Streamlining Global Operations: Weir Minerals' SAP Success Story

Weir Minerals is a global leader in the mineral, oil and gas, and power industries. Chiefly manufacturing equipment for slurry transportation and dewatering systems, Weir also provides spare parts and services to the niche oil sands and flue gas desulfurization markets.

Weir Minerals around 14,000 employees generate annual sales of about £1,844.9 million (Weir Group).

About the Project

Initiating a Global SAP Rollout

Weir Minerals’ 14,000 employees are operating in 35 countries and are serving a wide international clientele. The company wanted to deploy a unified SAP strategy for ERP and warehouse management to streamline processes at all locations around the globe. This project was a greenfield development, replacing legacy systems for which Weir did not have sufficient in-house resources. In order to embark on its SAP journey that would span 6 continents and serve over 6,500 users, Weir Minerals needed guidance and an external hosting partner for solutions based on the SAP HANA platform. NTT DATA Business Solutions was chosen as it has worked closely with SAP for years and delivers global strategy with local expertise on solutions, implementation, and management.

Hosted Services for Flexibility and Scalability

Weir naturally wanted to maintain service availability for its huge clientele throughout the rollout. NTT DATA Business Solutions Malaysia’s technical experience and 24-hour support made it possible to keep unplanned outages to a minimum and react efficiently on short notice if required. All service level agreements (SLAs) were met during the project, allowing for business to continue uninterrupted. Weir initially lacked memory for SAP EWM, but the flexibility of managed cloud services and IaaS from NTT DATA Business Solutions meant the company could quickly scale up to rectify this. Weir Minerals has now accelerated and streamlined its business and warehouse processes with selected SAP solutions and hosting services from NTT DATA Business Solutions.

Unifying a Diverse Infrastructure

The company implemented solutions from the SAP Industrial Machinery & Components portfolio alongside a few original systems. These include SAP EWM, which tracks and automates warehouse processes for more efficient stock management. The application comes as an addition to SAP Supply Chain Management, helping Weir accurately plan projects, people, and infrastructure. As the company needs to collaborate across multiple locations worldwide, having universal access to cleansed and accurate data created by SAP Data Services greatly improves communication. Combined with SAP BusinessObjects BI, Weir Minerals has real-time analytics in a clear interface which will improve decision-making in the long run.

Hosted Services for Sustainable Expansion

Since the end of 2015, Weir’s SAP strategy has been deployed in Europe, Latin America, China, and Malaysia – which has 56 servers alone. Weir benefits from cost-efficient managed cloud services and a single source for all system support – ideal for future rollout in the US, Australia, and Africa.