SAP GTS – a CBS and MAN Energy Solutions success story

⇨ CBS Consulting's SAP GTS solution effectively addresses the export and customs challenges faced by global companies like MAN Energy Solutions, facilitating compliance with trade regulations.

⇨ The automated in-house production check introduced by MAN significantly enhances efficiency, allowing the processing of approximately 90% of daily production orders automatically, while reducing the risk of incorrect origin statements.

⇨ The implementation of a new documentation process not only saves time and manpower but also ensures legally compliant data, enabling MAN to maximize benefits from free trade agreements and avoid legal complications.

It’s not uncommon for larger SAP- enabled organizations to reach the global market and suddenly be buried in trade regulations. CBS Consulting has been delivering tailored software solutions for over 15 years through it’s in SAP GTS practice.  

One organization that fully utilized CBS Consulting’s SAP GTS solutions is MAN Energy Solutions SE, a leading global supplier of large diesel and gas engines, as well as turbomachinery. The 250-year-old company employs over 14,000 workers across 120 worldwide locations and needed to update its system-based origin management for both in-house production and external procurement.

MAN launched a complex GTS project to implement an automated in-house production check for order-based preference calculations. The primary goal of this new solution is to ensure legal certainty. Through this project, MAN aims to take advantage of free trade agreements and reduce customs costs.

The initial challenge was that MAN’s organizational setup requires proof of origin for every document created, which must be checked first. Since MAN deals with both in-house production and external procurement, the origin data for respective parts and their processing steps must be meticulously documented. Maintaining this source data is crucial for the company.

The challenge lay in the need for automatic determination of origin and preference calculations for each individual production order. With hundreds of production orders daily, minimal procedures were often overlooked. Additionally, the service business’s response time was too slow to address all daily issues due to deadline pressures and high workload. These factors increased the risk of incorrect statements regarding the origin of products. The GTS project has successfully addressed this risk, eliminating the possibility of incorrect origin statements.

In collaboration with CBS Corporate Business Solutions, MAN Energy Solutions launched a project to establish a complex set of rules. These newly created, combined rules are designed to enable automated analysis of the production process and its individual steps.

Approximately 90 percent of the production orders recorded daily can already be processed automatically by the system. “This is a huge milestone for us,” explains Michael Hirschvogel, Head of Origins & Preferences at MAN Energy Solutions.

The new documentation process and automated procedures save MAN considerable time and manpower. “Our employees are significantly relieved, as they no longer have to manually input many details of the various source data. They can now rely on the system,” Hirschvogel continues. This has resulted in a completely new and more transparent method of working and documenting for MAN, allowing the company to operate more efficiently in the future.

“The data we receive from the system is legally compliant. This allows us to provide our customers and authorities with the assurance that our data is correct, preventing any legal complications,” Hirschvogel explains.

The overarching goal of the solution is to maximize the benefits of free trade agreements, which help affiliated companies and customers save on customs costs. “However, to take full advantage of these free trade agreements, legally compliant data is essential,” Hirschvogel adds. “With each passing day and the associated new political changes to free trade agreements, our work becomes increasingly complex. This is especially evident during new crises,” he continues. This makes it all the more important to rely on accurate data, reducing the complexity involved.