Birla Opus Paints: Painting a bright future for a new company with a foundation of serviceability, reliability, and scalability
A supply chain and market disruptor
When Birla Opus Paints decided to create a new player in the decorative paints sector, it used the RISE with SAP journey to deploy SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and the SAP Extended Warehouse Management application. Built on automation and smart-factory operations, Birla Opus Paints has quickly become a major contender in this competitive market.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Consumer products | Mumbai, India | >45,000 employees | Stellium Consulting India Private Limited and Westernacher Consulting India Pvt. Limited |
increase in outbound goods movements using scanners.
increase in effective utilization of case-picking stations.
reduction in congestion at rework, from five pallets to zero.
COO, Birla Opus Paints
Embarking on an ambitious greenfield project
When Birla Opus Paints was established in 2023, the company had an extremely ambitious goal of becoming the second-largest decorative paints manufacturer by volume in an Indian paint sector already dominated by two major players. A total of six plants would manufacture a full suite of more than 145 products, from water-based and enamel paints to wood finishes, waterproofing products, and wallpapers. These high-quality offerings would serve customers spanning the economy, premium, luxury, and designer finishes as well as institutional-client segments.
To make its mark in this mature sector, Birla Opus Paints needed to embrace an agile, tech-savvy, and efficient mindset from day one. Supply chain operations, in particular, required high levels of automation, process efficiency, and visibility.
The company had to combine high utilization of deployed capacity with the flexibility to ramp up quickly to keep costs under control while grasping every market opportunity. To achieve this, it needed a robust warehouse management solution that it could smoothly integrate with automation systems to tightly control goods movement to, from, and within its plants, warehouses, and depots. This solution had to stabilize in the shortest possible time after go-live so the company could expand production quickly.
Another goal was to design a collaborative B2B platform for channel partners that would provide industry-leading order-to-cash and fulfillment processes.
Birla Opus Paints set out to design a global solution template it could roll out speedily to different plants. The first plant warehouse had to go live in seven months—and all six warehouses needed to be operational in 18 months.
CIO, Birla Opus Paints
Building state-of-the-art operations from the ground up
Birla Opus Paints already had some key advantages in this endeavor, including decades of experience in the building materials sector through its sister company UltraTech Cement.
The company chose to leverage SAP solutions as another competitive tool, speedily using the RISE with SAP journey to implement SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and the SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) application. Embedded with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, SAP EWM enables a high level of automation in both manufacturing and warehouse operations, from automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) to robotic cranes.
To connect these systems and maximize visibility, Birla Opus Paints needed meticulous planning and execution as well as tight collaboration with seven third-party vendors. More than 20 integrations cover everything from cranes, conveyors, automated guided vehicles, and electric monorail systems to packing robots, barcode scanners, hand-held terminals (HHTs), pallet management software, a vendor portal, and truck-in, truck-out systems. Two key integrations involved the SAP Transportation Management application and a solution for tracking and tracing SKUs from plant to dealer.
After going live with SAP EWM in the first warehouse within the intended seven months, Birla Opus Paints used its global template to deploy the application in the second and third warehouses in just 2.5 months, with the remaining rollouts completed in two months. As a result, Birla Opus Paints was able to go to market barely 12 months after implementation had begun.
SAP partner Stellium Inc. helped Birla Opus Paints deploy SAP EWM across manufacturing units and integrate the application with material-flow systems and ASRSs so warehouse operations could launch smoothly and on time.
Birla Opus Paints also worked with Westernacher Consulting, which helped promote supply chain visibility, accurate stock levels, higher dispatch rates, and speedy warehouse operation using QR code scanning in depots.
Birla Opus Paints also decided to deploy the SAP Commerce Cloud solution to support its B2B platform.
CIO, Birla Opus Paints
Launching world-class manufacturing and warehousing facilities at speed
After only a year in operation, Birla Opus Paints had six automated, integrated, and global-scale manufacturing plants in action with a commercial potential amounting to 40% of the current sector capacity. Around 85% of the IT footprint comprises SAP solutions that connect smoothly with third-party software. All six manufacturing plants use fourth-generation manufacturing technology to manage supply chain processes at lightning speed with zero defects and comprehensive traceability.
With systems that remain stable under high loads and automatic control of inbound and outbound processes and goods movement, Birla Opus Paints can quickly ramp up production volumes in line with target volumes. It can handle a high throughput with minimal labor, slashing operations costs. And it can monitor inventory at plants, warehouses, and depots in real time, minimizing disruptions and maximizing use of automation equipment.
Employees, meanwhile, benefit from automated workflows and intuitive tools. User-friendly interfaces for HHTs give shop-floor workers efficient access to pallet information. Robust systems integration enables smooth data flows, and a paperless solution with little or no manual data entry minimizes discrepancies, rework, and delays. For example, simplified picking processes have reduced turnaround times and optimized picking quantities.
As for customers, SAP EWM enables faster fulfillment of orders through automated picking, packing, and dispatch of orders at warehouses. Customers have a larger palette of colors to choose from as the company can scale up to handle large numbers of SKUs and ordering complexities. And they receive higher service levels thanks to efficient load distribution, reduced dispatch times, and regular system maintenance.
Dealers are happy, too. A next-generation B2B commerce platform offers streamlined business operations, accurate information gathering with real-time process tracking, an integrated experience from loyalty schemes to ERP systems, and intuitive reporting.
Further integrating the IT landscape to take the market by storm
With its new plants running smoothly on fourth-generation technology, Birla Opus Paints can now focus on expanding the Birla Opus Paints brand. It can quickly scale up new plants as needed to accommodate this growth in a matter of months.
The next immediate focus involves further integrating SAP EWM with processes spanning planning, execution, product development, warehousing, quality, and transportation.
Wherever Birla Opus Paints’ story now takes it, the foundation provided by SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and SAP EWM will help ensure this fledgling paint business remains a force to be reckoned with.
Featured partners
Stellium helps reimagine supply chain and manufacturing operations by intelligently connecting people, goods, systems, and machines to make clients future ready. The company served as Birla Opus Paints’ systems integration partner for SAP EWM, collaborating closely to resolve issues and help ensure the project remained on track.
Consulting firm Westernacher implemented the world’s first project using SAP EWM before embarking on projects integrating the application with SAP HANA and mobile robots. The company combines excellence in implementation and customer service with world-class solutions from SAP. Westernacher served as Birla Opus Paints’ systems integration partner for SAP EWM implementation across 135 warehouses, working with eight depots as pilot sites.