Salzgitter: Decarbonizing steelmaking processes with innovative sustainability technology
Explore Salzgitter’s journey with SAP
With ambitious plans to reduce CO2 emissions, Salzgitter AG is leading the way in the production of “green” steel. To support its reinvention of steelmaking, it implemented SAP S/4HANA, standardizing and streamlining processes and providing a solid foundation for the use of the SAP Sustainability Footprint Management solution and the SAP S/4HANA solution for EHS environment management.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Mill products – metals | Salzgitter, Germany | 25,000 employees |
year target to achieve decarbonized operations.
subsidiaries sharing a single digital foundation for centralized business functions.
processes across multiple business units and subsidiaries.
Managing Director, Salzgitter Digital Solutions GmbH
Pioneering the use of technology to support planet-friendly operations
As one of Europe’s largest steel manufacturers, Salzgitter AG exports a range of rolled steel and tubing products to customers around the globe. Founded more than 150 years ago, the company has a proud tradition of shaping the future of steel production through innovation.
This is still very much evident in Salzgitter’s ambition to pioneer the adoption of more-sustainable operations in the steelmaking sector. Currently responsible for around 1% of Germany’s total CO2 emissions, Salzgitter has set itself the target of reducing this amount by 95% by 2033 by using hydrogen in the manufacturing process. In addition, the company aims to increase the circularity of its operations by promoting the recycling and reuse of its products and by-products.
Salzgitter realized that having the right technology in place would be crucial to meeting its sustainability goals. To measure success against carbon-reduction goals, it would need to collect and consolidate emissions data and achieve transparency on its carbon footprint throughout the entire company.
However, with multiple SAP ERP applications run by different business units and subsidiaries, getting a consolidated view would be a challenge. Salzgitter needed a next-generation digital foundation that would enable it to standardize and harmonize groupwide processes as well as support innovative technologies for sustainability management.
CFO, Salzgitter AG
Forging a strong partnership for change
As it embarked on its transformation strategy, Salzgitter looked for a robust ERP solution that could help simplify and harmonize a complex IT landscape. The company also sought a technology partner that would work closely with its own teams to deliver the groundbreaking solutions required to realize meaningful change in the steelmaking industry. After a thorough evaluation, the company felt that SAP was the perfect partner to support it on its journey toward more-sustainable operations.
The initial phase of the project saw the migration of multiple stand-alone ERP systems run by more than 150 subsidiaries to five different instances of SAP S/4HANA. Salzgitter deployed an instance of the solution for each of its flat production, steel processing, trading, and technology business areas as well as one centralized instance to support shared functions across all business units. The project team deployed process templates within SAP S/4HANA to support standardization across its operations, replacing manual activities with automated workflows. In addition, a deployment of the SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud solutions is supporting a shared service–based approach to customer service management.
With SAP S/4HANA in place, Salzgitter is building on the digital foundation it provides to deploy SAP Sustainability solutions. The manufacturer has already commenced a proof-of-concept exercise to integrate SAP S/4HANA with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and SAP S/4HANA for EHS environment management. Meanwhile, the project team at Salzgitter has been supported by product development experts from SAP in developing its use of the solutions for global sustainability reporting.
CEO, Salzgitter AG
Optimizing processes to enable more-sustainable business performance
Thanks to SAP S/4HANA, Salzgitter has been able to optimize and streamline business processes across the group. The company has replaced inefficient and error-prone manual workflows with automated and digitalized operations, while the unified digital foundation provided by SAP S/4HANA supports transparent, comprehensive processes.
Using one centralized solution to support shared functions in areas such as procurement and finance has virtually eliminated duplication of effort caused by previously using numerous different systems, saving time and resources. In the same way, the unification of sales and service management processes supported by SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud has delivered synergies to reduce sales, service, and support costs.
With the ability to gather and manage environmental and safety information from across the group using SAP S/4HANA, Salzgitter can now gain valuable insights with SAP Sustainability solutions. Over time, these solutions will improve transparency in areas such as measuring and reporting on the carbon footprint of specific products. They will also enable the company to take proactive steps to promote more-sustainable business performance by establishing a robust framework for environmental, social, and governance management.
CEO, Salzgitter AG
Continuing on the journey toward achieving a sustainable world
Salzgitter believes that SAP S/4HANA and SAP Sustainability solutions have a strong role to play in the company’s overall sustainability journey. Following the ongoing proof-of-concept project for SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and SAP S/4HANA for EHS environment management, the steelmaker plans on rolling out the deployment of these solutions more widely across the group. In addition, it is looking at implementing the SAP Sustainability Control Tower solution to provide analytical tools to help measure and evaluate sustainability impacts.
As Salzgitter’s transformation program rolls out, the SAP solutions it is implementing will do more than just result in more-sustainable operations at Salzgitter. Targeted improvements such as the reduction in carbon footprints will also impact the environmental performance of downstream businesses that use products manufactured by Salzgitter. This will result in greener value chains and, ultimately, help create a safer, more-sustainable world.