Custom High-Tech Meets Digital Logistics
Endress+Hauser Optimizes Warehouse Processes with SAP EWM
“Wherever you are, we’re right nearby”: This is Endress+Hauser’s promise to its customers. And its customers are literally everywhere. As one of the world’s leading providers of measurement and automation technology for the process industry, the family-owned company—founded in 1953 in Lörrach near Basel—has long operated on an international scale, with approximately 17,000 employees. Each year, it ships more than two million sensors and systems. And these are by no means off-the-shelf products. Nearly every device is one-of-a-kind, tailored exclusively to the specific needs of the respective customer—in part to pave the way for their digital future.
Endress+Hauser is, of course, following this path as well. It therefore recently accelerated the transition of warehouse logistics at its oldest and largest production facility—the site in Maulburg, Baden-Württemberg—from SAP WM to SAP EWM. The system upgrade digitized numerous manual processes, making them significantly more efficient. On top of that, transparency in logistics processes within the plant, as well as in the inventories of raw materials, semi-finished, and finished products, has been significantly increased.
Customized Implementation Despite a Complex Warehouse Structure
Endress+Hauser brought io on board for the implementation. The interdisciplinary general planner successfully implemented the measures last spring as part of an integrated overall concept it developed for the Maulburg site. “For the implementation, we rely on our proven standard approach,” explains Thomas Kopany, who oversaw the measures as project manager. “The Activate methodology is based on Scrum—and stands out for its comparatively short project durations. It was developed for the specific requirements of SAP implementation projects.”
What sounds like business as usual, however, by no means follows a one-size-fits-all formula in day-to-day planning. Even when structured this way, the implementation cannot exactly be handled on the side, as Matthias Kaiser, Project Manager for Business Processes at Endress+Hauser, explains: “Warehouses always involve physical realities. Because of this, it’s only possible to test and predict the reality of logistics processes for the go-live to a limited extent in advance.” Especially since the warehouse structures and their processes in Maulburg have evolved over time, and capacities were reaching their limits, as Kaiser goes on to explain. “Overall, this involved two small-parts warehouses, two pallet warehouses, and various outdoor and replenishment warehouses with varying degrees of automation. The system can perhaps map out about 80 percent of how these are organized and what is actually stored in them. There’s a lot to consider and take into account.”
Change Management as the Key to Sustainable Project Success
Finally, it was also important to involve those Endress+Hauser employees who are now responsible for maintaining the systems following the project’s successful completion. “The importance of change management should not be underestimated, which is why implementation strategies are always accompanied by workshops,” explains Sascha Keth, Key Account Manager and Team Lead at io. “Collaborative, hands-on coaching sessions that convey the scope of services and the necessary know-how in detail, in order to involve all users at an early stage.” Another important aspect for the future: The next step is to map movements from production to the warehouse in SAP EWM. In addition, Endress+Hauser’s in-house IT specialists do not support only the Maulburg site. They support the corporate group worldwide—including the planned new facilities in China and India, which are currently getting underway.
