Process Reengineering in the Steel Industry

Fully automated, workflow-controlled planning and order processing including order dressing in SAP ERP  

Goals

Thyssenkrupp Packaging Steel had to revise its enterprise processes in preparation for a new Level 3 (MES) system introduction. The manufacturing engineering that was historically located in the MES systems was to be mapped in SAP ERP by means of a rules engine.

The goal of the project was an E2E process and system reengineering based on SAP ECC 6.0 in order to simultaneously create the prerequisites for the SAP S/4HANA Bluefield approach. The Level 3 renewal required the redesign of company-wide planning and sales order entry processes as well as the creation of production orders.

Solution

The solution includes workflow-driven, highly automated planning and ordering process handling with steel-specific master data management and provides real-time MES information on production progress, product qualities down to SAP standard business objects (master data and transaction data such as sales order, production order, inspection lot, etc.).

In addition, sales and contingent planning integrated into customer order processing were introduced in the course of the long-term project. With the use of concircle’s own templates and product solutions, the process harmonisation was decisively advanced. These included QPPD, conFIGURE, conFLOW, conMOBILE, conIO, conUBC, conDP.

Challenge

To ensure the mapping of the old calculation logics of the complex production orders in the SAP-BRF+ landscape, a parallel operation of multiple MES interfaces (old and new MES systems) was implemented.

This approach has ensured the development and troubleshooting of the complex production rules in the SAP ERP system.

Benefits

By using concircle’s own steel-specific process and software templates, it was also possible to implement the production-related processes on the SAP ERP system.

The solution enables the company to operate modern planning and order processing procedures across departmental boundaries. The workflow automation gives sales a real-time overview of the production progress of each individual order item and thus contribute to increased service quality.

Using the QPPD template, all customer and production-relevant specifications (e.g. standards, qualities, inspection or label specifications, etc.) can be managed in a user-friendly interface and at the same time are seamlessly integrated into the SAP standard objects.