Calculation of the Product Carbon Footprint
Projektdauer: 12 months
Unser Kunde:
Our long-standing customer is one of the leading suppliers of lubricants. The company is headquartered in Germany and is represented in all major markets worldwide. The company supplies the trade and all branches of the manufacturing industry. With an extensive range of over 3,000 products, our customer offers a wide range of solutions in the lubricants sector.
Ausgangssituation und Projektziel:
The project objective was to calculate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for our client's manufactured products. The focus here was on determining the product carbon footprint (PCF). To do this, it was first necessary to identify and record the relevant GHG properties of the raw materials. Then, the PCF of a product could be calculated using the product BOMs. Due to different conditions to be considered with respect to raw materials, products and plants, a complex process results:
First, it must be noted that identical raw materials are sourced from different suppliers for different locations and thus may have different GHG characteristics. Furthermore, GHG emissions generated during transportation must be included in the calculation.
Secondly, depending on the individual resource use during the production process, each site causes different levels of GHG emissions, which also need to be calculated. Finally, the site-specific PCFs must be aggregated for national companies and regions to enable an overarching analysis.
Thirdly, the implementation of a robust process requires that short-term changes in PCF raw material data are also taken into account, their effects simulated and recalculations triggered if necessary.
Solution
HPC has designed and developed an application based on SAP Business Workflow that maps the following processes:
Process "Product-oriented calculation of the Product Carbon Footprint":
- Start dialog with selection of the product group to be calculated and BOM resolution for the raw materials used for this purpose
- Generation of supplier-related Excel files for the raw materials used to record the GHG properties
- Notification of the purchasing managers with the request to request the required raw material data from the suppliers using the attached Excel files
- Forwarding of the raw material data provided by the suppliers by the purchasing managers to the master data team
- Entry of the raw material data by the master data team in the PCF application, if necessary by using down- and upload functions and release of the entered data
- Completion and release of the raw material data by the employees responsible for the respective raw materials in the "Research and Development" department
- Calculation of the plant-specific PCF values for the product group in question and aggregation to companies and regions
- Presentation of the calculated PCF values in the application monitor
Process "Raw material oriented calculation of the Product Carbon Footprint":
- Start dialog with selection of raw materials to be recorded or changed and, if necessary, upload of pre-recorded raw material data
- When raw material data is changed, the original data is saved in a history table
- Entry of the raw material data by the master data team in the PCF application, if not already done by upload, and release of the entered or preentered data
- Completion and release of the raw material data by the employees of the "Research & Development" department responsible for the respective raw materials
- Determination of the product groups affected by the changed raw material data
- Determination of whether the PCF values of further product groups can be calculated with newly entered raw material data
- Presentation of the product groups affected by the changes and/or new entries in the application monitor with the option to start initial, new calculations or simulations of the PCF values of the product groups
What has HPC achieved?
HPC worked towards a project flow with the following steps:
- Workshop phase to create a process design based on the concepts and requirements developed by the client
- Prototype phase to develop a workflow-based process to collect and calculate the required PCF values
- Optimization phase to present the prototype to the client (product management) and further develop the prototype based on the feedback to a version suitable for productive operation
- Support during the production phase
- Support and, if necessary, optimization during operation
Customer benefits:
- The process set up supports both PCF calculation for selected product groups and mass collection of raw material data with application-driven detection of products whose PCF values can be calculated based on the raw material data collected
- Thanks to the workflow-based approach, all process steps follow on seamlessly from one another. Program steps are started immediately and dialog steps with user participation are directly addressed to the responsible processors
- Target group-oriented application interface with application cockpit and monitor
- The application cockpit is used to start the processes for product-oriented or raw material-oriented PCF calculation, to determine candidates for recalculation and to process worklists
- The application monitor displays the results of the PCF calculations and the underlying output data and provides an overview of all running and completed processes
- The application includes change tracking, so that the development of raw material data and the resulting PCF values for products can be traced without gaps
- By means of extensive application master data, the PCF application can be adapted to current conditions at any time
Challenge:
With the introduction of IT solutions for CO2 calculation, companies are usually breaking new ground. This means that not only a new IT application is implemented, but also the organization and responsibilities have to be adapted. In the project described, a role concept with new responsibilities was also designed and adapted several times.
