:Insight, we’ve not only enhanced transparency for our customers but also created a sustainable, profitable digital service business. The platform enables operators to make data-driven decisions, while helping us build stronger, longer-term relationships beyond just the machines.

Thomas Kremer

Project Lead of Software Engineering & Service

Initial Situation 

Before building EP:Insight with Autonoma, operators had little visibility into their baling operations. They couldn’t easily track production output or energy consumption, making it difficult to understand true baling costs or margins. At the same time, Europress had little insight into how its machines performed in the field.

Without transparency on performance or cost drivers, neither operators nor Europress could help optimize processes, improve efficiency, or identify profitability levers. Europress saw an opportunity to help their customers by giving them clear, actionable insights on their machinery usage to improve both operational performance and business outcomes.

We often heard from customers that they had no easy way to tell how much output they got from a specific job — or whether the energy cost still made the pricing worthwhile. We knew we could do more to help them make these decisions with confidence.

Thomas Kremer

Project Lead of Software Engineering & Service

The Solution

To address customer challenges and build a profitable, scalable digital service offering, Europress launched EP:Insight — an IIoT and data platform built with Autonoma that gives every baler a second, insight-driven revenue layer beyond the hardware. The goal was twofold: Give operators the transparency to understand true job–level profitability, while enabling Europress to package and sell these insights as recurring digital services.

EP:Insight was built to combine asset management with real-time machine data. Using secure edge-to-cloud architecture, implementing the platform caused no disruptions to existing workflows. The solution was quickly adopted across the customer base, allowing Europress to reach profitability with the platform within its first year of launch.

The Autonoma platform enabled Europress to improve multiple core functional areas:

Results & Impact

EP:Insight has delivered measurable value for both Europress and its customers. Within the first year, the platform became ROI-positive, with recurring revenue from service packages exceeding the licensing costs Europress pays for the solution.

What began as a customer-support initiative has evolved into a scalable digital business model run directly through the service department.

Customer Impact

EP:Insight gives operators the transparency needed to make financially sound decisions and improve daily operations. Customers can now:

• Evaluate job-level profitability using real output and energy consumption 
• Reduce downtime with clearer shift and error analysis
• Plan maintenance proactively based on actual wear and usage
• Align teams through automated weekly performance reports

The value is strong enough that customers are requesting to connect non-Europress machines and even competitor balers to EP:Insight, extending the platform’s visibility across customers’ mixed fleets.

Europress Impact

By providing actionable operational and financial insights to customers, EP:Insight strengthens customer loyalty and positions Europress as a long-term digital partner rather than just a machinery supplier. Sold directly through Europress’ service department, the platform fits seamlessly into Europress’ existing commercial model, generating profitable recurring revenue without requiring a software organization.

EP:Insight transforms every Europress baler into a digital service touchpoint, enabling customers to manage job-by-job profitability while allowing Europress to run a recurring, ROI-positive digital business.

Delivering Value Beyond the Machine

EP:Insight enables Europress to offer far more than reliable baling machines. By turning every machine into a connected asset with real-time data, structured documentation, and actionable service insights, Europress delivers continuous value long after installation.

EP:Insight gives customers the ability to anticipate needs, optimize operations, and manage profitability with data, while allowing Europress to build a scalable service business run directly through its service organization.

Future-Ready, by Design 

EP:Insight gives Europress a digital foundation built to evolve. As customer expectations shift toward deeper analytics, connected service models, and mixed-fleet visibility, the platform can expand with new capabilities without disrupting existing workflows.

Because EP:Insight is built on Autonoma’s continuously improving edge-to-cloud architecture, it naturally incorporates emerging European requirements around security, data access, and compliance. Autonoma actively tracks regulatory developments, ensuring EP:Insight stays aligned with emerging standards such as the EU Data Act and the Cyber Resilience Act.

By grounding every machine in a modern, extensible data platform, EP:Insight helps Europress stay ahead of both customer needs and regulatory expectations, strengthening their long-term competitiveness in a market where hardware alone is no longer enough.