SAP Rollout Chile
With the acquisition of the company in Santiago de Chile, the food manufacturer Brüggen pursued the goal of producing mueslis and cereals for the South American market locally in the future.
In order to integrate the company into Brüggen's organizational structure, it was necessary to set up an SAP landscape on site and integrate it into the existing SAP structure. For Brüggen, this is the first location in South America. Other plants are located in Wilga (Poland) and Thiers (France).
Successful expansion
Due to the specific legal requirements in Chile, cbs was commissioned to support the project. The project team had to take into account the special features of electronic invoicing in Chile.
Above all, the team had to ensure smooth reporting to an electronic invoicing company. Under Chilean law, this company must handle the necessary correspondence with the tax authorities.
cbs has already successfully implemented more than 100 SAP projects in Latin America and created solutions for production and sales locations. In the process, the consulting company has learned how to deal with cultural and legal peculiarities on site. cbs was therefore able to provide Brüggen with optimal support in establishing a functioning integrated IT landscape in Chile.
To do this, the project team on the customer side first had to build up basic SAP expertise. Until then, the local employees had only worked with SAP Business One and Microsoft Excel and had not been trained in the use of SAP.
However, the objectives of the project were not only to set up a modern SAP structure and connect it to the global Brüggen system. For the first time, actual costs in production were also to be recorded in detail.
"The new system should help us define our costs accurately"
says Brüggen project manager Axel Schrader.
"It therefore also serves as a model for our other sites in Poland, France and Germany."
The costs in view
In a kick-off meeting in Lübeck, the project team analyzed in detail which processes should be mapped using the new template. In addition, special features that apply to electronic invoicing in Chile were discussed. The project team then began with the development of a first prototype.
Fit-gap analyses were carried out regularly to check whether the template also mapped the desired company processes. The prototype was then further adapted in Germany and finally checked in an integration test using a clearly defined work process.
Finally, an extensive user acceptance test took place. The Brüggen employees on site used and tested the system and made sure that it also met the real requirements in practice.
The already existing Brüggen template was rolled out by Brüggen itself. cbs was responsible for the country-specific know-how and the legal requirements. The task was to analyze how the legal requirements could be mapped with the existing template and then to expand the template in specific areas.
In various training sessions, the project team imparted essential SAP functionalities to the employees on site. One particular focus was on the new electronic invoicing functions.
The connection to the external service provider for electronic invoicing was established via the E-Document Framework, which the project team implemented in SAP ERP. The project team used SAP Process Integration (SAP PI) as middleware, which enables the exchange between SAP and external systems.
Actual costs are an important parameter in the control of business processes. Which costs have actually been incurred? How far do they deviate from the original calculation?
To enable a precise analysis of actual costs, the project team created the module Material Ledger with Actual Costing in the system and organized the transfer of the values to Profitability Analysis CO-PA.
Now, Brüggen can evaluate market segments classified by products, customers, orders, or a combination thereof, in terms of their amount of coverage within the company. The material ledger can also be used to maintain material inventories in multiple currencies and valuations.
Rebuild SAP expertise
In addition, differences in mentality between German and Chilean working methods had to be taken into account and bridged. From a technical point of view, the development of electronic invoicing was a particular challenge for the project team.
In Chile, not a single document is used for invoicing, but half a dozen. In order to be able to process each document and to control this correctly at all times, the template process in SD had to be adapted to the local specifics.
This is where cbs' development expertise was needed for the necessary interfaces and forms, which is required when setting up new system lines in the American countries.
Before Brüggen took over the Chilean site, the processes there were not sufficiently standardized. For most processes, employees previously used SAP Business One and Microsoft Excel.
Important data relating to production, for example, was also recorded there. Here, it was necessary to initiate a change in awareness and sensitize the employees to the new work.
An additional difficulty was that the employees had to use an already established system from Germany. At the same time, the integration of the plant in Santiago de Chile had to take place as quickly as possible and template processes had to be applied. Since Brüggen is not the sole shareholder of the new company, the availability of data and information was additionally affected.
The project team knew how to deal with all these complex requirements and implemented the SAP rollout with confidence. The experts successfully implemented the eDocument Framework and SAP PI and mastered the complexity of the project at all times. The exchange with the electronic invoicing provider worked smoothly after a short time.
All information in one place
Despite the great time pressure, the project was implemented in four months and in budget. The new company was successfully integrated into Brüggen's existing SAP structure. In the process, the legal specifics were implemented one hundred percent in the system.
cbs was able to contribute its in-depth South American expertise from numerous projects on the continent. The exchange with the authorities via the third-party provider for electronic invoicing functions smoothly.
"The fact that we are now also using the same system in Chile as at our other sites is a great efficiency gain for us."
says Brüggen project manager Axel Schrader.
"We now have an overview of our actual costs at all times via the Material Ledger application component."
adds the responsible person.
Brüggen is so satisfied with the introduction of the new system in Chile that it is also considering using a solution with corresponding functionalities in Germany.
The rollout marked the successful start of the branch office in South America. The special challenge of familiarizing the local employees with the new way of working has been met. Brüggen can now also operate in Chile with a fully functional SAP system.
Working with SAP is now a matter of course there. In addition, the company now has a better overview of its costs and is able to take control at an early stage.
Conclusion:
With the fully integrated new production site, Brüggen is now able to make optimum use of the local value-added potential in the South American cereals market.
