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For manufacturersManufacturing and industry: automation around the line, in SAP and in finance
We describe 118 solutions for manufacturers, 67 of them on SAP. Of these, 60 are typical for the industry and 58 are processes shared by many industries. Each starts with work people do today: a shift report, a non-conformance, a supplier invoice or accounts for a new employee. The page also covers automotive manufacturers and their suppliers.
One rule
The robot does not run the line. It takes the paperwork around it off people.
The automation on this page does not control machines. It works in the systems where people retype today: SAP, spreadsheets, mailboxes and Teams. It collects data, fills in forms, watches deadlines and prepares documents for decisions, so the shift lead, the planner and the accountant deal with exceptions instead of retyping.
What automation takes over
- Assembling shift and production reports from several sources
- Watching deadlines for maintenance, training and corrective actions
- Retyping orders, invoices and confirmations into SAP
- Reconciling stock, accounts and balances before the close
- Accounts, access and permissions for people on shifts
Maintenance and quality
Shift reports, non-conformances and maintenance without chasing paper
A shift report assembled from spreadsheets at six in the morning, a non-conformance waiting for a signature, a maintenance job postponed because nobody ordered the part. The robot collects the data and watches the deadlines; decisions on quality and safety stay with the shift lead and the quality team.
Stop paying production controllers to retype MES numbers into a spreadsheet the meeting does not trust.
See the solution Operations & productionNon-conformances and CAPA handled in TeamsContainment, root cause, supplier 8D and effectiveness checks live in one spreadsheet and three mailboxes.
See the solution Operations & productionPreventive maintenance that runs to planStop releasing work orders by printer and typing the completion reports back a week later.
See the solution Operations & productionSafety and site inspections: from checklist to closed actionStop retyping site inspections into a register and chasing corrective actions from an inbox.
See the solution Operations & productionBatch documentation and certificates of analysisFinished goods sit in the dispatch bay because the certificate of analysis is still being typed.
See the solution Operations & productionEngineering changes propagated to ERP, plants and suppliersStop losing engineering changes between the PLM, the ERP, three plants and forty suppliers.
See the solutionProcurement and supply chain
Deliveries, orders and stock that agree in SAP
Delivery confirmations chased by email, customer orders retyped from PDFs, stock in the WMS and the ERP drifting apart every week. The robot works in the system where a person retypes today, and exceptions go to the buyer or planner in Teams.
Buyers spend their mornings chasing suppliers for dates, and planners plan on dates that are already wrong.
See the solution Supply chainCustomer orders from PDFs and emails straight into the ERPCustomer POs still get retyped from PDFs into SAP and confirmed hours later. Stop paying your order desk to type.
See the solution Supply chainInventory that agrees: WMS and ERP reconciled every nightStop discovering at the cycle count, or when an order cannot ship, that the WMS and the ERP disagree.
See the solution Supply chainMoney recovered from suppliers instead of written offRework, scrap and freight caused by a supplier part are absorbed internally because the claim costs too much to build.
See the solution ProcurementPurchase requests and PO approvals no longer lost in emailPurchase requests get lost between mailboxes, approvers and buyers. Stop retyping approved requests into the ERP.
See the solution ProcurementSupplier onboarding and due diligence in days, not weeksStop losing three weeks and the compliance evidence every time a plant needs a new supplier.
See the solutionFinance on SAP
Invoices, variances and month-end close across several plants
Supplier invoices, price and quantity differences between the order, the goods receipt and the invoice, account reconciliations before the close. Groups with several plants add intercompany balances and investments that must reach the asset register on time.
Stop paying your finance team to move numbers from PDFs into the ERP.
See the solution Finance & accountingThree-way match exceptions resolved before the payment runStop chasing price and quantity differences by email while supplier payments wait for weeks.
See the solution Finance & accountingAccount reconciliations and journals that close themselvesStop closing the month by downloading balances into Excel and chasing sign-offs by email.
