SGL Carbon is a technology-based global leader in the development and manufacture of carbon-based solutions. SGL Carbon’s complex and wide-ranging material portfolio makes it imperative for the company to create the master data for its materials using clearly defined processes.
Until now, however, all of the processes had been defined on a site-by-site basis, making it impossible to plan and create materials across sites. But materials and intermediate products are regularly produced at one plant and refined at another. The aim of the project was therefore to ensure globally harmonized creation of materials controlled from automatisms within the process.
Challenge
Harmonizing the Company’s Material Master Data Worldwide
Consulting approach
SAP Add-on MDC Master Data Cockpit by SAP-PartnerEdge-Gold-Partner valantic
Benefits for the customer and solution
Significant efficiency, time and cost improvements through SAP Master Data Management
Dr. Karin Born
Senior Vice President and Head of Information Technology at SGL Carbon
”Our IT department, which is also responsible for the process governance of IT-assisted processes, provides methodological support to all business units. Amongst our permanent goals are: further improving SGL Carbon's cost position, reducing our inventory levels, and supporting the sales teams to generate more revenue. valantic is helping us here to centrally define rules, processes and data quality, enabling us to achieve global accountability.“
Wiebke Brigel
Head of MDC Product Development and Member of the Executive Board at valantic ERP Consulting
”Our successful joint project with SGL Carbon demonstrates impressively how significant efficiency gains, and quality improvements and revenue increases can be achieved through globally harmonized material master data management.“
The Company: Products and Materials for the Industries of the Future
SGL Carbon produces high-quality materials and products made of specialty graphite and composites are used in future-oriented industries such as automotive, aerospace, semiconductors, solar and wind energy, LEDs, as well as in the production of lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells and other energy storage systems. Additionally, SGL Carbon develops solutions for the chemical and industrial applications sectors.
SGL Carbon SE generated revenues of EUR 1 billion in 2021. The globally active company employs around 4,700 people at 31 locations across Europe, North America and Asia.
Solution and Benefits for the Customer
SGL Carbon and valantic implemented a SAP master data management system that offers a wide range of added values:
Harmonized SAP Material Master Data for Global Efficiency, Time and Cost Improvements
Master data are sensitive details that are vital for all business processes. They are created in relation to products and materials, customers, suppliers, and employees. SGL Carbon initially focused on the area of material master data to enable uniform, worldwide planning and management of the production of specialty-graphite and composite-material solutions in accordance with clearly defined processes. Until now, tasks had been sent to the respective processing teams by e-mail, which not only resulted in chaotic, non-compatible data growth, but often also in incorrect population of the input fields. Those responsible for the project expected a range of benefits from globally harmonized master data management, including significant time, efficiency and cost improvements, as well as a sharp drop in error rates.
Dream-Team: SGL Carbon, SAP and valantic
SGL Carbon’s global processes had already been successfully implemented in SAP. Due to its highly satisfactory experience here, the only master data management solution that came into question was one that was fully integrated in SAP. valantic, on the other hand, has received multiple awards for the quality of its consulting and made SGL Carbon the best and most compelling offer with the valantic MDC Master Data Cockpit.
As a preliminary project, SGL Carbon and valantic analyzed the entries in the material master data, and designed and implemented a new material master data taxonomy. Key components of the new taxonomy were the catalogues of characteristics along with their relevant variants, a faster, automatic composition of the materials to be produced, and the creation of standardized material short texts via simple, flexible table maintenance and dependencies. MDC’s mass maintenance functionality enabled the productive materials to be reclassified quickly and easily.
Central Management Console: valantic MDC Master Data Cockpit for SAP master data management
Using the ergonomically arranged MDC Master Data Cockpit that is fully integrated in SAP, each employee can now review project statuses anytime, anywhere worldwide, and maintain these in line with their authorizations and responsibilities. The MDC offers employees various aids to complete their tasks effectively, such as default values and automatic short texts for expedited data entry. With its support of global workflows, MDC enables the clear, standardized, cross-plant assignment of tasks, responsibilities and processing personnel. Extensive evaluations of the master datasets, as well as progress analyses, are available for effectively managing the master data .
After the implementation was completed, valantic presented the MDC workflows to SGL Carbon employees and provided training on how to create material master data. All of the customer’s requirements were met in full, with material master datasets being created “in time” and “in quality”. A precisely defined, harmonized workflow makes it possible to create and plan materials and assign tasks to processing staff across all plants, worldwide.
Master Data Quality Improvement as an Ongoing Process
“Our IT department, which is also responsible for the process governance of IT-assisted processes, provides methodological support to all business units. Amongst our permanent goals are: further improving SGL Carbon’s cost position, reducing our inventory levels, and supporting the sales teams to generate more revenue. valantic is helping us here to centrally define rules, processes and data quality, enabling us to achieve global accountability,” summarizes Dr. Karin Born, Senior Vice President and Head of Information Technology at SGL Carbon. For the current year, SGL Carbon has set itself the goal of further improving the quality of its master data in cooperation with valantic. This second project phase will focus on change processes in material master data management.
SGL Carbon harmonizes SAP Master Data Management worldwide with MDC Master Data Cockpit
Download the full success story now to learn how SGL Carbon worked with valantic to optimize its material master data management across plants for global efficiency, quality and cost gains.
Wiebke Brigel
Authorized Officer and Member of the Executive Board
valantic ERP Consulting