Hela Gewürzwerk Hermann Laue

Founded in 1905 as a mixed-spice producer, Hela Gewürzwerk Hermann Laue GmbH is a global success story: Beyond developing a wide range of spice mixes for meat processing, the company produces almost 4,000 different spice mixes for catering companies, airlines and suppliers of global food corporations. These include portion-sized sachets of salt, pepper and sugar. In 1963, Hela introduced Germany to its spice ketchup – 30,000 tons of it are now produced each year. Besides its headquarters in Ahrensburg, Hela’s 610 employees work in production facilities on virtually every continent.
Today, Hela’s customers include not only butchers and meat processing companies; it also supplies global food manufacturers, catering companies and retail chains. Hela delivers to over 60 countries worldwide.

About the Project

Hela’s Board of Management decided to make the complex processes along its entire value chain more future-proof with an integrated SAP solution.

“We wanted an IT solution that focused on our needs in the consumer goods industry. In the selection process we saw that NTT DATA Business Solutions AG’s products outperformed the competition,” explains Michael Voigt, Commercial Director at Hela.
“Our choice, it.consumer, is the SAP Business All-in-One industry solution that maps our operations optimally.” A combined NTT DATA Business Solutions-Hela team created a project structure using the Business Blueprint, which outlined the relevant business scenarios, business processes and process steps. The various SAP modules were rolled out gradually. Financial Accounting and Human Resources came first, followed by Maintenance and Technical Purchasing. Production Planning and Control, Material Management, Warehouse Management and Controlling, Quality Management and Sales were also successfully integrated.

However, one custom solution was retained: The field sales solution that had grown over years was customized specifically for the requirements of the team. it.x-mobile, an in-house development by NTT DATA Business Solutions, serves as the interface to mobile devices. Its mobile sync engine ensures that the data is synchronized efficiently. Additional developments by the NTT DATA Business Solutions team connect scanners via ITSmobile and harmonize the interface technology using SAP PI.

A new server and database technology run all processes. Using 100% virtualization, the hardware can switch the SAP server, data storage and networks from server to server without downtime. Even if half the hardware should fail, users will not notice. “In addition to the security, we also benefit from a high level of process integration,” says Michael Voigt. “Together with NTT DATA Business Solutions, the Business Operations and Project Management teams found the motivation and commitment to make this project a success.”