S/4 Conversion

Increasingly digital business processes require more agile and flexible solutions in SAP systems, where large amounts of data can be processed in real time and evaluated immediately.

S/4 Hana, as the successor to the classic ERP Business Suite, addresses precisely these challenges. For the majority of companies, the question is no longer whether they will work with S/4 Hana in the future, but rather when and how the transition can be completed in practice.

The current rapidly growing interest in S/4 Hana after initial reticence is also reflected in the fact that, according to SAP, the number of customers increased by 70 percent year-on-year in 2017 (as of August 2017).

S/4 pioneer Billet

One company that has opted for S/4 Hana as its future platform is Knüppel Verpackung. The medium-sized packaging specialist is one of the leading providers of innovative and durable packaging solutions.

As a successful family business, Knüppel combines many years of experience with new technologies in order to be able to supply its customers with individual packaging solutions that are precisely tailored to the respective application. Central factors for this are the design or optimization of a technically smooth packaging process, economic efficiency and ecological sustainability as well as the safety of the packaged goods.

In order to meet these requirements in the future, Knüppel has decided to migrate its own SAP R/3 landscape to SAP S/4 Hana Enterprise 1610 OP.

An important milestone in the project was the first-time provision of a fully converted S/4 Hana test system with current productive data in order to make the potential of the new platform visible to the specialist departments.

In general, enthusiasm for S/4 Hana grows faster among companies when users can try out new functions and UX interfaces using their own data in test mode.

The project is actively supported by SAP as part of the early adopter program for S/4 Hana 1610. This is a mutually beneficial cooperation because, on the one hand, the project team is guaranteed fast and uncomplicated access to SAP experts in the event of technical or business problems and, on the other hand, practical experience from the S/4 Hana conversion of a grown R/3 system landscape is passed back to SAP development/support.

This type of collaboration is also very helpful, at least for the time being, since technical improvement potential was definitely uncovered in the course of the project. In general, the existing company-specific processes at Knüppel are also to be retained as part of the S/4 Hana landscape.

New functions, on the other hand, are implemented as close to the standard as possible. In addition, the existing system landscape is consolidated by integrating the external SAP Business Warehouse as "embedded BW" in S/4 Hana.

The central challenges of the project were - in addition to the technically required upgrades and migration up to the S/4 target system - above all the adaptation of customer developments and interfaces, the general conversion to the business partner concept (CVI) and the reorganization of reporting with the virtual data models in SAP Hana.

Integrated BW system

The fact that Knüppel can ultimately draw a positive interim balance regarding the selection of the new platform, despite some pitfalls and stumbling blocks during the migration and transition to S/4 Hana, was due to the decisive advantages:

The new system offers significantly better performance. Fiori apps complement the established GUI-based screens; reporting can be consolidated, updated, and mapped in real time based on the new data models, keeping management and business departments up to date with the latest information.

In addition, the company is now technically up to date for the near future and can therefore better face the challenges and opportunities of digitization.