Sumitomo SAP ERP technology

Challenge

Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. High Performance Plastics (SBHPP) is a global leader in high-performance plastics solutions and support. Applications for SBHPP’s products include automotive, aerospace, construction, electrics and electronics. To replace their legacy ERP system on AS/400, they teamed up with TheValueChain.

The business scope included finance (product costing and profitability analysis), order-to-cash, purchase-to-pay, logistics execution, warehouse management, transportation, quality management and maintenance management.

Solution

TheValueChain assisted Sumitomo in adopting SAP ERP and SAP Process Orchestration. During the design phase, a number of requirements had to be met. Sumitomo came up with the following requests for their new and updated ERP system:

Organisational change management
Harmonised business processes and master data across three sites
Complex production recipes and quality management
Moving from make2stock to make2order, including order-based product costs
Tight end-to-end control of raw material batch traceability with advanced batch determination and derivation rules
Analysis of complex customer pricing routines and profitability

SAP Process Orchestration was used to connect quality control systems for raw materials and finished products, shop floor applications for production confirmation, a legacy plant maintenance application, the AS/400 production planning system and manufacturing execution systems to SAP ERP.

The Ghent production site was the first to go live in May 2018 with a scope limited to financials, order-to-cash, purchase-to-pay and warehouse management. Later on, the full scope was implemented at the production site in Genk (January 2019), followed by implementation in Barcelona, Spain (May 2019).

Result

All sites resumed normal operation volumes within two weeks of going live. The implementation of SAP ERP has improved warehouse operations, reduced the total cost of ownership, made production costs and profitability transparent and increased efficiency in finance closing and intercompany transactions. In addition, plant maintenance has been integrated with production planning and inventory management, the order to delivery process has been optimised and the system allows for full end-to-end batch traceability compliance.

The second phase in the implementation of quality and production management at the Ghent site is ongoing, featuring a Fiori-based production order confirmation application for the production shop floor.