AESSEAL

Number of Employees: 1.400 (2019)

Turnover: £180m (2019)

A market-leading specialist, AESSEAL holds one of the world’s most comprehensive ‘standard inventory’ portfolios of mechanical seals, bearing seals, seal support systems and packing. They have made a £multi-million investment in creating an industry-defining range of products which are simplifying the ordering process, challenging convention and changing the face of seal procurement.

AESSEAL Embark on a Journey of Digital Transformation

AESSEAL is a specialist in the design and manufacture of mechanical seals and support systems. The global manufacturer operates in a complex and dynamic marketplace with high-value projects that demand customer service excellence and responsiveness. Due to global expansion, challenges had arisen from inter-company trading and the increasing need for real-time insight that could support process automation, optimal user experiences and innovation.

AESSEAL needed a solution that could join up their rapidly growing business and manage their supply chain to ensure consistency of processes across divisions with quality assurance and accurate delivery. AESSEAL initiated a formal review of their legacy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems with three core objectives:

• Present a global IT platform that could effectively manage business partners at a master data level focused around Materials and Bill of Materials
• To deliver an ERP system that could streamline the internal supply chain
• To provide strong financial consolidation and management of business processes across all divisions and ensure a single version of the truth

SAP S/4HANA was selected to provide the digital ERP core with NTT DATA Business Solutions UK as the SAP implementation partner.

The ERP project was delivered in 16 months with Phase 1 covering Purchasing, Manufacturing, Sales, Finance, Analytics and NTT DATA Business Solutions’ own suite of SAP enhancement tools. With a single view of the business now achieved across supply, production, inventory and demand, AESSEAL has streamlined and standardised core business processes.

With access to real-time data across their operating divisions, AESSEAL has become an event-driven manufacturer with greater automation linked to intelligent processes and accurate reporting.

The planned rollout of SAP to other divisions will lead to optimised global inventory, accelerated order processing and responsive manufacturing with increased data governance.

The Fiori fronted processes provided users with a superior experience within SAP S/4HANA. AESSEAL also reviewed other areas of their business where UX improvements could increase efficiency and productivity. The organisation extended the best practices to revitalise the interface for their service and repairs business. Adopting a user-centred design project with NTT DATA Business Solutions, AESSEAL utilised a series of scrums and sprint workshops with rapid prototyping and end-user acceptance. As a result, the organisation was able to dramatically improve the UX of their Repairs Lifecycle Management and extend their S/4HANA implementation with custom-developed applications.

The global ERP implementation focused on delivering SAP S/4HANA to the UK in Phase I. Phase II will move to the US with a project expected to take 6 months. Future phases will see the roll out to South Africa, China, France and Ireland as AESSEAL deliver their integrated SAP platform across 20 countries.