MULTI-talented modern liquid plastic: WestWood adds the optimal IT molecule with SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Inconspicuous at first glance, but more than impressive at second glance: WestWood’s liquid plastics ensure that parking garages, roofs, balconies and bridges are permanently waterproofed, among other things, but they are also used for markings and surface designs. The material for this is polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) resins, and WestWood products score points in several ways: they are weather-resistant, easy to clean and durable, have a low weight and can be processed and reused quickly.

The WestWood mission: to permanently seal building components and construction areas. (Source: WestWood)
A multi-talent and at the same time a guarantee of success for the medium-sized company with its headquarters in Petershagen, East Westphalia, which has enjoyed stable growth for almost a quarter of a century and is investing accordingly in its future. This includes a large new administration building and the planned logistics center.

From the East Westphalian company headquarters in Petershagen, the owner family is driving the company’s growth with a great deal of passion and even more motivation. (Source: WestWood)
Speed wins: High-speed delivery convinces WestWood customers
At five locations in Germany and abroad — in Switzerland, Austria, the UK, Italy and the USA — 140 employees work on innovative system solutions for 16 countries worldwide, producing up to 28 tons of liquid plastic every day. The speed with which the family business operates is particularly noteworthy: Incoming orders are produced, packaged and delivered immediately, meaning that in Germany the required material is on the construction site within 48 hours at the latest. To ensure that this path to success continues reliably and can keep pace with growth, WestWood decided to introduce SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition in 2022.

Standard IT, but no standard business: WestWood projects are diverse, the materials are used worldwide. (Source: WestWood)
“We wanted to optimize our processes, especially in the warehouse, which had not previously been IT-supported, but also in many other business areas such as logistics, purchasing and sales, while benefiting from best-practice processes and making our company fit for the future,” explains Hans-Georg Henke, Project Manager at WestWood. “A cloud solution was the most logical way forward for us as a manufacturing company. We concentrate on our core business, while operation, maintenance and upgrades are outsourced.” The family business also had luck on its side when it came to the cloud and industry expertise required for the chemical industry: “With Innovabee as our partner, we hit the jackpot, so to speak. We have experienced transformation and industry experts at our side, who have provided us with the best possible support and expertise every step of the way into the cloud.”
Showcase project with GROW with SAP: WestWood migrates to the public cloud in 12 months
WestWood went live on January 1, 2024, on time and on budget and so smoothly that both WestWood and its public cloud-experienced IT partner Innovabee are both delighted and still amazed. Florian Häußler, Managing Director at Innovabee: “This is mainly due to the fact that the project was extremely well prepared, all teams were very motivated and the necessary extra miles were covered together without much discussion. Rarely have I had so little to do in a steering committee. In a nutshell: an exceptional project with 100 percent commitment from all sides.”

An exceptional family business with dual leadership and a lot of personality: since the company was founded in 1999, honesty, authenticity and partnership have been values that WestWood has shared with its customers, suppliers, processors and, of course, employees over the long term. (Source: WestWood)
The fact that WestWood had a highly experienced full-time project manager in Hans-Georg Henke and that the key users were released as much as possible for the SAP S/4HANA project also contributed to the success. Hans-Georg Henke is also aware of other success factors: “Although we at WestWood produce anything but standard, we were 100% committed to GROW with SAP and the standard when it came to the cloud. The SAP Activate project methodology also proved its worth right from the start of the project — an approach that we can only recommend to other SAP users, as it means that nothing is left behind. And last but not least, in addition to the technical support from Innovabee, the group dynamics and team cohesion were and are outstanding. As a customer, we feel very well looked after and understood here, which is an important prerequisite for successful IT projects.”
A challenge: the new logistics in the space-managed warehouse
The transformation switch was flipped at the beginning of January 2024 and production and delivery continued as usual from day one. “The only challenge we faced shortly before the migration was in the area of master data. However, we were able to solve this together with our contacts at Innovabee the weekend before in a great team effort.” Today, the medium-sized company benefits from a multi-user warehouse that has replaced the previous self-managed warehouse. “This topic occupied us for a short time, but the challenge here was with the employees themselves, not the system,” explains the project manager. “However, once we understood how the new processes had to be booked and how goods had to be rebooked or canceled, the warehouse processes ran smoothly again.”
Another area of the company that now benefits from GROW with SAP and the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is Purchasing. Here, employees use the new SAP solution Central Invoice Management (CIM), even if the path to getting there was sometimes rocky: “As impressive as the demo of the tool was, the practical implementation was just as challenging,” recalls Jan Marzinowski, Commercial Manager at WestWood. “But together with Innovabee and SAP, we got the invoice archiving tool up and running.” The modernization of production, which is now completely paperless, went more smoothly. “No more paper and mountains of notes, no more Excel, but mobile devices such as scanners and tablets that automate and speed up our processes, making them more efficient,” says the Managing Director happily. Further potential for savings and greater security are offered by functionalities within the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which automatically suggest alternative raw materials that firstly match the overall recipe and secondly can also be processed by the WestWood production facilities.
Compliance: top issue in the chemical industry
As one of the first public cloud customers from the manufacturing and chemical sector, it is essential for WestWood to always be on the safe side in terms of compliance. To this end, WestWood is currently still using a third-party solution that was connected to the new cloud ERP via SAP Integration Suite. However, the plan is to switch to SAP S/4HANA Product Compliance in the near future, “because our path is the cloud with SAP S/4HANA,” says Hans-Georg Henke.

SAP S/4HANA for Product Compliance guarantees that compliance is ensured throughout the entire product lifecycle through automated processes — including functionalities for the marketability and chemical compliance of products, safety data sheets and label management or the handling of hazardous goods. (Source: SAP SE)
SAP Preferred Success: an important building block for project success
Another success factor within the public cloud project was the use of SAP Preferred Success: The all-round support for cloud customers and working in a digital environment was well received by WestWood. “Access to SAP experts in particular was very helpful for us at one point or another,” says Hans-Georg Henke. “We received quick and uncomplicated help with questions or specific problems, enabling us to implement the transformation even more efficiently and sustainably.” All in all, it was a showcase project that perfectly accompanies the family business on its further path as an innovation leader for waterproofing and coating systems made from modern liquid plastics.
Effective and targeted project management and organization with the use of Cloud ALM
By using Cloud ALM (Application Lifecycle Management), requirements, processes and tasks could be presented and tracked in a structured, transparent and reportable manner for all parties. This has contributed to the successful monitoring of upcoming tasks for each project phase by the project members as well as by the project management and the steering committee.