See the solution Finance & accountingIntercompany balances that agree before the group closeYour entities disagree about what they owe each other, and the consolidation waits for an email.
See the solution Finance & accountingCapital projects that reach the asset register on timeYour newest production line is earning money and your books still call it a project.
See the solution Finance & accountingThe daily cash position without the 7 a.m. spreadsheetStop building the daily cash number by hand from four bank portals; it arrives late and nobody quite trusts it.
See the solutionPeople, permissions and IT
Shifts, training and access in a plant that runs shifts
Shift cover, mandatory training and certifications, payroll data from several systems, accounts and access for new employees. In a plant that runs shifts these processes come back every week.
A sick call should not cost a supervisor an hour of phone tag and a payroll correction.
See the solution HR & peopleQualifications and training tracked before they expireYour training register is only as current as the last time someone remembered to update it.
See the solution HR & peoplePayroll inputs consolidated and checked before the runPayroll errors are found by the employee on payday, not by the team that built the file.
See the solution HR & peopleJoiner, mover, leaver: access on day one, revoked same dayNew starters wait days for access; leavers keep theirs for weeks. Both are the same missing handover.
See the solution Legal & complianceSegregation of duties checked weekly, not once a yearThe auditor finds your role conflicts once a year. By then the oldest of them is twelve months old.
See the solution IT & systemsThe service desk request that never becomes a ticketFour IT tickets in ten follow a known procedure, and every one of them still queues for an analyst.
See the solutionServices
Three services that meet on the shop floor
Case studies and scenarios
What already runs at manufacturers and what you can calculate
Case studies are client projects, described with confidentiality in mind. Scenarios are illustrative models with a calculation, described on an example company.
We took over support for a manufacturer’s core applications: monitoring, user support and proactive enhancements.
See the case study in brief Case study in briefInvoice processing automation at an FMCG manufacturerRobots took over registering and coding purchase invoices, integrated with SAP. Return on investment in 3 months.
See the case study in brief ScenarioFactory incident: from alarm to resolutionShorter MTTR, less downtime, every failure with a complete history.
See the scenario ScenarioSAP regression every night4× the coverage with less effort; releases stop breaking production.
See the scenario ScenarioInvoice disputes without escalationResolutions in hours, fewer “peace-of-mind” write-offs, better supplier relationships.
See the scenario ScenarioComplaints in hours, not daysFirst response in hours; the team handles genuinely contested cases.
See the scenarioWhere to start
Four steps from a call to a working robot
Pick one process
The one that takes people the most hours today or most often comes back with errors. The list on this page is a good starting point.
We measure it on your data
With several processes at once we use task mining and process mining (KYP.ai) to choose the one with the highest return from data.
Value model and implementation plan
Every solution in the library has an economic model to recalculate on your numbers and implementation stages from discovery to optimisation.
Go-live and support
We build, test and launch the solution in your environment, then support it under an SLA, with reporting on your side.
Frequently asked questions
Questions about automation in manufacturing
We support and develop SAP on ECC and S/4HANA, with FI/CO, SD, MM and PP consultants. Robots work in SAP through BAPI and OData interfaces, and through the user interface where there are none.
No. The robot collects data, watches deadlines and prepares documents. Decisions on quality, safety and the production plan stay with people, and every approval has an audit trail.
Each solution description separates inputs, the automation layer and target systems, so the same process can draw on several data sources. We agree the integration scope when we measure the process, before building anything.
We support robots and agents under an SLA as part of 24/7 application support: monitoring, incident response, rule changes and a monthly availability report.
Yes, and we usually recommend it. Every solution in the library is a separate implementation with its own value model, so you can start with one and add the next once the first is running.
Pick one process in your plant. We will calculate it on your data.
Tell us about the process and the systems in fifteen minutes. We will send back an estimate of the share of work that can be automated and a plan for the first implementation.
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