Envalior + Celonis

When two industry leaders joined forces in 2023, Envalior emerged as a new giant in the engineering materials space, with a workforce of around 4,000 and turnover of €4B.

Its immediate priorities included optimizing its large inventory to improve working capital, finding value opportunities in Finance and Procurement processes to strengthen P&L, and unifying the two merging companies and their ERPs.

With the help of the Celonis platform and what Envalior describes as a co-innovation partnership with Celonis, the business is on track to realize millions in savings.

Looking back over a year of process mining initiatives since the launch of Envalior, Supply Chain Integration Manager Daniel Monikes recalls the early spike in demand from across the newly formed entity. “In the beginning it was like kids in a candy store. We had lots of people asking for help in different fields, but we were missing the connection — the logical next steps.”

So Monikes, working closely with Rogier Den Dekker, Head of Supply Chain Management Europe at Envalior, set out to establish foundational improvements to high-priority use cases, and a method for assessing requests based on the business value they could deliver across three main areas:

• Working capital optimization
• Purchase to Pay improvements to strengthen P&L
• Harmonizing the two merging businesses and their ERPs

Starting with Inventory Management, Order Management and OTIF

Working capital optimization is a major priority for any company with a complex supply chain and large inventory — and Envalior is no exception. So Inventory Management was top of the list for optimization, with €26–32M in free cash flow potential identified across areas such as excess inventory, safety stock and lead times.

Monikes and his team laid the groundwork for process improvement using Celonis for core use cases like Inventory Management, Order Management and On Time In Full (OTIF). With the help of the Celonis Inventory Management Master Data Improvement app, Envalior was able to fine-tune inventory levels using hard data — not gut feel. “In the past, things like safety stock levels were defined to the best of somebody's knowledge. Now, we can define our optimum levels based on fact.”

Monikes knew that for process mining to unlock real value across the organization, he needed to think big-picture. “Before Celonis, we were missing the end-to-end visibility to say, okay I can decrease inventory by 5% but what’s the impact on other teams like customer service? What trade-offs do we need to make, if any?”

Use cases prioritized for value and action

One Celonis implementation that has created value across teams is the Open Order Processing app, which not only cuts inventory by reducing the number of orders issued late, but also makes customer service teams’ lives much easier. Following initial success in Europe, this app was expanded across Envalior to three global regions.

Monikes and his team have continued to build on these early successes — always with a view to creating the most value across connected processes. A rigorous, logical approach was therefore needed, to help the team assess, select, and prioritize opportunities for process mining support, based on real framed value.

The Celonis Transformation Hub has been critical for this, enabling Envalior to manage ongoing implementations and track the value created. A year into the journey, the list of processes keeps growing:

• Procurement, Inventory Management, Order Management, Accounts Payable & Accounts Receivable
• Master Data Management, Internal Control, Shipping Emissions, Tax codes & Plant Maintenance

The Envalior EMEA Supply Chain Management team also innovated their way to victory at the Process Earth sustainability hackathon at Celosphere 2023.

Transforming by democratizing value-creation

From small beginnings, the Envalior process mining capability has grown steadily thanks to the team’s value- and action-based approach. “We're making Celonis very operational,” said Monikes. “Not just analytical, but walking the extra mile to bring insights to the right people and making sure there’s action — plugging gaps and tackling root causes.”

With 200 users already making use of Celonis, adoption is set to accelerate as process mining spreads across the organization — not only among those leading and reporting on projects, but everybody who can add value. “In 12 months I think we’ve already accomplished more than many well-established process mining centers of excellence,” said Monikes.