WIKA recalibrates global business operations with Dynamics 365

The WIKA Group is a global leader in sensing technology and pressure and temperature measurement that used 50 different instances of heavily customized on-premises Dynamics to manage country-specific requirements for ERP processes. The move to a single, cloud-based platform with Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, and Sales saves time and smooths operations for this global standard setter.

The WIKA Group is a global market leader in pressure and temperature measurement. The company also sets the standard in the measurement of level, force and flow, and calibration technology. The broad portfolio of high-precision instruments, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions, and comprehensive services makes WIKA a strong and reliable partner for all the requirements of industrial measurement technology. The family-run business, founded in 1946, has a global presence with 11,200 employees. This includes its own subsidiaries, production sites and development departments, such as the Innovation Center in Klingenberg. There alone, over 100 engineers work on innovative sensing solutions that provide answers to global challenges. WIKA's expertise and innovation are what make it the leader in sensing technology, ensuring smarter, more sustainable solutions for the future with its visionary plan: “Smart in sensing”.

Thinking globally, delivering locally

WIKA's essential industrial measurement technology measures pressure, temperature, level, force, flow and calibration across all sectors that fulfil important tasks, from notifying Canadian farmers to low silo levels to monitoring cold chains in the food industry. These advanced measurement solutions enable companies worldwide to ensure the quality and safety of their products and support sustainable practices by reducing waste and improving energy efficiency. WIKA customers around the world demand accuracy and adherence to international standards. With modern manufacturing facilities, subsidiaries, and service collaborations on every continent except Antarctica, WIKA delivers locally while thinking globally.

But as the company grew, it found that its hyper-local approach to enterprise resource planning (ERP) was holding it back. Since 2007, WIKA had relied on 50 separate instances of Microsoft Dynamics on-premises to manage procurement, manufacturing, inventory, dispatching, billing, reconciliations, and reporting. Each instance was heavily customized to meet local requirements. Because new functionalities had to be targeted to the specific needs of each location and the subsidiaries they supported, updating all 50 instances took three months to complete. WIKA even had a full-time developer dedicated to rolling out these changes.

In 2019, WIKA leadership decided to move to a single cloud-based platform. The company selected Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management and Sales.

Making a leap of faith into the future

As a global company with multiple operating entities in every time zone, WIKA faces unique technological challenges. When it came to deciding on a modern ERP solution, the right balance for WIKA was seven regional instances—but unlike the 50 disparate on-premises legacy solutions, all seven instances would run the same version of Dynamics 365.

Intuitively, IT leadership knew this was the correct approach, but according to Thomas Hartnack, Corporate IT Consulting - Lead for WIKA, it felt like a “leap of faith.” However, as Hartnack explains, WIKA was “done struggling with substitutes” and region-specific processes. The company seized the opportunity the transition presented to future-proof its ERP by unifying its legal entities, from the largest factory to the smallest subsidiary, on the same code base. WIKA chose to roll out the new solution incrementally using a master template based on core Dynamics 365 features. Despite seven instances with customizations to meet specific regional and industry-specific requirements, the code, processes, and data are the same, creating a unified environment.

In 2024 Dynamics 365 went live at WIKA headquarters in Klingenberg, Germany, with 1,500 users. Since then, 20 operating entities in China, Dubai, France, India, Italy, South Africa, Switzerland, the US, and the UK have also implemented the new solution, with another ten going live throughout the remainder of 2024.With new rollouts every month, the company is marching steadily toward achieving its goal of moving all 50 instances to one Dynamics 365 by mid-2026.

Setting the standard for sustainable efficiency

Standardization lifted a huge burden off WIKA’s IT teams. In the past, each location’s IT team performed machine maintenance and software updates, with consultants brought on to help with sprints. It took three months to roll out updates to each of the heavily customized, geographically dispersed, on-premises legacy systems. With frequent application updates and improvements for local customizations needed every four months, the cycle was unending. "Now we roll out the new functionalities every second week and everything is much, much easier from the IT perspective," says Hartnack. With new functionality in smaller, universal rollouts WIKA is freeing two full-time developers to engage in more value-added work.

