LAPP: Keeping industries moving by delivering certainty in an unpredictable world with enhanced supply chain visibility
Supply chain transparency boosts customer satisfaction
Many of LAPP’s customers are manufacturing companies that operate on tight production schedules, so any delays in shipping can cause significant disruption. To give its customers more certainty about delivery dates, LAPP wanted to boost transparency and efficiency in its inbound supply chain through smarter collaboration with suppliers and carriers.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Manufacturing | Stuttgart, Germany | ~5,700 employees | apsolut |
faster automated confirmation of purchase orders
time savings on order management and delivery tracking for inbound deliveries
productivity gains for customer service and logistics teams
Regional Head of IT for APAC, Lapp Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
Giving customers certainty
As a world-leading supplier of power, control and data cables, connectors, and harnessing solutions, LAPP provides crucial components for manufacturers in many industries, from renewable energy and infrastructure to mobility and robotics. To keep their own production lines running smoothly and on schedule, these customers rely on LAPP to deliver their orders reliably and on time.
“Since the pandemic, globalized supply chains have become much more volatile and uncertain,” says Jaslyn Kwek, Regional Manager, Demand Management and Supply Chain Management Processes, Lapp Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. “As a result, customers want more reassurance about delivery dates. If a date is going to slip, they need to know as early as possible so that they can adjust their production plans.”
To give customers more insight into logistics and improve the efficiency of order management, LAPP wanted to increase transparency throughout its inbound supply chain. Lapp Asia Pacific, the subsidiary that manages the company’s regional hub in Singapore, took the initiative to find a partner that could help to design and implement a solution.
Regional Manager, Demand Management and Supply Chain Management Processes, Lapp Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
Proving the value of supply chain collaboration
As a hub for the company’s operations in the Asia Pacific region, Singapore handles large volumes of shipments from LAPP’s manufacturing facilities in Europe and from other suppliers around the world. Cargo often needs to travel through multiple countries, and the region’s intricate free trade agreements mean that customs clearance is a complex, documentation-heavy process. This made Singapore the ideal market to pilot a new supply chain solution.
“We want to supply our customers with our connection solutions quickly and reliably, so we want our logistics to be as efficient as possible,” explains Jaslyn Kwek. “It’s very important that we get the documentation right to avoid unnecessary customs charges and delays. If we could find a solution for supply chain transparency in Singapore, we were confident it would work for the rest of the world too.”
A key requirement was for the new solution to integrate with the company’s existing SAP S/4HANA software. This was a challenge, as Cheng Mong Lim, Regional Head of IT for APAC, Lapp Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., explains: “Most manufacturing businesses sell their products by item, but in cabling, we sell by length. Our SAP applications have been customized to support this length-based business model, and we needed our new supply chain solution to work the same way.”
Regional Head of IT for APAC, Lapp Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
Transforming transparency and efficiency
LAPP’s partner apsolut designed a solution that would use SAP Business Network to facilitate collaboration with the company’s suppliers and freight forwarders and accelerate the order confirmation process. In addition, the solution would use the SAP Transportation Management application to create freight orders and the SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace solution to provide real-time shipment tracking for LAPP to leverage in its inventory and production planning tracking and provide more reliable sales order delivery dates to its customers. LAPP’s inbound logistics visibility has grown to several million tracked shipment events on a monthly basis by receiving shipment tracking data directly from its carriers and freight forwarders.
“It was easy to onboard our carriers and freight forwarders onto SAP Business Network so we could get shipment tracking data directly from them,” says Cheng Mong Lim. “With multiple stakeholders and business-critical data involved, LAPP requires that the SAP solution ensures everything is safe, secure and compliant.”
The apsolut team also used the SAP Business Application Studio development environment, which is part of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), to develop apps for Booking Requests and Cargo Receiving Reports. These apps allow suppliers and forwarders to upload packing lists, invoices, and other documents for approval by the company’s buyers – eliminating the need for email communication and making the documentation process 100% paperless.
As part of the solution’s implementation, LAPP sought vital support from SAP Preferred Success offerings, gaining the expertise of a cloud solution specialist from SAP to resolve their supplier access challenges. Suppliers were concerned about separate login requirements for Global Track and Trace, the SAP BTP apps, and SAP Business Network. Maintaining separate credentials would be challenging, so the SAP Preferred Success solution expert recommended configuring single sign-on (SSO) with the SAP BTP application to allow suppliers to access all applications with a single username and password, providing a seamless experience.
Regional Manager, Demand Management and Supply Chain Management Processes, Lapp Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
Boosting customer satisfaction
With the new solution in place, supplier collaboration is much smoother and more efficient. When LAPP accepts a new order from a customer, SAP Business Network sends out the relevant purchase orders to its suppliers for confirmation, with automatic reminders to encourage a rapid response.
As soon as the suppliers confirm their delivery dates, this data is automatically updated in LAPP’s SAP S/4HANA ERP system – and if a supplier amends their delivery date, LAPP’s purchasing team is notified instantly. This not only saves time and reduces stress for buyers – it also helps LAPP’s customer service team respond more quickly to customer queries and improves customer satisfaction.
“Today, over 90% of our purchase orders are confirmed in an automated way,” says Jaslyn Kwek. “That means that when our customers place an order, we can give them an accurate delivery date almost immediately because we are more certain about when we will receive our inputs. Our production assurance helps our customers plan their own production schedules and reduces the risk of disruption across our supply chain.”
The Singapore team is also seeing big wins in internal efficiency: the streamlined order management process with SAP Business Network has increased productivity for LAPP’s buyers by over 30%. Meanwhile, the SAP BTP app unlocks 10% time-savings for customer service and logistics teams by giving them instant access to relevant documents.
“The project has already been a success, and we’re excited about what comes next,” says Jaslyn Kwek. “For example, we’ll soon be able to use SAP Business Network Global Track and Trace to update vessel arrival dates automatically in our ERP system, giving us real-time insight into every shipment to share with our customers.”
She concludes: “This project has been piloted in APAC and is well received by our customers. And we are excited to see the productivity savings realised.”
Featured partner
apsolut is a leading consultancy for Intelligent Spend Management, Business Network, Procurement, Supply Chain, External Workforce Management and Business Transformation, and an SAP Gold Partner. The company’s expertise ranges from technical implementation and process consulting to IT project management and the implementation of holistic transformations.