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Optimization of the K+S Procurement Platform through SAP Ariba Implementation
Company
K+S
Branch
Mining
Products
Fertilizers and specialty salts
Number of employees
>14.000
Turnover
4.07 billion €
Headquarters
Kassel, Deutschland
Websitewww.kpluss.com
Standard + Customisation + Interfaces = Needs-based process landscape
A major advantage of a cloud solution is its standardization, which generates comparatively low maintenance require-ments and enables the automatic provision of software updates. At the same time, this standardization can be a major challenge, because a fundamental question is often how individual adjustments can be made despite standards. Together with SAP and an international team from the K+S Group, apsolut has implemented many of these adaptations, also known as customizations, for the customer’s SAP Ariba Suite, thus once again demonstrating its innovative strength. The most important customizations are described below:
While standard orders are sent directly from SAP Ariba to the SAP Ariba network, K+S required orders to be sent first to the ERP back end, and from there to the SAP Ariba Network together with other ERP orders. Previously, it was not possible to send SpotBuy orders in this integration scenario. To solve this challenge, apsolut has made adjustments to the CIG in-terface that will be incorporated in future customer projects.
apsolut has also made a further adjustment to the standard in the approval workflow: While only fully approved purchase orders can be sent to the back end in the stan-dard system, K+S also wanted to enable free text purchase requisitions to be sent to the SAP back end for further processing. This was made possible by an innovative development from apsolut.
To map specific business processes outside the standard, apsolut has also developed several new customer fields in collaboration with SAP. For example, due to the size of the plants, it is often not sufficient for K+S to provide a standard delivery address. Within a plant, the so-called unloading point is very important to ensure reliable delivery to the desired destination. For this purpose, a customer field has been provided which allows each user to select an unloading point depending on the plant.
Although K+S does not use the SAP Ariba Contracts tool, the release of Service Contracts via Guided Buying should be made possible. The difficulty: In the standard process, each contract loaded in SAP Ariba Buying is automatically assigned an Ariba-specific contract ID, which cannot be assigned to any SAP contract when exporting a contract release order in the back end. The solution: apsolut has developed an interface that allows SAP contracts to be replicated in SAP Ariba Buying and the SAP contract ID to be exported. As a result, each contract called off in Guided Buying is automatically assigned to the relevant contract in the back end.
apsolut also provided a customized response to a chal-lenge relating to the SAP Plant Maintenance module, SAP PM for short: K+S wanted to prevent purchase requisitions for non-catalog items using SAP Ariba Buying, which is linked to SAP PM. In the standard system, however, it is only possible either to prohibit purchase requisitions for non-catalog items completely or to allow them for each scenario. Together with SAP, apsolut has developed a logic that checks whether a user is accessing the Ariba Suite from SAP PM. If this is the case, the Creation of a non-catalog requisition is automatically disabled.
"When selecting our implementation partner, apsolut was able to prevail over internationally active competitors thanks to its excellent understanding of our requirements, openness in partnership, and great flexibility. Thanks to the very good cooperation with the apsolut team, we successfully completed the project and signed a support agreement for future developments."
explains Julia Graubner, Senior Procurement Project Manager at K+S.
Global project management across four time zones (Central Standard Time, Eastern Standard Time, Central European Time, Indian Standard Time)
Following the successful go-live, apsolut was awarded the support contract
Implemented tools
SAP Ariba Buying
SAP Ariba Catalog
SAP Ariba Guided Buying
SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance
SAP Ariba Commerce Automation
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Julia Graubner, Senior Procurement Project Manager, K+S
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“The cooperation with the international apsolut project team from Germany and India was very effective despite the tough schedule. Due to the high degree of standardisation and automation, we were already able to realise potential savings and, in particular reduce process costs.”
Markus Ortlieb, Director Global Procurement, ProMinent GmbH
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„We were able to roll out Ariba very quickly, because we established a pragmatic and open culture of cooperation with the apsolut team from the very beginning, and we were prepared to systematically align ourselves with the standard“,
Sarah Eve Wiedemann-Geiß, who oversees purchasing and supplier management at Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall
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Manuel Steffen, Project Officer Source-to-Pay, Evonik Industries
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Tanja Sefrin, Project Manager, KUKA
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Gerald Goldgruber, Strategic Manager for Process Management and SAP, Frutura
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Frank Unfried, Director Digitalization Purchasing & Indirect Spend bei Pfleiderer
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Martin Traxl, Head of Strategy & Digitalization, OMV
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Linna Krasnikov, SCC System Administrator, Kärcher
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Annette Römer, Project Manager at McKesson Europe
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