Award – SAP Award for lighting system manufacturer Wieselburg ZKW

As part of the SAP Procurement Forum in Vienna, ZKW was awarded the SAP Digital Procurement Excellence Award 2022. The award recognizes the rapid implementation, high level of integration into the SAP system, and the wide range of project functions.

“As a centralized platform for digital procurement and suppliers, SAP Ariba simplifies all operational procurement processes in ZKW,” says Wilhelm Steiger, CEO of ZKW Group GmbH.

The SAP Ariba project was launched in 2019. The new system went into operation at the beginning of June 2020 at the Wieselburg site and in January 2022 at the ZKW plant in Silao, Mexico. Further releases are scheduled for January 2023 at the production plant in Slovakia, in October 2023 at the plant in China and in 2024 at the electronics plant in Wiener Neustadt.

SAP Ariba Guided Buying provides users with clear online catalogs from a variety of suppliers to order regularly needed consumables. A guided purchasing system provides an easy-to-use web store interface to end users – as is also common in the B2C area. Notifications of requirements go through the approval process and are then automatically converted into orders and submitted with the supplier.

The entire purchasing process is mapped and processed digitally via the Ariba network. More than 60,000 purchase orders have already been placed through the procurement portal, saving valuable time for users and buyers.

But new supplier setup is also now handled as well as supplier contact and management using the new software. In this way, suppliers can manage their master data themselves and upload existing certificates in the self-service area.

“The new platform significantly reduces the effort involved in maintaining master data. We were able to achieve a significant reduction in purchasing costs simply by compiling requirements in catalogs. Special thanks go to the project team, who, with the active support of departments and plants, made it possible to deliver the program quickly,” says Bernard Strelka, vice president of the group that buys ZKW.