SAP S/4 Hana also gives the supply chain a boost

A key added value of the suite is that it also provides companies with a solid foundation for innovative applications, new business models, and intelligent supply chains.

From Westernacher Consulting's point of view, SAP S/4 Hana is currently the tool of choice for making business processes fit for the future. Why do we think so? Quite simply:

The suite enables seamless integration from pot floor to store floor, overcomes data silos of traditional IT landscapes and provides the foundation for simplified processes, mobile working, high value creation, exciting innovations and efficiency increases in the company through the underlying in-memory database SAP Hana. It also provides a solid foundation for integrating and leveraging exponentially growing data sources and information systems far beyond the boundaries of the enterprise.

Intelligent processes pick up speed

We are not alone in our assessment: According to the Lünendonk study "With S/4 Hana into the digital future", 87 percent of companies currently have SAP S/4 Hana on their agenda. Many of them are desperately looking for process and SAP experts to support them in the changeover.

With the successive conversion packages "S/4 Prepare" and "S/4 Convert" and more than 650 SAP experts, Westernacher paves the way for its customers to SAP S/4 Hana - from the purely technical migration to the complete realignment of company-wide IT systems and processes. In addition, SAP S/4 Hana implementations benefit from our extensive competencies in the supply chain environment.

An important advantage. After all, SAP S/4 Hana not only creates a stable foundation for efficient business processes in the core ERP functions. The suite also enables a future-oriented alignment of the supply chain - and thus opens up important competitive advantages for our customers. Because one insight has emerged from Westernacher Consulting's more than 50 years of SAP consulting practice:

Flexible and resilient supply chains make a significant contribution to corporate success. Why? Because for many companies, the supply chain is the biggest cost lever and the supply chain plays a decisive role in determining the level of service perceived by the end customer. Only when all the cogs in the supply chain mesh seamlessly can customer orders be served reliably and on time.

This was particularly evident at the beginning of the year, when supply bottlenecks occurred in many places following the outbreak of the corona pandemic. Medium-sized companies in particular had to contend with this: According to a McKinsey study, 73 percent of small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were affected by Covid 19-related failures in the supply chain.

Digital Supply Chain: Building Blocks Included

This makes it all the more important to set the right course now for the consistent digitization of supply chains. Because companies that rely on digital supply chains are ahead of the competition. This is confirmed not only by our empirical data from around 250 supply chain projects. The PwC study "Connected and autonomous supply chain ecosystems 2025" comes to the same conclusion.

According to the study, "digital champions" are not only able to adapt their supply chains faster and better to new conditions. They were also able to reduce their supply chain costs by an average of 6.8 percent last year and increase total sales by almost eight percent. In addition, 84 percent of the digital champions are able to deliver to their customers on time.

Among the "digital novices", just twelve percent manage this. This is one of the reasons why PwC experts predict that the supply chains of the future will be more networked and more autonomous than ever before. SAP S/4 Hana also creates the conditions for this. Thanks to a large number of integrated (embedded) logistics solutions, the software suite facilitates the necessary transformation of company-wide supply chain processes.

Integrated tools for manufacturing and intralogistics

For example, manufacturing processes can be planned in detail using the Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS) function in SAP S/4 Hana. Previously, we usually had to implement a separate component (SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization) for this at our customers. For production control, SAP S/4 Hana can also be connected to the new SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud solution.

This enables seamless integration between production planning and the store floor. Manufacturing companies thus benefit from greater transparency, higher productivity, accelerated decision-making processes, and better control over production. The SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) application, in turn, provides companies with powerful tools for an innovative warehousing solution as a fully embedded or decentralized SAP S/4 Hana functionality.

This allows warehouse processes to be optimized, warehousing to be reduced and, for example, automated warehouses to be integrated seamlessly. With the SAP S/4 Hana Supply Chain for EWM solution, we provide our customers with fast access to agile warehouse processes and efficient warehouse management.

The result: operating costs and inventories are reduced, throughput and delivery speed are increased - arguments that also convinced our customer Windmöller & Hölscher, for example. Thanks to the integrated EWM application, the packaging machine manufacturer was able to avoid the costly setup of a separate EWM system landscape and interfaces.

Measurable added value for transport logistics

Meanwhile, transportation and warehouse logistics benefit from the integrated applications SAP Yard Logistics for SAP S/4 Hana and SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM). As a leading SAP partner for Yard Logistics in the automotive industry, retail, agriculture, and mechanical engineering and logistics, we know that consistent digitization offers great added value in these areas in particular.

With SAP Yard Logistics for SAP S/4 Hana, companies can easily keep track of all trucks, trailers, or rail cars moving within the plant premises, proactively schedule dock appointments, and avoid congestion during delivery and unloading. Freight forwarders can register their arrival themselves, warehouse managers can coordinate loading and unloading activities at the push of a button.

SAP TM, which is embedded in SAP S/4 Hana, facilitates planning, purchasing, controlling and invoicing of the entire transport logistics and thus opens up further innovation opportunities for companies. Until now, the planning and execution of goods transports has been carried out completely manually in many places. This not only costs a lot of time and money, but is also highly intransparent.

While private customers can track where their order is to the minute, the B2B segment still has a hard time with exact status updates. This does not have to be the case. We help our customers use SAP tools such as SAP TM, SAP EWM, and SAP Logistics Business Network to seamlessly track B2B shipments by road, rail, and sea. And that's not all: thanks to SAP TM, the planning, procurement, execution and invoicing of transport services also runs like clockwork.

Potential for aftermarket and asset management

SAP S/4 Hana Supply Chain for extended service parts planning is recommended for the spare parts business (aftermarket). The planning module easily meets the highly complex requirements of spare parts logistics with multi-level supply chains, increasing parts diversity with simultaneous short availability and efficient returns processing. This means that required service levels can be maintained without costs getting out of hand.

Last but not least, SAP S/4 Hana Asset Management reduces the risk of technically related disruptions within the supply chain. The tool ensures that production equipment, conveyor belts, forklifts, trucks, etc. function smoothly at all times. The digitization of all asset master data, coupled with corresponding sensor technology and predictive analytics, forms the guardrail for predictive maintenance. Unplanned downtime is thus a thing of the past. Impending defects can be eliminated before they can cause any damage.

Our experience shows that when implementing SAP S/4 Hana, companies benefit not only from classic ERP functions, but also from transparent supply chain processes and real-time processing of important supply chain data. For example, they can react agilely and promptly to fluctuations in demand, delivery problems or transport bottlenecks, reduce costs and delight customers with reliable information on the current transport status of their order.

In addition, SAP S/4 Hana can be easily extended with high-performance and powerful additional functions using connected cloud solutions - for example, in the areas of planning (SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain), purchasing (SAP Ariba Supply Chain), manufacturing (SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud), as well as Internet of Things (SAP Internet of Things and SAP Cloud Platform) and analytics/dashboarding (SAP Analytics Cloud).

That is important. Because in the intelligent enterprise, responsibilities and departmental boundaries become blurred, information must be available consistently and in real time across departments, and new business models must be developed and implemented quickly - not least along the supply chain.

Platform for diverse innovations

SAP S/4 Hana also sets the right course for this. The Business Suite connects customers, suppliers, products, materials, production and work schedules, machines, finances - in short, all components of the corporate value chain. As an innovation platform, SAP S/4 Hana creates the basis for the development of innovative business models, products, and services that all have one thing in common:

They are based on a high degree of digitization, the real-time evaluation of mass data, and the ability to reliably and consistently combine information from different sources and provide it precisely where it offers added value in the process.