Material and Product lifecycle management
Material and Product lifecycle management: governance, automation and AI at the world's largest steelmaker
- Domains
- Material
- Applied product
- MDM + BRO
- Segment
- Industry
The world's largest steel producer, the ArcelorMittal Group has around 127,000 employees — 20,000 in Brazil — and serves customers in 140 countries, with the purpose of creating smarter steels for people and the planet. It was the first company in the Americas with a unit certified by ResponsibleSteel, one of the most respected ESG certifications in the world. The Brazilian plants serve the automotive, home appliance, construction, oil & gas, machinery and equipment industries, among others.
In 2015, ArcelorMittal Brasil identified that improving its material and product master data could deliver major benefits: better information accuracy for decision making, streamlined records avoiding duplicates, materializing tacit knowledge and enabling better traceability, governance and agility.
It was also necessary to reduce rework from cross-step validations, boost efficiency in Procurement and Logistics, minimize impact on services provided to internal and external customers, reduce inventory levels and mitigate fiscal and tax risks.
The initiative started with the unification of PDMs (description standards) across plants, reducing the number of PDMs by 82%. Master data cleansing reduced item count by 71%, reaching 287,000 standardized materials.
After a rigorous selection process involving the largest Master Data Management players, akquinet Brasil was chosen with the MDM+ BRO solution. In the 2nd wave, Material and Product registration processes were redesigned (TO-BE) and started being orchestrated by the MDM+ BRO workflow, with business rules, reports and dashboards ensuring end-to-end governance. In the 3rd wave, the transformation advanced through automation via business rules and Artificial Intelligence, taking the process to a new level of performance and quality.
- 100% automation in some registration processes
- 99.34% SLA compliance
- Average service time of 6.15 hours
- Daily volume of 213 requests
- +18 automations with impact on productivity and compliance
- Automatic material extensions across plants
- Automatic creation and extension of NCM codes
- Self-service for Lead Buyers and automatic creation of repair codes
“Imagine finding a tool that fits like a puzzle piece into the existing SAP scope, being SAP, and solving recurring user complaints: I can't create new fields; I have no approval workflow; It's hard to use; I need to go through several screens to add one field; I have no visibility of where my request is. That's our story with BRO and akquinet Brasil. Our process is more robust, easy to maintain and delivers sustainable gains. A very satisfying delivery, on budget, with great collaboration and warmth. Thank you, akquinet team.”
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