Industry Case Studies, Food and CPG

Extending The SAP Investment to Support Real-Time Manufacturing

Background:
Over several years, a Fortune 500 manufacturer of protein products grew substantially both internally and through acquisitions. While growth continues today, the company felt the need to standardize their business processes, implement industry best practices across the enterprise, and implement the technologies required to support those best practices and standardized business processes.

Situation:
While the company realized the importance of standardizing their business processes and the value that they could obtain by implementing industry best practices, they also understood that these objectives just wouldn't be possible without the appropriate technology to support them. They selected SAP R/3 as their enterprise-wide ERP system to support the business processes and to institutionalize best practices. SAP is a world-class ERP system, and it effectively handles virtually all aspects of the enterprise's business. However, SAP needs a significant amount of information from the shop-floor in order to do its job effectively, and SAP does not support real-time analysis of manufacturing operations.

Solution:
The client decided that a Manufacturing Execution System (MES), integrated as an extension to SAP, was required in order to get SAP the data that it needed and to support the real-time manufacturing activities on the shop-floor. The client engaged EnteGreat to determine the requirements of the MES system, as well as to work with the SAP team in deciding specifically how the MES system would integrate with SAP. EnteGreat also worked with the client to develop the MES justification, so that key stakeholders in the company would understand just how a MES complements and enhances the capabilities of SAP. The EnteGreat team, along with the client, reviewed candidate MES solutions, which helped the client select the right MES solution for their requirements and their environment. The client has proceeded with the project, and the MES system is currently being piloted at several key plants.

Benefits:
This engagement with EnteGreat allowed the client to fully understand why they needed a MES, and just how MES can work with SAP. In addition, it allowed the key stakeholders in the company to understand that MES was an extension of SAP, rather than a threat to it. The MES solution has a significant benefit to the client, because it collects and provides the data that SAP needs in order to be effective, thus ensuring the maximum value from SAP. Additionally, the MES solution provides specific support for the manufacturing activities on the shop-floor; support that is not provided by SAP or any other system.