SAP PLM Journey for a Manufacturer of Dispensed Beverage Equipment

The LeverX team assisted the customer with a phased approach to SAP PLM.

leverx

The LeverX team assisted the customer with a phased approach to SAP PLM.

customer

Customer

Leading manufacturer of dispensed beverage equipment.

Challenge

Challenge

Our client was facing internal challenges resulting from product design changes, customer requested enhancements, and a cumbersome process for envisioning and designing new products.

Solution

Solution

The SAP PLM journey began in 2009 with the selection of the SAP ERP platform, based in large part on SAP providing a robust and fully integrated PLM module.

Project Scope

Phase #1

Initial DMS Single Source, document change process, Visual Enterprise

The initial phase of the SAP PLM implementation focused on activating SAP CAD Integration and SAP Visual Enterprise. This is the foundation of a strong PLM vision, providing versioning, revisions, history and full linkage between documentation and SAP master data. Over 500,000 CAD files were analyzed and converted from PDMWorks and various network drives into the SAP DMS environment. This represented 17 distinct types of documents and enabled comprehensive and consistent security and change controls for engineering documents.

Phase #2

Project Management 1 — Migrate to SAP PPM, Retire old PM software

Phase 2 focused on implementing the SAP PPM module and gaining better visibility and control over project resources. The PPM solution supported the ability to create projects, assign resources, track project time, and report and manage to resource PTO time. One hundred twenty projects were set up in PPM, with 5 levels of expense approval and status network. A KPI dashboard was created from 200 columns of project data. Reports were developed for project status, key milestones and assigned hours, enabling greater management visibility across all initiatives.

Phase #3

Expand DMS, initial ECM process & basic workflow via IPS

The core emphasis in Phase 3 was Engineering Change management and included an upgrade to the core SAP platform. By implementing the Integrated Process Solution (IPS) add-on from LeverX, our client permitted department control over key product development and modification workflow processes. Engineering is able to build new workflows to break down key change notice database and Master Data Management processes. An email-enabled approval workflow was designed to allow users to approve changes without having to log into SAP itself.

Phase #4

Expand Portfolio & Project Management

This phase of the project is ongoing, and emphasizes expanded PPM capabilities that improve on project resource management, project cost management, robust project reporting, and PPM Workflow. Improving on executive dashboards and reporting standards based on PPM usage from phase 2 was a key objective that led to an updated dashboard that included 250 columns of project. Easy Document Management for project documents was also implemented, achieving the goal of a Single Source of Truth within the SAP ecosystem. LeverX IPS was used to implement workflow for PPM Project Phase approval.

Key Features

Leverx Group works with companies and organizations to address the complex challenges of today's business world. Each of our partners is an experienced, innovative, and proven leader in their respective fields.

Automotive

SAP PLM is a solid basis for the automotive industry. This solution helps digitize and automate manufacturing processes and work more efficiently with suppliers and partners.

Aerospace & Defense

The solution allows aerospace and defense companies to reduce the time to market for innovations without compromising safety while simulating innovation scenarios along a complex value chain.

Food & Beverage

SAP PLM provides the food & beverage industry with all the required technologies that help to develop sustainable, traceable, high-quality products within a shorter time.

Consumer Goods

With SAP PLM, this industry can exceed the diverse expectations of consumers and enable sustainably and profitably growth for the business.

Pharma

SAP PLM helps to make pharmaceutical production more effective and with lower risk.

PROJECT SCOPE

It is possible with mobile maintenance scenarios and two SAP solutions, SAP Work Manager (SAP WM) и SAP Asset Manager (SAP AM). They provide access to information on asset statuses and allow you to maintain them comprehensively.

SAP WM is a mobile application with wider functionality that offers both on-premise and cloud hosting capabilities.

SAP AM is a more modern cloud-based solution that can be integrated with innovative SAP Cloud Platform IoT.

Both solutions help to improve enterprise asset productivity with constant monitoring, analytics, and timely diagnostics.

Technology Stack We Used

Leverx Group works with companies and organizations to address the complex challenges of today's business world. Each of our partners is an experienced, innovative, and proven leader in their respective fields.

Mobile

  • Android (Kotlin)
  • iOS (Swift)

Mobile

  • Android (Kotlin)
  • iOS (Swift)

Mobile

  • Android (Kotlin)
  • iOS (Swift)

Mobile

  • Android (Kotlin)
  • iOS (Swift)

Mobile

  • Android (Kotlin)
  • iOS (Swift)

Mobile

  • Android (Kotlin)
  • iOS (Swift)
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Document Management

  • Document Release
  • Material Master Release and Extension
  • Sales Order Release
  • Manufacturing Instruction Release
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Request Management

  • Procurement Request
  • Tooling Change Request
  • Shop Floor Issue Request
  • Customer Issue Request
  • Plant Maintenance Work Request
  • Request for Quote

RESULTS

  • Reduced New Product Development and major customer request turnaround time in Engineering Services by 35%. This improvement allows information to be production ready 29 days quicker per customer order.
  • Reduced minor customer request turn time in Engineering Services by 71%
  • Reduced average months for equipment set up in SAP to first sale by 71% (8.3 to 2.4)
  • Reduced engineering change request rework by 8%
  • Reduced engineering change requests in queue by 50% (500 to 250)
  • Improvements allow information to be production-ready 32 days quicker per customer order
  • More hours available for value-added tasks like Quality, New Product Development, and customer requests - 20 people had 50% more time for priorities
  • Cost avoidance by automating PDF generation with our conversion engine, eliminating the need for 100 additional SAP licenses in manufacturing. Additional savings from the retirement of PM and PDM software
  • DMS and PPM allow us to automate electronic purchase requisitions with workflow
  • Reduced manual entry to support customer website by using SAP material master and push to website, reducing graphic design time by 90%
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