Elco GmbH relied on PIKON’s SAP ERP optimisation expertise to find the right solution. A first analysis together with PIKON’s expert, Sascha Gerhardt, pointed out really quick that the implementation of SAP Variant Configuration would probably be the best solution to tackle Elco’s challenges.
With a Proof-Of-Concept in Elco’s SAP ERP system, PIKON demonstrated that a new approach for order entry through SAP Variant Configuration works and accelerates their process radically.
At this point, PIKON also introduced a self-made template, enabling Elco’s users to enter product structures and product characteristics without needing to have specific SAP knowledge. This makes it easier to convert their technical product view to SAP-conform standards. The introduction of this PIKON template made the internal coordination among the users improve significantly.
Together with Mr. Frank Büschelberger from Elco’s Engineering department, PIKON’s expert, Sascha Gerhardt conducted a thorough business analysis (As-Is vs. To-Be). This revealed that more than 90% of Elco’s existing products could be implemented through SAP Variant Configuration.
PIKON’s Complexity Score Index Calculation (PIKON CSI) was used to assign the products to different product groups, broken down into high, medium or low complexity, based on the number of characteristics, the number of values and the complexity of object dependencies.
In order to have more cost transparency over customer orders, PIKON recommended to create SAP CO-PA reports (CO-PA = the standard SAP component “Profitability Analysis” for operating results) on product features, rather than on individual material masters (as done before). This new reporting type has become possible to use, since there is now only ONE material master for the configurable material, representing different products. This approach, however, went against Ariston Thermo’s global scale strategy, being a product company and having a product cost approach.
Because of that, PIKON’s Custom Development department came into play and developed a custom background program that creates a SAP material master record in every customer order for the particular characteristics of the configured product in question. For these material master records (i.e. material variants), the existing product controlling reports can be re-used. In order to avoid redundancy, the custom program also verifies whether material variants with the same characteristics already exist.
