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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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 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.