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The challenge
Unintentional duplicates in the material master cause various inefficiencies in the management of spare parts. Duplicate warehousing and duplicate orders lead to increased storage and ordering costs, waste storage space and cause intransparency between plants, departments and storage locations. However, especially in times of shortages and long delivery times, this transparency and cost efficiency is elementary.
SPARETECH provides insights into your material master data. In addition to the possibility of supplementing the master data with original manufacturer data and discontinuation information, duplicates within your material master are reliably identified.
But as already explained in the blog entry about duplicates, even after a clear identification of duplicates by the SPARETECH app, there are a lot of dependencies that need to be considered.
This blog entry is intended to give you an insight into a concrete practical example of how one way to detect duplicates using the SPARETECH app in your own material master and how the corresponding downstream process is designed at this customer.
Duplicate processing with SPARETECH in practice
Example ElringKlinger AG
The starting point for the duplicate cleanup at ElringKlinger is the Insights area of the SPARETECH app, in which all identified duplicates of the stored material master are grouped according to the associated SPARETECH ID. Thus, all materials in a duplicate group are listed under the tab New tab, which have the same identifying characteristics but are assigned to different ERP material numbers.
At ElringKlinger, a central master data team performs the task of company-wide duplicate cleansing to ensure correct and effective processing. This allows all duplicate groups and the process steps described below to be performed in a bundled manner.
Under the motto "Experience mobility - develop the future", the independent automotive supplier employs over 9500 people at 45 locations worldwide. The ElringKlinger Group's product portfolio ranges from cylinder-head gaskets and lightweight components to complete electric drive units.
Since 2020, ElringKlinger and SPARETECH have been successfully working closely together to develop the future. In this way, it has already been possible to identify and clean up 7% duplicates in the global material master and thus immediately reduce corresponding inventories.
Learn more about ElringKlinger's spare parts management in the webinar:
For the downstream process of duplicate cleanup, the new duplicate groups are downloaded from the central master data team via the SPARTECH app. In the Excel file generated in this way, duplicates are listed among each other and can be filtered via the SPARETECH ID. This file is the basis for ElringKlinger to clean up the duplicates from the ERP system.
1. Collect and Check
First, the duplicate groups in the export generated from the SPARETECH app are finally checked with the help of additional internal expertise. In case of a unique duplicate, the leading material number is defined in the following step.
If there is any uncertainty during the final check as to whether the product is a duplicate, this must be finally verified. Here, either a short plausibility check is carried out via the manufacturer's website or a decision on the duplicate is made via a photo request in the relevant warehouse and with the expert knowledge of the colleagues on site.
2. Define Leading Material Number
Once the duplicate groups have been checked, ElringKlinger's master data team defines a leading material number for each of these groups so that, from now on, only one ERP material number is stored in the master data for the same material.
When deciding which of the material numbers will be the leading one from now on, ElringKlinger is mainly guided by how many and in which storage locations the material numbers of a duplicate group are available.
Case A
All material numbers from the duplicate group are in identical number of storage locations and there are no other restrictive conditions.
→ The oldest material number is defined as the leading material number, since all subsequently created materials are duplicates of this material number.
Case B
One of the material numbers from the duplicate group is in more storage locations than the rest of the material numbers in the group
→ This is suitable as the leading material number regardless of the date of the new creation, as this reduces the complicated and time-consuming downstream processes in the storage locations to a minimum.
Once the leading material number has been determined, the specific data of the duplicates with different material numbers is added to the leading material record. For example, content such as inventory, storage locations, supplier information, and equipment number are migrated to the leading material number record. This can happen either via a material change or, if the duplicates are located in another plant, via the material plant extension to the other plants.
Thus, a leading material number is determined, which can be used in the future when using the formerly duplicate material. Subsequently, all other material numbers of the duplicate group that are no longer to be used are marked accordingly and the final physical process of relabeling is started.
3. Deletion Notes and Relabeling
Once the leading material number has been determined and all relevant data has been migrated into this master data record, future interactions with the material numbers of the duplicates must be avoided. To this end, ElringKlinger's master data team sets a deletion flag for these in the ERP system, which ensures, among other things, that the material can no longer be planned using this material number.
Here, it must be taken into account whether there are still open orders for the material number to be blocked. Otherwise, the receipt of the goods cannot be confirmed by the warehouse clerk on site in the case of materials with a deletion note.
In parallel to the process described above of adjusting the material numbers in the system, ElringKlinger also has to adapt the physical designations (so-called labels) of the storage locations. This is crucial to ensure that the spare part is consistently labeled with the new leading material number right up to the physical storage location on site and that there are no deviations from the ERP system landscape. For this purpose, the persons responsible for the respective storage locations are informed in parallel to the data-based process so that the physical relabeling of the storage locations can start there.
This step completes the duplicate cleanup process. The duplicates have been successfully cleaned up both in the ERP system and physically in the warehouse. Via a regular update of the material master in the SPARETECH app, the changes are also visible here for all users. Thanks to the live duplicate check during the creation of a new material with the SPARETECH app, the material master is also protected against duplicates in the future. In this way, the master data quality of the material master can be kept at a sustainably high level.
Example WEPA Hygieneprodukte GmbH
At WEPA Hygieneprodukte GmbH, too, a central master data team takes care of defining the leading material number and the duplicate cleanup process. While much is the same as ElringKlinger's approach, there is one key difference. Here, no material numbers are merged or combined; instead, the existing ones are given a status and then consumed.
The statuses used:
- Active
"surviving" / leading material number - Discontinued
Material number currently still has stock that can be used. As soon as there is no more stock, this material number is set to Obsolete set - Obsolete
Material number is no longer in stock and is no longer used or ordered
In this way, via the consumption of the remaining items of the duplicated material numbers, all (except the leading material number) are gradually set to the status Obsolete. Here, too, the plants and departments involved are of course informed of the changes by the central master data team.
The WEPA Group is a family-owned company that produces sustainable and innovative hygiene papers. With around 4,000 employees and a turnover of approx. 1.3 billion euros, WEPA is one of the three largest European manufacturers of hygiene papers. The WEPA Group has 13 production plants throughout Europe, located in Germany, Poland, France, Italy, Great Britain and the Netherlands.
Learn more about WEPA's spare parts management in the video:
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