ContiTech: Standardizing digital manufacturing for faster plant rollouts
Reusable building blocks, faster rollouts
ContiTech AG is using reusable building blocks to transform a greenfield implementation in Aguascalientes, Mexico, into a repeatable digital manufacturing model. Using the SAP Digital Manufacturing solution, the company can connect more than 50 machines through one production logic, digitally track production, and prepare for future plant rollouts faster.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Industrial manufacturing | Hannover, Germany | 36,188 employees | IGZ Ingenieurgesellschaft für logistische Informationssysteme mbH |
system downtime since go-live in August 2025.
days to set up a second plant environment using existing developments.
machines connected through one production process logic.
Head of Digital Manufacturing Rollout, ContiTech AG
Starting from scratch in a greenfield plant
One of the world’s leading industrial machinery specialists, ContiTech AG operates at more than 60 sites around the world. It uses a range of materials to deliver solutions for off-highway, rail, road, and air-based travel applications, under and above the ground, in industrial environments, and for the food and furniture sectors.
For more than 10 years, ContiTech has worked with manufacturing execution across its plants, replacing existing systems or paper-based processes in brownfield sites. Its plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico, was different. Producing high-pressure rubber hoses for industrial machinery and construction equipment, it was a greenfield build where nothing existed yet.
With no existing processes to inherit, the team traveled to sister plants in the United States and Germany to study comparable production processes, which they then adapted for the new site. Since greenfield plants change continuously during the ramp-up process — with infrastructure, machines, and production steps shifting late in the project — the team needed software that could keep pace with last-minute changes.
Head of Digital Manufacturing Rollout, ContiTech AG
Connecting the physical process to digital checks
ContiTech turned to SAP partner IGZ Ingenieurgesellschaft für logistische Informationssysteme mbH (IGZ) for help with deploying the SAP Digital Manufacturing solution at its Aguascalientes plant. The defining feature is that physical production is tied to the digital process. Raw materials are received in SAP S/4HANA and transferred to SAP Digital Manufacturing, which directs operators through each production step. Before a machine can start, the system checks that the correct, date-appropriate material is in place and that all preconditions are met. Only then does the system load the correct recipe to the machine automatically. If a precondition is not met, the machine cannot start.
This builds quality checks directly into the shop floor: operators cannot begin the physical process without first completing the digital process. After production, a confirmation and goods receipt flow back to SAP S/4HANA.
Instead of configuring the system for one specific machine, ContiTech built reusable building blocks — logic designed to be applied broadly across processes. For example, it validated that a component was correct and in date at setup so that a function could be reused across many machines rather than rebuilt each time.
To reduce complexity, ContiTech connected more than 50 machines from suppliers across Asia, Europe, Mexico, and the United States through one production process step. This means that each quarterly software update only needs to be tested once, rather than across dozens of separate flows.
Head of Digital Manufacturing Rollout, ContiTech AG
Turning standardization into a faster rollout
Since going live in August 2025, the Aguascalientes plant has operated without any system-related downtime, and production has been tracked digitally throughout all production processes. Because teams work from the same data foundation, operators, supervisors, maintenance personnel, and managers share one real-time view that Hendrik Neumann, head of the digital manufacturing rollout at ContiTech, describes as supporting “knowing instead of searching.”
However, the standardization paid off most at the next site implementation. ContiTech set up a second plant environment producing conveyor belts in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, in three days using the existing configuration before any large-scale investment.
Scaling the model across plants
ContiTech is reviewing how the templates can be applied to up to 10 sister plants with similar products. This work is part of a broader move from SAP R/3 software to SAP S/4HANA across roughly 40 plants — as the only precondition for connecting SAP Digital Manufacturing is that a plant’s processes already run on SAP S/4HANA.
ContiTech is also planning a major new mixing facility in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. The company expects to run a manufacturing execution system from SAP in a mixing plant for the first time there. ContiTech will work with IGZ on this project.
Featured partner
ContiTech has worked with IGZ for more than 10 years. For the Aguascalientes greenfield project, IGZ supported the team with a structured implementation method, from process analysis and specification to building-block design, testing, training, on-site go-live support, and post-go-live support under a service level agreement. This knowledge transfer helped ContiTech implement the second production line largely with its own team.