Case Study 3 - SAP ECC Chemical Distribution
Unifying Global Operations: Konexxia's SAP ECC6 Data Migration Excellence
A Dynamics 365 Data Migration Success Story
Introduction
When one of Europe's leading chemical manufacturers and distributors faced the challenge of consolidating their fragmented global operations onto a single SAP ECC6 platform, they needed a partner who could navigate the complexity of multiple legacy systems whilst delivering flawless data migration across four major markets.
The result was a testament to methodical planning and technological innovation: a seamless transition of critical manufacturing, financial, and master data across the UK, Nordics, France, and Netherlands, delivered on time with exceptional data quality that enabled immediate operational continuity.
Client Profile
A prominent chemical manufacturing and distribution company with operations spanning multiple European markets had reached a critical juncture. Years of organic growth and strategic acquisitions had created a patchwork of disparate systems that were hampering operational efficiency and strategic decision-making.
The company operated across diverse chemical sectors, from specialty chemicals to industrial compounds, requiring sophisticated manufacturing processes, complex product formulations, and stringent regulatory compliance. Their existing technology landscape reflected this complexity, with each market running different systems that had evolved independently over decades.
The Challenge
The path to transformation was fraught with significant obstacles that would test any data migration strategy:
Legacy System Complexity: Each market operated fundamentally different systems. The UK relied on a well-established Baan implementation that had been heavily customised over fifteen years. The Nordic operations ran on an older SAP system with extensive modifications that had created unique data structures. France operated on Microsoft Dynamics Navision, whilst the Netherlands used a collection of proprietary platforms that had been developed in-house during the 1990s.
Manufacturing Data Intricacies: Chemical manufacturing generates some of the most complex data relationships in any industry. Bills of materials contained hundreds of components with precise specifications, batch tracking requirements, and regulatory compliance data. Manufacturing routes needed to capture temperature controls, mixing sequences, and quality control checkpoints that were critical for both production and regulatory compliance.
Master Data Harmonisation: Customer and vendor data had evolved differently across markets, with varying naming conventions, address formats, and classification systems. Some customers operated across multiple markets but were recorded as separate entities in each system, creating duplicate management challenges and preventing global customer visibility.
Regulatory and Compliance Requirements: Chemical manufacturing operates under strict regulatory frameworks that vary by country. Product data needed to maintain detailed safety information, environmental impact data, and regulatory approval records that were captured differently across the legacy systems.
Tight Implementation Timeline: The business had committed to aggressive go-live dates across all four markets within an 18-month window, leaving little room for error or extended hypercare periods.
Konexxia's Approach
Recognising the complexity of this multi-market, multi-system challenge, Konexxia deployed their proven 6-step methodology enhanced with specialist SAP expertise and the power of their proprietary Generix data platform.
Deep-Dive Data Discovery: The engagement began with Konexxia's systematic discovery process across all four markets simultaneously. Teams of specialists conducted detailed analysis of each legacy system, documenting not just the data structures but understanding the business processes that had shaped them. In the Netherlands, this involved reverse-engineering proprietary database schemas that had no existing documentation. For the Nordic SAP system, the team mapped complex customisations that had created unique data relationships not found in standard SAP implementations.
Structured Documentation and Mapping: Konexxia created comprehensive mapping documents that bridged the gap between disparate source systems and the target SAP ECC6 structure. This was particularly challenging for the manufacturing modules, where the team needed to map Baan's manufacturing execution data to SAP's Production Planning and Manufacturing modules whilst preserving critical batch genealogy information.
The mapping workshops revealed significant opportunities for data harmonisation. Customer master data, for instance, was consolidated from over 45,000 individual customer records across the four systems down to 28,000 unique global customers, eliminating duplicates whilst preserving essential regional variations for local compliance requirements.
Automated Transformation with Generix: The Generix data platform proved instrumental in handling the complexity of this multi-system migration. The platform automatically generated target load file structures by extracting SAP ECC6 data entity definitions directly from the client's development environment. This ensured that transformation schemas were always aligned with the latest system configuration, eliminating the risk of load failures due to structural mismatches.
For the chemical manufacturing requirements, Generix executed sophisticated transformations that converted complex bill-of-material structures from each source system into SAP's standardised format. The platform handled intricate material master data, preserving critical attributes like hazard classifications, shelf-life information, and regulatory approval codes whilst standardising data formats across all markets.
