Business processes are becoming more and more digital. This is forcing companies to expand their IT system landscapes. But every system reaches its limits someday. This is why the packaging specialist Knüppel has migrated its SAP R/3 system landscape to SAP S/4HANA.
The customer
Knüppel is a medium-sized packaging specialist located in Hann. Münden, Germany, and is one of the leading providers of durable, innovative product packaging. As a successful family-owned company, Knüppel combines its years of experience with new technologies to provide its customers with customized packaging solutions that are precisely tailored to the relevant application. Optimized and technically seamless packaging processes, efficiency and environmental sustainability as well as the safety of the packaged goods are its most important considerations.
The challenge
The central challenge at Knüppel was its existing technology: over the years, the aging SAP R/3 platform with its connected SAP BW (Business Warehouse) had developed into a complex, heterogeneous system landscape that could no longer keep pace with growing requirements.
The company’s digital business processes were in increasing need of an agile, flexible system that could process large volumes of data at high speeds and prepare it for instant analysis. The necessary technical upgrades had to have the capacity to be seamlessly integrated into these structures as the company grew, established processes needed to be streamlined and performance problems in the production system eliminated. Moreover, the aim was for it to be easier to carry out analyses to improve functionality in the future.
The solution
Together with SAP and Lufthansa Industry Solutions (LHIND), Knüppel switched its existing SAP R/3 system landscape to SAP S/4HANA as a participant in the Early Adopter Care Program. The external Business Warehouse system was integrated into the HANA platform at the same time. While migrating data to HANA, Knüppel’s ABAP in-house developments were adapted to s/4 and optimized.
The switch to Unicode was carried out at the same time that the company switched from using a Windows platform to Linux OS. In addition, a new financial planning system with a statement of profit and loss and a cost-center planning system were introduced in the integrated Business Warehouse – using SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) on the established user interface Analysis for Excel.
During upstream process analysis, Lufthansa Industry Solutions identified the customer-specific optimization potentials of S/4HANA together with Knüppel’s specialist departments. LHIND carried out all of the important steps during the project such as the technical release switch and conversions as well as migrations and adjustments to ABAP programs. Experts from LHIND also integrated the external SAP Business Warehouse into S/4HANA.
