Complexity and Variety of Processes and Business Scenarios
Upfield’s standard process of master data governance was clear yet missing good supporting tools. Everything from request through to approvals, communications and processing was manual and relied on extensive e-mail flows, which made it very laborious and time consuming. Lack of automation, exposed Upfield to human error and required many master data adjustments, decreasing overall data quality. Upfield decided to look for a tool that would cover the full range of MDM processes.
Upfield also wanted to cover all accompanying objects required for purchasing, costing, manufacturing, distribution and sales at least to a level where they could track if essential tasks were completed or not.
Material Master
Upfield needed to ensure that all production items (raw, packaging, semi-finished and finished goods) were under control and delivered on time and in full.
Vendors
Upfield needed to streamline the overall onboarding process of Vendors, creating a workflow eliminating the need to use multiple systems. They wanted to make sure that business and data quality rules are system driven and not manual to ensure that data is of high quality on entry.
Customers
Upfield needed to improve new customer creation and master data management. The process of approval requests required changes to ensure that the business could actively participate in the process. Upfield needed the business to be aware that it was the owner of the data.
Lack of Process Harmonisation between Regions
Upfield runs businesses on six continents, using separate SAP systems, running a slightly different data model and requiring a specific set of rules. Each region tends to still have a slightly different organisational structure which impacts ownership of both process steps and data.
Definition of Roles and Responsibilities
Upfield discovered many gaps in roles and responsibilities in the MDM process. Finding an owner for each data object and each master data view or field became a challenge that needed to be resolved for the process to work.