ONE SAP for Globally Integrated Processes, Data, and Systems
Within the scope of a reorganization project at Dürr Group, a number of fundamental structural problems became apparent. The decentralized organization was no longer able to meet the needs of the increasingly global value-creation structure of complex plant projects. A comprehensive reorganization of structures, processes, and systems was initiated by top management. Future processes were harmonized and were to be modeled in an integrated IT system. Due to the decentralized setup of established structures, employees constructing a paint shop that involved various other subsidiaries worked with different schedules, procurement systems, and processes. The task of merging all the information for the overall project had to be done manually and was time-consuming and resource intensive. It was difficult to compare costing since each national subsidiary used different procedures and different data as a basis. Whenever employees were assigned to projects in a different country, they would be required to familiarize themselves with new structures, processes, and systems.
The aim of the ONE SAP project was to specifically address this deficit. The executive board’s vision was that every Dürr employee involved in costing, quoting for, constructing, or maintaining systems at any national subsidiary in Europe, the USA, or Asia should have access to the same processes, tools, and systems, and be in a position to work and be deployed efficiently at any location with no difficulties and no loss of information. This vision made it clear that the project scale would significantly exceed that of a standard IT project. The aim was to shape a new world for Dürr and its employees – which involved reorganizing the business model, defining processes and data, and setting up IT systems. This required launching a business project that would introduce fundamental changes and allow a consolidated, global SAP corporate solution to be established for this new world – in the form of a uniform work platform in a single client.