A rapidly changing business environment presents today's primary metals companies with an assortment of conflicts. Higher product demand is accompanied by higher costs for raw material and energy. Mergers and acquisitions extend a company's reach around the globe while transforming its supply chain into a supply network with multiple paths for meeting customer demand. Product specialization intended to combat increased competition increases the need for additional services.

Challenged with resolving these conflicts, and intent on meeting future challenges, businesses are transitioning to more flexible and reliable IT infrastructures. For businesses in the primary metals industry, SAP offers an extensive integrated solution portfolio based on a flexible and open IT infrastructure.

SAP solutions for primary metals can help your company address a spectrum of business processes – from collaborative product design through manufacturing and sales – as well as internal financial and success controls. Our solutions offer a range of functionalities, giving you the flexibility to run your business the way you want, and giving your business the stability to respond to change without disruption of sensitive business processes.

SAP solutions for primary metals enable you to:

• Apply multiple dimensions and characteristics of industry-specific modeling to your products – from inception to production
• Track materials and satisfy customer demand more efficiently by running a single integrated supply chain – linking supplier to customer, and even linking organizations within your enterprise
• Manufacture products through common processes that allow extensive material tracing of single units and the ability to react to unplanned events
• Synchronize your manufacturing process with quality management, plant maintenance, and other related business processes
• Optimize planning with processes integrated at all planning stages – from forecasting through production scheduling
• Integrate your business at all levels – from the production floor to executive offices
• Process sales orders by checking product availability on multilevel material and capacity
• Track products from suppliers to your company using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology

SAP solutions for primary metals offer comprehensive services to ensure low total cost of ownership and enable long-term success.

A strong customer base in primary metals demonstrates our customer's confidence in SAP and our continuous commitment to the industry. Read about some of the primary metal companies succeeding with SAP.