Configuration-Driven Validation: A breakthrough innovation in this project was Konexxia's extraction of SAP configuration information directly from the target system. This allowed the team to pre-validate all data against actual system configuration before any load attempts. The validation framework checked material types against configured material groups, verified customer payment terms against the payment term master data, and ensured that all manufacturing routing operations referenced valid work centres.
Referential Integrity and Business Rules: The validation process extended beyond technical configuration checks to include comprehensive referential integrity validation between migration objects. The system verified that all purchase orders referenced valid vendors, that bill-of-material components existed in the material master, and that manufacturing routings contained only valid operations and work centres.
Additionally, Konexxia implemented business rule validations specific to chemical manufacturing requirements. These included checks for mandatory safety data sheet information, validation of chemical compatibility matrices, and verification of regulatory approval chains for different market combinations.
Implementation Process
The implementation followed Konexxia's proven iterative approach, with each market progressing through structured validation cycles whilst maintaining coordination across the global programme.
Parallel Market Development: Utilising Generix's multi-market capabilities, Konexxia executed transformations for all four markets simultaneously from a shared codebase. This approach enabled the team to apply learnings from one market immediately across all others whilst respecting the unique requirements of each region.
Progressive Validation Cycles: Each market underwent four comprehensive data validation cycles, with data extracted at month-end points to ensure consistency. The iterative approach allowed for continuous refinement of transformation logic, with issues identified in early cycles addressed systematically before subsequent iterations.
Business User Engagement: Konexxia guided business users through detailed validation processes in SAP test environments. Manufacturing teams verified bill-of-material accuracy, procurement specialists validated vendor master data, and finance teams reconciled general ledger balances. All feedback was systematically captured and tracked through to resolution.
The project delivered exceptional outcomes that exceeded the client's expectations across multiple dimensions:
Data Quality Excellence: The pre-validation approach delivered remarkable results, with data load success rates exceeding 99.8% across all markets. This eliminated the extended hypercare periods that typically follow major ERP implementations, allowing the business to achieve operational stability within the first week of each go-live.
Accelerated Time to Value: The UK market achieved full operational capability within 72 hours of go-live, with manufacturing operations resuming normal production schedules immediately. This rapid stabilisation was replicated across the Nordic, French, and Netherlands implementations, delivering earlier return on investment than originally anticipated.
Manufacturing Continuity: Critical manufacturing operations experienced zero disruption during the migration weekends. Complex chemical production processes that typically require weeks of planning continued without interruption, preserving valuable production capacity and maintaining customer delivery commitments.
Global Visibility and Control: For the first time in the company's history, management gained real-time visibility across all markets from a single system. Global customer relationships became visible, enabling coordinated pricing strategies and improved customer service. Consolidated inventory management revealed optimisation opportunities that generated immediate cost savings.
Master Data Harmonisation Success: The consolidation of customer and vendor master data delivered immediate operational benefits. Sales teams could now view complete customer relationships across all markets, whilst procurement teams gained global vendor visibility that enabled improved negotiating positions and consolidated purchasing strategies.
Regulatory Compliance: The migration successfully preserved all critical regulatory data whilst standardising compliance processes across markets. Product safety information, environmental data, and regulatory approvals were maintained with full audit trails, ensuring continued compliance with varying national requirements.
Key Success Factors
Methodical Approach:
Structured 6-step methodology ensured no critical aspects were overlooked
Proprietary Technology:
Generix data platform provided automation capabilities that dramatically reduced manual effort and error potential
Expert Team:
Specialists with deep functional
knowledge ensured accurate mapping and transformation
Validation Discipline:
Rigorous multi-stage verification processes identified
and resolved issues before they could impact the business
Multi-Market Coordination: Simultaneous execution across four markets with shared learning and coordinated go-live schedules delivered efficiency gains whilst maintaining local market requirements.
This implementation demonstrates how Konexxia's specialised data migration expertise can transform challenging ERP projects into Dynamics 365 Data Migration Success stories, even in complex global manufacturing environments with tight deadlines and previous implementation challenges.
Conclusion
This landmark SAP ECC6 migration demonstrates how Konexxia's specialised expertise and innovative technology can transform complex, multi-market implementations into seamless success stories.
By combining deep industry knowledge, proven methodology, and cutting-edge automation, Konexxia enabled this chemical manufacturer to achieve their vision of unified global operations whilst maintaining the operational excellence their customers depend upon.
The project established a new benchmark for SAP migration quality and efficiency, proving that even the most complex industrial implementations can be delivered with minimal business disruption when approached with the right expertise and technology.