EuroKera's Growth Accelerated with SAP S/4HANA Cloud ERP

The story

A world leader in glass-ceramic solutions, EuroKera is equipping itself with a single ERP system for all its sites to optimize the management of its activities. The manufacturer has opted for SAP S/4HANA, deployed in public cloud mode, accompanied by SAP Enable Now, SAP IBP and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) solutions. This was a major project for the Group, which chose to be supported by the Nagarro teams.

Eurokera logo

About the client

Founded in 1990 by Saint-Gobain and Corning, the EuroKera Group benefits from the age-old glassmaking expertise of its two parent companies. Now a world leader, EuroKera specializes in designing and manufacturing innovative, durable, and high-performance glass-ceramic solutions.

Glass is fused at over 1500° in a furnace in France, specially designed to meet the highest quality standards. It is then sent to one of the Group's four ceramization plants in France, the United States, China and Thailand for conversion into cooking surfaces (Keraspectrum, Onyka), integrated worktops (Versâtis) or fireplace solutions (Keralite).

The Group produces several million cooktops for leading household appliance manufacturers every year. EuroKera employs over 1,000 people worldwide at its five production sites in France, the United States, China and Thailand.

Business need

The quest for growth and innovation with SAP

"For over 30 years, we have grown to become the equivalent of an international ETI, with as many ERPs to manage as sites," testifies Vincent Vigneron, Digital Transformation Director, EuroKera. "As our company grows, we feel the need to manage and optimize flows between our different sites. A single ERP will form a foundation that will enable us to move up a gear, in all areas, in terms of efficiency, but also traceability and compliance.

"In order to choose the right solution, we launched a major specification phase across all our sites, which enabled us to challenge our practices, as part of a transformation project that should profoundly change our organization. At the end of the selection process, it became clear that SAP, through its SAP S/4HANA solution, offered the best functional response to our needs. As for Nagarro, they convinced us with a business approach adapted to our needs and excellent integration and development capabilities."

Solution

EuroKera chose SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public, an industrial ERP covering a wide range of purchasing, sales, production, and inventory management processes. All this is with the support of other SAP solutions: SAP Enable Now to support users in this transformation, SAC for budget analysis, and SAP IBP for S&OP—all to be deployed in public cloud mode.

"The Fit-to-Standard approach recommended for deployment in public cloud mode is an asset here," explains Aurélien Ebel, ERP Project Manager, EuroKera. "It gives us a framework and guides us, which will help secure the project, in terms of both cost and time, while avoiding the development of too many specific features in our core model. The public cloud also facilitates version upgrades, enabling us to benefit from functional evolutions and innovations at regular intervals. The Fit-to-Standard approach is essential to avoid these version upgrades. The SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) will be used for integration tasks, notably between the ERP and the Group's MES, but also during the deployment of specific applications.

Transformation Underway

The first workshops were launched in February 2023. "In practice, the SAP Activate methodology proved to be a good basis for our project," notes Vincent Vigneron. "However, in order to better involve our teams, Nagarro was able to adapt the SAP Activate methodology to go beyond the standard scope items, to propose things that were more meaningful and closer to our needs."

The test phase has now begun, with a view to deployment starting in the 1st half of 2024. "For the time being, the project is going according to plan, on time and on budget. It's been a long marathon, littered with difficulties, but the teams are satisfied and remain convinced they've made the right choice."

This core model will first be deployed in France, before being adapted and deployed in the United States and Asia. We will then call on the same Nagarro skills to support us in these roll-out phases".

Aurélien Ebel

ERP Project Manager, EuroKera