The efficiencies didn’t end there. New features require testing, and before the move to the cloud, WIKA tested updates with users in 48 different environments. With Dynamics 365 standardization, subsidiaries no longer need to be part of testing. The company is saving hundreds of hours of work—the equivalent of five full-time employees.

Just halfway through its planned global implementation, WIKA has already experienced a 30% decrease in customizations and replaced two third-party solutions with standard Dynamics 365 capabilities. “In the past when we had a business need, we had to develop them on our own,” says Frank Büttner, Corporate CIO, WIKA Group. “Now the bucket of standard Microsoft functionalities available is getting bigger and bigger.”

Relieving pressure with modern capabilities

WIKA operates at scale with four million item numbers, thousands of sales orders daily and more than 25,000 production orders per week. Dynamics 365 has the flexibility and scalability to manage this volume seamlessly. “Dynamics 365 provides the reliability and scalability we need for growth." Büttner says, “The flexibility to add locations seamlessly and robust data security give us confidence in our daily processes.”

Core capabilities

The user-friendly Dynamics 365 template gives WIKA the flexibility to add locations as needed without slowing the course of business. With comprehensive documentation, robust processes, and streamlined testing methods, teams have consistently resumed core processes on day one.

Cutting-edge data security

These days, cybersecurity is at the top of everyone’s priority list. With Microsoft Dynamics 365, WIKA leadership is confident that the company’s data is protected in the most secure manner possible—and thanks to the cloud-based platform and Microsoft’s commitment to continuous improvement, WIKA will benefit from new security features as they’re rolled out.

Optimizing operations

In parallel with the Dynamics 365 ERP project, WIKA is rolling out a new Dynamics 365 Sales solution across the enterprise. Sellers manage customer interactions and opportunities using the opportunity management and lead campaign management capabilities of Dynamics 365 Sales. Quotes are created in Supply Chain Management where they can be converted into sales orders. These sales orders frequently represent intercompany transactions, recorded in one entity and then transferred as purchase orders to a different production site. An easily customized process built on Dynamics 365 allows for products to be shipped directly to the customer and invoiced from the production entity, rather than going through the old multi-step process of shipping products back to a subsidiary to be sent on to the customer.

Global reach, local touch

With built-in localization features, Dynamics 365 is truly a global ERP solution. In the past, WIKA had to customize a lot of its local compliance and regulatory solutions in China, Poland, Brazil, India, Turkey, and more. Finding and validating country-specific parameters and developing workarounds to accommodate them caused delays, as did building local solutions that risked not meeting all requirements. Today, WIKA only develops 15-20% of solutions meeting local legal requirements. The rest are provided by Microsoft.

Easier asset management

WIKA’s machines are the heartbeat of its business. It has 30,000 assets between the Poland and Klingenberg factories alone. Previously, enterprise asset management was one of many functionalities WIKA had to develop on its own. With Asset Management Add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, machine history is easily visible to WIKA technicians performing preventive maintenance and service activities. They appreciate that they no longer have to track maintenance plans manually—the enterprise asset management module establishes regular service, calibration, and inspection plans. Higher-quality maintenance means machines run better, longer, factories experience fewer production delays, and the company saves the costs of repairs due to preventable damage.

Exacting quality control

WIKA is in the business of precision, so it’s no surprise that its supply chain quality control would have the most exacting standards. Dynamics 365 quality management now supports skip-lot sampling in accordance with International Organization for Standardization recommendations.

Gauging success, now and in the future

WIKA is a family-run business with its gaze fixed firmly on the future. The innovative company continues to revolutionize its operations. Upcoming out-of-the-box subscription billing functionality will support new revenue from services like IIoT sensor subscriptions, allowing WIKA to provide more services to its customers with Dynamics 365. And the gains in efficiency and productivity don’t stop there. WIKA is also testing Microsoft Copilot to save time by summarizing meetings, taking notes, and composing emails.

With Microsoft, WIKA looks forward to continuing setting the highest standards in measurement and calibration technology, well into the future.