SAP S/4HANA rollout for a 600-seat manufacturer

About the client

MidCo is a mid-sized industrial components manufacturer operating three plants and a central warehouse, supplying OEMs in India and the Middle East.

The challenge

The legacy ERP had been customised beyond recognition. Purchase approvals ran on email, production planning happened in spreadsheets, and month-end close took twelve working days. The vendor was ending support, and two earlier replacement attempts had stalled.

• Maverick purchasing with no central approval workflow
• Production plans built manually in Excel every week
• Twelve-day month-end close
• Poor master data: duplicate vendors and materials

Our solution

1. Blueprint first — Six weeks of process workshops with plant heads, procurement and finance produced a signed business blueprint and a fit-gap register before any configuration.
2. Clean-core configuration — Standard S/4HANA processes were adopted wherever possible; only eleven custom developments were approved, each documented and owned by MidCo IT.
3. Master data clean-up — We consolidated 9,400 vendor records to 3,100 and rationalised the material master before migration, with two full mock migrations.
4. Phased cutover and hypercare — Finance and procurement went live first, followed by production planning and sales six weeks later, with on-site hypercare at each plant.

Results

MidCo now runs procurement, planning and finance on a single system with reliable data and a predictable close.

• 26% savings on indirect procurement through approval workflows and vendor consolidation
• Month-end close reduced from 12 to 5 working days
• Production plans generated by MRP instead of spreadsheets
• Go-live delivered in 9 months, on budget