SAP S/4HANA Chemicals Case Study: Formulas, Safety and Costs in One Platform

Recipes in spreadsheets, costs in the dark

Production recipes were kept in spreadsheets that varied by shift. Hazardous material handling and safety data were tracked on paper, and because batch cost was never captured properly, nobody could say which products actually made money.

• Recipes drifted because each shift kept its own version.
• Hazardous handling and safety data sheets were managed by hand.
• Batch cost was estimated, so true product margin was unclear.
• Yield losses and rework hid because they were never measured.

Process manufacturing with costing and safety built in

We set up SAP S/4HANA process manufacturing with master recipes, quality management and environment, health and safety, plus actual batch costing. Every run now follows one recipe and reports its real cost.

• Master recipes replace shift-by-shift spreadsheets.
• Actual costing captures the true cost of every batch.
• EHS handles hazardous data, labels and safety checks.
• Quality gates catch off-spec material before it moves on.

Rebuilt recipes with the plant chemists

We rebuilt the master recipes with the plant chemists so the system matched how each product is really made, then set up costing to capture material, labour and overhead per batch. Operators record steps and checks as they run.

Go-live took eighteen weeks, including recipe validation and a costing review.

Margins in the open and safety on record

Actual batch costing showed which products earned and which lost, so pricing and mix improved. Hazardous handling is on record for every batch, recipes no longer drift, and rework dropped once quality gates caught issues early.