Overview

ElringKlinger AG – Productive SAP process through content management and controllable workflows

The internationally active automotive supplier ElringKlinger was aiming for shorter processing times and an increased new parts quota for its spare parts division. In order to achieve these goals, the existing processes had to be streamlined, document management made more transparent and workflows made controllable. With the ECM suite top xRM everything could be implemented in the same way.

People’s need for mobility is growing noticeably worldwide – and at the same time, the specific requirements for mobility concepts, climate compatibility and infrastructure are changing rapidly. For traditional automotive suppliers such as ElringKlinger AG, such change is nothing new. The company, which was founded over 140 years ago, has already experienced and helped shape many changes. ElringKlinger also recognized the trend towards electromobility at an early stage and expanded its portfolio beyond traditional drive systems. The broad-based product range includes lightweight components, specialty gaskets, electric drive units as well as battery and fuel cell technology for all branches of the automotive industry.

Complex processes in the spare parts business

The global Aftermarket business is also of great importance to the ElringKlinger Group. The Aftermarket division offers an extensive portfolio of products and services in around 140 countries. It is important to provide new parts and substitutes quickly and in high quality. If a product is technically revised or if the required materials change, this has an impact on a complex process chain – until the material planning department finally receives the final information that the new or modified product is ready for series production and is therefore ready for series procurement.

The central tool in these processes was previously an access-based system solution. It was used by product management, quality assurance and purchasing for all ongoing spare parts projects. However, there was no connection to SAP ERP, which led to numerous difficulties: “A lot of information had to be transferred to the SAP system manually,” recalls Sarah Rein, IT Specialist SAP MM. “Our Access solution did not have all the relevant data: Information was in e-mail attachments, Excel tables or Word documents. This resulted in various system breaks in the process chain within and between individual departments.”

Distributed knowledge and non-transparent workflows

Without an interface to SAP as the leading system, the application mix of Office and Access resulted in redundant data storage. For example, parts lists were first maintained in Access and, from a certain level of maturity, also in SAP ERP. The result: high maintenance costs and sometimes incomplete, outdated or difficult to find information. Sarah Rein: “There was no direct access to SAP objects for most processes and no links to associated Word and Excel documents, PDFs or emails. Our grown stand-alone solution was not designed with the processes in mind, but instead focused on functional processing.”

This focus was also evident in the barely automated (sub-)processes. Anyone who needed information for an upcoming work step had to actively obtain it. Tasks and prioritization could not be controlled and managed transparently – too much process knowledge was in the heads of employees, on local drives or in email inboxes. This also made it difficult to organize efficient substitutes for employees who were ill or had changed jobs. All of these disadvantages resulted in considerable performance problems and slowed down any potential economic growth.

Comprehensive solution for business goals

“It soon became clear to us that if we wanted to achieve corporate goals such as a higher new parts quota, we needed cross-departmental processes with transparent, controllable workflows. Such workflows would have to support the entire process of initial sample processing between departments such as product management, quality management or purchasing. This can only be achieved with a comprehensive software solution that is integrated into SAP ERP and follows its standards,” says Sarah Rein.

With these guidelines in mind, ElringKlinger began its search for a suitable provider. Discussions with potential candidates revealed “that top flow in particular quickly understood our process world and that their enterprise content management system top xRM fulfilled many requirements ‘out of the box’. In addition, the consultants were critical discussion partners who were really able to advise us,” emphasizes project manager Rein. Implementation began shortly after a successful proof of concept.

Making processes and relationships visible

In the company processes, top xRM was to make individual processes and the relationship structure between employees, suppliers and partners digitally traceable and establish workflows. To this end, four electronic files were set up in SAP ERP and connected to existing solutions via interfaces – such as an SAP add-on for material master files or an external, web-based supplier portal. The files can be used to maintain multi-level parts lists for engines, sales parts and the corresponding purchasing parts directly in SAP ERP.

In addition, end-to-end process scheduling was implemented in this overall system. As a result, the automated SAP planned order system for material procurement leads to warehouse-optimized initial stockpiling. The SAP ordering system has also been improved: For example, e-mail document dispatch in Purchasing can now be completely controlled via templates. Sarah Rein: “It was only possible to implement such a complex project on time thanks to the close and reliable cooperation with the experts from top flow.”

Simplified and automated work

The use of top xRM has changed a lot. The mere fact that there is a single point of truth for the departments and that all documents and SAP objects can be found centrally has marginalized search times. System changes and system breaks or redundant data maintenance are a thing of the past. This also applies to the separate and manually maintained Excel lists for task prioritization. All information is bundled, up-to-date and consistent. “Substitutions are now possible without any problems and our idle times have been significantly reduced,” says the project manager.

 

“We haven’t regretted our decision for top xRM for a second. On the contrary: we still receive excellent support today and benefit from structured processes, controllable workflows and a completely new level of transparency.“

Sarah Rein, IT Specialist SAP MM

In day-to-day practice, employees benefit from multiple simplifications: for example, top xRM integrates their email clients – so they can create emails directly from the file or file them together with their attachments. Further highlights are the extensively automated workflows. IT Specialist Sarah Rein emphasizes that the completion of certain tasks automatically triggers the necessary follow-up actions: “Many work steps are eliminated, routines are accelerated and colleagues can concentrate on content-related questions and variables in their tasks.”

Real controlling through transparency

Thanks to the use of top xRM, all tasks can now be scheduled and prioritized via the SAP Business Workplace. This works just as conveniently as the entire workflow operation. For management, the extensive control is of course also so valuable because it enables meaningful analyses of throughput times. “This transparency is extremely important to us. We have established new KPIs, identify delayed process steps or other weak points and know where we can optimize,” says Sarah Rein.

Another advantage of the new solution is the structured communication between the specialist departments: “When our employees collect information on processes, this now takes place without time-consuming and ineffective “e-mail ping-pong”. The project manager’s conclusion is correspondingly satisfied: “From the prototype to implementation and support since the go-live: our experiences have been so positive that we are currently considering rolling out top xRM to other business areas.”

Success Story top xRM ElringKlinger AG



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Overview