Digital Manufacturing for Howdens Kitchens
About the Customer
Howdens Joinery is a leading fitted-kitchen manufacturer, serving in the United Kingdom and France at more than 800 depot locations. The company sells more than 10,000 products across kitchens, joinery, white goods, work surfaces and hardware so homes can be serviced completely from under one roof. With free design and planning services available at every depot, our customer has delivered millions of kitchens within the United Kingdom, even supplying the royal family.
Project Summary
On a new venture to expand the variety of kitchen colors offered to customers, Howdens Joinery chose Engineering Industries eXcellence’s Digital Manufacturing team to integrate existing SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and SAP’s cloud based MES solution Digital Manufacturing solution with a new supply chain, to ensure real-time product traceability and transform their production model from make-to-stock to make-to-order at a greenfield factory.
Project Activities
- Delivered a proof-of-concept based on an existing production line
- Implemented a cloud-based, end-to-end manufacturing solution leveraging SAP Digital Manufacturing
- Integrated the solution with customer’s existing SAP ERP landscape
- Transitioned customer’s production model from make-to-stock to make-to-order for more product customization options
- Planned solution implementation at customer’s production facilities across the UK
Business Drivers
- Offer more color customization options to consumers
- Manage new product offering without complexity
- Ensure traceability of customized kitchen parts in the supply chain
- Manufacture orders with many parts and color variations efficiently and in full
- Connect production and supply chain processes to reap the benefits of the Digital Thread
More About the Project
First, our experts delivered a proof-of-concept based on one of Howdens Joinery existing production lines, which operated on an on-premises SAP MES solution. Our proposed solution leveraged SAP Digital Manufacturing (SAP DM) to transition the customer’s production model, connect MES and ERP via the cloud and create a closed-loop supply chain. Following customer approval, the solution delivery and integration phase took place at their greenfield site.
The kitchen manufacturer’s previous make-to-stock production model involved a proactive approach in which production plans were based on sales forecasts and/or historical demand. To deliver more color options to the market, our experts transformed their manufacturing from a make-to-stock to a make-to-order model, in which production plans are linked to specific sales orders. One of the biggest challenges of the make-to-order model is the increased complexity that comes with targeted manufacturing. To solve this problem, our experts delivered end-to-end system integration and developed a new supply chain process for manageable, traceable, efficient production.
Our team integrated SAP DM with the customer’s existing SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) to enable the automatic sharing of product information in real-time as well as access to advanced analytics that support informed decision-making. This data helps the kitchen leader monitor performance, manage production-related issues and increase traceability while making manufacturing operations more efficient and scalable. Now, at the end of production, the customers customized order can be tracked in the supply chain, aggregated, packed and delivered to customers through an easy-to-use digital ecosystem of integrated SAP products.
Engineering’s Advantage
As a trusted partner for strategic transformation, our Digital Manufacturing team was introduced and recommended by SAP to Howdens Joinery for our implementation experience, extensive integration capabilities and strong expertise across SAP’s on-premise and cloud Manufacturing Suite. With a global network of Industry 4.0 specialists, we are ready to provide support at any stage of the kitchen manufacturer’s customization journey.
