Wefabricate: Laying a foundation for growth with a future-proof engine for sustainable innovation
Explore Wefabricate’s journey with SAP
As a fast-growing scale-up company with multiple independently operating business units, Wefabricate B.V. needs smooth operational processes, robust scalability, and deep insights. The manufacturing innovator built the ERP foundation it needed with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and the GROW with SAP for scaleups program.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Industrial manufacturing | Best, The Netherlands | ~170 employees | McCoy & Partners B.V. |
weeks to deploy cloud ERP.
insight into production costs.
Supply Chain and Operations Manager, Wefabricate B.V.
Building an ERP landscape fit for an ambitious scaleup
With its injection molding, machining, and assembly services, Wefabricate B.V. helps businesses bring their ideas to life. By eliminating repetitive tasks through automation, it can quickly and efficiently manufacture the highest-quality products, whether a customer needs a single part for a development phase or millions of parts on a global scale. To achieve this, the company houses its most promising innovations in “cells,” independent private companies that focus on a specific area.
Wefabricate has grown rapidly since its inception in 2019, and this growth was placing strain on its legacy ERP environment. Arno van der Heijden, the company’s supply chain and operations manager, explains, “Our core processes were managed in an open-source ERP solution, supplemented by third-party applications, that had no warehousing functionality. In addition, hosting our independently operating cells in that kind of landscape was impossible. We had to create a separate ERP environment for each cell, which was neither scalable nor manageable.”
Wefabricate decided a radical change was needed. It set out to replace its entire ERP environment with a modern, integrated, and future-proof platform that could support its growth.
Supply Chain and Operations Manager, Wefabricate B.V.
Nimbly adopting cloud ERP to build in scalability and integration
Wefabricate decided SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition would deliver the industry best practices and continuous innovation it needed to foster growth. The move to such advanced and feature-rich software may sound ambitious for a young company. However, Wefabricate understood that laying the right basis for the future at an early stage made more sense for its business than embarking on a more costly and complicated project later on. As van der Heijden explains, “We were looking for a solution that could meet our needs and growth ambitions for the coming decades.”
Another benefit of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition was its smooth integration with software such as the SAP Ariba Central Invoice Management solution and the SAP Extended Warehouse Management application.
Wefabricate worked with partner McCoy & Partners B.V. to help ensure a speedy and efficient implementation. It also took advantage of the GROW with SAP for scaleups program, which offers hypergrowth companies a cloud solution package for digital transformation at a fixed price per month.
Bolstered by this support and a drive to standardize core processes where possible, Wefabricate had a fully functioning cloud ERP environment in place in just 10 weeks.
Expanding in a flexible and sustainable landscape
Wefabricate’s new cloud ERP landscape has enhanced transparency, performance, and agility. As van der Heijden says, “Now, the ERP environment is running to our complete satisfaction. In particular, the improved financial integration is a big step forward for us. We can see how well a cell company is running and where adjustments are needed. We also have much better control of our logistics processes.”
For example, the company has greater insight into the total cost price of the AI-controlled heat pump produced by cell company WeHeat. “That heat pump consists of hundreds of parts, and we have to source or produce those. Calculating the production costs used to be very complicated. Now, with SAP solutions, we know exactly how much each part, and therefore the entire device, costs.”
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition also supports Wefabricate’s mission to develop sustainable solutions for today’s fast-paced world, as encapsulated in its motto “Lights out. Innovation on.” The company regards SAP not just as a technology partner but also as an important match in this respect. Van der Heijden explains, “Thanks to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, we have not only laid a solid foundation for growth and innovation. With SAP at our side, we have also found a partner with whom we can further expand and shape our sustainability ambitions together.”
Innovating and improving processes with cloud ERP
The project to reimagine Wefabricate’s ERP landscape is ongoing. The next step is to implement SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition in the company’s sites in China and in Budel, The Netherlands. Wefabricate also plans to more tightly integrate the warehouse management and ERP environments and to explore the full functionality of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to promote efficiency and innovation.
The company’s decision to implement the solution at the scaleup phase has been vindicated. As van der Heijden says, “Now, it’s all still relatively simple. It’s really an advantage that we started early.”
Featured partner
As well as migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, McCoy & Partners B.V. offers services from HR transformation, logistics, and finance to procurement and planning. It serves clients in sectors as diverse as consumer products, manufacturing, wholesale, and higher education.