October 28, 2009
What goes for a catalogue company or a mail-order pharmacy also goes for the production sites of the K+S KALI GmbH. The customer is entitled to receive his goods exactly as he ordered them. Particularly high standards apply to the product group of ultra pure salts (potassium chlorides and – sulphates, used for example as intermediate products for drug and food manufacturing), for which even minute deviations from the desired composition are intolerable. At the Wintershall location of Werra Works in Germany, the necessary specification management was shifted to a new, IT-assisted foundation at the end of last year. An SAP-process now accompanies the entire supply chain, from order entry to delivery, taking into consideration all legal as well as customer-specific quality requirements.
The initial question is to find out exactly which requirements a customer places on a product, how he expects it to perform, and how he needs it to be composed chemically. The specification of the desired product is entered into the SAP-system. The order entry is at the same time onset of the quality assurance process. The specific quality as determined by the customer is identified as in stock, or is planned for production. At the same time, the lab is ordered to monitor its quality. The appropriate test protocol is also entered in SAP. This is where chemical composition, the permissible limit values and measuring methods are defined, which will need to be considered i.e. applied in analytics. Only if the product fully complies with all of the customer’s requirements, it will be used for this order and is authorised for shipment. Outgoing goods will automatically generate an analysis certificate, certifying the ordered quality.
SAP-assisted test protocol, and a look into the ultra pure salt production plant at the location Wintershall (photo: K+S)
„This complex application is a milestone of quality assurance in a discerning market for highly sensitive products“, Thorsten Burghardt, Technical Advisory Service K+S KALI GmbH, enthuses. Together with colleagues from the sectors of IT, Distribution, Supply Chain Management as well as from the K+S-Research Institute and the Wintershall lab, he participated in the system’s development.
Andreas-Georg Walczyk, head of the unit Works Applications at the K+S IT-Services GmbH, is also more than satisfied with the functionality of the new SAP-process. „With a central IT-platform, we have consistently and transparently linked the demands on the products’ quality with the logistics processes. Additionally, we have been able to disband so-called isolated applications – such as for inventory management, quality testing and certification, thereby creating a foundation for further process integration.“
As a first step, the application has been set up for ultra pure products, as these are subject to the most exacting quality standards. However, the next steps towards comprehensive application of the SAP-system have already been determined: Next is the Zielitz works, with its brand-new food-grade potassium chloride production plant, scheduled to take up production before the end of this year. After that, the Hattorf site’s Epsom salt production is to follow. By the way, all Quality Management Systems of the K+S KALI GmbH are regularly subjected to inspections by the authorities, customers, TÜV, as well as to internal audits. The consistently excellent results of these audits confirm the already very high level of our quality assurance programmes.
