A process-focused SAP implementation in the Chemical Industry

Our customer is a leading global provider of chemical products to a wide variety of industries. The combination of their global presence, unique market-driven and customer focused approach, technical and regulatory support, and their comprehensive portfolio of products is the cornerstone of our Chemical Industry customer’s (CIC) success.

Strategic goals

CIC wants to use their system as optimal as possible and eliminate any off-system workarounds. To achieve this goal, the following content related goals were part of the go-live for their USA-based plant:

• Standardize and harmonize the way of working in their USA-based production and warehousing related processes, from planning to delivery to the customer.

• Enforce the production process using process orders, leading to improved reliability of the confirmations to customers.

• Increase the accuracy level of the inventory for both finished goods as well as raw materials using cycle counting as a standardized process.

McCoy as a partner

CIC needs a process-focused partner who’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition expert. A partner who guides them through the implementation process and improves their use of the system. Because of this, McCoy supports CIC in improving their business and IT-related processes using SAP. As part of this program, the production and warehousing processes in their USA-based plant needed optimization. In previous improvements, we demonstrated our capabilities on both business and IT. Especially in the S/4HANA Cloud, public edition environment, standardized and aligned business processes are necessary due to the limited development possibilities. Our knowledge and persistency in setting up the processes in SAP to support optimized business processes did not go unnoticed.

Benefits of the implementation

CIC’s Plant Manager USA: “The project included improved workflows for our warehouse, production, and supply chain planning. This will result in improvements in inventory management as well as the planning and execution of production and supply chain operations. Getting all the site’s inventory into a systematically managed process should have the site well-positioned moving forward.”

The improvements mentioned above consist of the production planning process now being fully integrated in S/4 HANA Cloud, public edition. External software to support the business processes is no longer needed. Communication regarding the production plan is done via SAP. All warehousing processes are included in basic EWM, leading to better visibility of available stock and ability to execute a standardized cycle counting process for the entire warehouse. Besides that, moving responsibility of the standardized processes to lower levels in the organization has been implemented.

How we accomplished this together

The following success factors form the basis of the implementation:

McCoy Regenerate® As starting point for improvements

Our McCoy Regenerate scan was used to identify the main improvement points for the Production and Warehousing solutions in the USA. In a short period of time, the local processes were captured, and proposals were made to move the standardized and harmonized processes forward using a phased implementation plan.

Standardization and harmonization of both business and IT using SAP and McCoy Best Practices

Using standard and proven processes delivered by SAP and McCoy best practices delivered a go-live without any hiccups. The McCoy team made the changed business processes clear using standard SAP processes and customized training documents.

Guided support during the move towards go-live

The knowledge regarding standardized SAP processes and implementation at CIC’s local team needed to be improved. Dedicated support in setting the requirements and taking the team along towards the go-live date was a prerequisite for a successful go-live. McCoy led CIC’s local team towards the go-live to realize a smooth start from day 1. CIC’s Customer Plant Manager: ‘…we could not have done it without you. You were most definitely the “necessary resource”.’