A subtle mistake in a material master record in SAP can look harmless. But a single wrong unit of measure is enough to push purchasing, warehouse, production and finance into chaos — with no one able to trace the origin of the problem.
Follow along as one poorly filled field spreads across 7 days of the company, crosses departments and reaches the C-level as a decision made on top of wrong data.
The first piece falls
Monday, 8:30 a.m.
Ana Paula, a material master data analyst, creates the code for a new input in SAP. It's the third material of the week — a routine she has been running for two years.
She pulls the data from the vendor spreadsheet and fills in the required fields. But she makes a mistake: she enters KG instead of UN as the unit of measure.
She doesn't notice. She couldn't have. The system accepts it. The process moves on. The first domino has just fallen.
Let's follow this mistake over the next 7 days and see how it spreads through the company. Sound exaggerated? It's only the beginning.
Tuesday: the second piece — Purchasing
In purchasing, João Carlos receives the request. Unaware of the mistake, he asks vendors for a quote on 600 KG of a material that should have been quoted per unit.
Suppliers reply with incompatible prices. Some quote by kilogram, others by unit. It becomes a mess. João Carlos tries to adjust, converts values, calls some suppliers. Even so, he approves the lowest apparent price.
The purchase order is created. The value is distorted. Another piece has fallen.
Wednesday: the third piece — Warehouse
The material arrives at the warehouse. During check-in, the team notices: the boxes contain units, not kilograms. There are 600 units. But they expected 600 kilos. The actual volume is much smaller.
Rework begins: adjustments at goods receipt, manual double-checks, a side spreadsheet. The worst part: no one updates the master record. The error stays there. Waiting for the next victim.
Thursday: the fourth piece — Production
In the morning, planning is based on inventory data. With the wrong unit, the input calculation fails. The production order is released with insufficient volume.
The result? Line stoppage. Panic. Improvisation. Pressure.
Friday: the fifth piece — Finance
End of the day. Month-end closing. The reports don't match. Product cost is wrong. Inventory balance is off. The margin disappears.
And strategic decisions are made on top of wrong data. The master data mistake reached the C-level. And no one knows where it came from.
The following Monday: the point of no return
9:15 a.m. Meeting room. Heated discussion. Manufacturing blames purchasing. Finance blames the system. The controller displays the numbers.
Hours of meetings. Analyses. Each area defending its version of the truth. But the system is correct. It's just doing what it was told.
The mistake was born days earlier. Two swapped characters. One poorly filled field. One master record that slipped through. Now the damage is systemic. The entire domino chain has fallen. And no one saw the first piece tip over.
Master data governance: the missing brake
All of this because of a subtle mistake. But the biggest problem wasn't the mistake itself. It was the lack of structure to stop it from moving forward.
With master data governance, this error would have been blocked. With automatic validation, consistency rules and clear responsibilities, SAP would have protected the process.
That's what akquinet delivers: structure, method and technology so that bad data doesn't get in. And when it does, it doesn't move forward.
If your company still treats master data as a bureaucratic task, the dominoes may already be falling. Want to stop the next piece? Talk to akquinet.
About akquinet Brazil
We are specialists in master data governance and Master Data Management (MDM) solutions. As part of the German AKQUINET group, we have been present in Brazil since 2012, developing and delivering projects for clients in a wide range of sectors — retail, industry, agribusiness, pharmaceutical and more. With an experienced and highly qualified team, we have become a market reference, offering solutions such as MDM+ BRO, an SAP-certified add-on for ECC and S/4HANA environments, and MDM+ MUB, a SaaS platform for other ERPs, in addition to specialized consulting services in master data governance and processes.