The traditional company WILO was founded in 1872 as "Kupfer- und Messingwarenfabrik Louis Opländer" and set new standards with its invention of the circulation accelerator in 1928, among other things. Today, the WILO Group is a corporate group: With more than 90 production and sales companies, WILO is represented worldwide and continues to grow steadily.
The company recently decided to implement IBP (Integrated Business Planning). Previously, the predecessor APO (Advanced Planning and Optimization) was used. SAP has discontinued APO until 2027 and is no longer developing the planning tool.
IBP is the successor product to APO. It is a cloud-based solution for supply chain management. It enables real-time planning, scenario analyses and decision support. Modules such as S&OP, "Response and Supply", Demand and Inventory improve efficiency, transparency and collaboration in the supply chain.
WILO introduced IBP for Demand in the first of three implementation steps. The partner for this task was the SAP specialist CONSILIO from Aschheim/Dornach - near Munich. The company has in-depth expertise from various industries.
We have been working with CONSILIO for a long time, have implemented PP/DS together and have never been disappointed. The commitment, expertise and motivation of the staff is impeccable, which is why we were happy to choose CONSILIO for our IBP project
The highlights of the implementation of IBP for Demand:
- Transfer of planning functionalities from APO DP with manual planning and monthly statistical forecasts
- Weekly plan transfer from IBP to APO SNP
- Classification of the product portfolio by market segment
- PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) for phasing in and out products
- Calculation of plan prices and thus monetary evaluation of the plan
- New process for mid-term planning (up to 5 years into the future)
Demand planning in APO has therefore already been switched off and takes place in IBP. WILO therefore currently has an interim architecture: Sebastian Held, Managing Consultant SCM & IBP at CONSILIO: "Demand planning is now handled via IBP. Until the implementation of IBP for Response and Supply is complete, network and distribution planning will continue to run in APO SNP. Finally, detailed production planning is to be replaced by the integrated Embedded PP/DS as part of the S/4HANA transformation."
Even after the first phase, WILO is already benefiting from the new functionalities in IBP. Statistical forecasts can be used to create monthly requirements planning. Planners have the opportunity to take corrective action here. It is also possible to segment the product portfolio quite granularly in terms of product and customer groups.
The function for planning the introduction and discontinuation of products is also exciting for WILO. IBP Product Lifecycle Management provides functionalities for this purpose. Sebastian Held: "The semi-automated process can be used to transfer requirements from old products to new ones."
Fazit
The first step towards implementing IBP at WILO has been successful. The company is already benefiting from the introduction of the IBP for Demand sub-module in central processes, but still has to work with an interim architecture until APO SNP has been replaced by IBP Response & Supply.
By switching from APO to IBP, WILO is consistently pursuing the path of an innovative company that sets trends and is also well prepared for any challenges that may arise as a result of the change.