Mid-Market Industrial Manufacturer (representative) · Manufacturing · United States · 9 weeks

Duplicate master data cut and S/4HANA migration unblocked in 9 weeks

A representative engagement. The trial conversion had failed because the master data would not load cleanly. We profiled, deduplicated, and reconciled the data, and the migration came off the critical path.

Challenge

A roughly 2,200-person manufacturer on SAP ECC for sixteen years had a trial conversion fail. The same vendor existed five times, materials sat under several part numbers across plants, and units of measure did not conform. The system integrator treated cleansing as a small line item, and it slipped. Finance could not reconcile and the go-live date was at risk.

Approach

We deployed a Data Rescue Pod alongside the integrator. We profiled the full master data estate, agreed matching and survivorship rules with the data owners, deduplicated customers, vendors, and materials with audit trails, and retired obsolete and dark data. Every cleansing decision became a documented transformation rule, so the migration was repeatable. We ran representative mock loads and reconciled against source by object and by value.

Outcome

The trial conversion that had failed now passed. The data workstream came off the critical path, the integrator held its go-live date, and finance reconciled on the first close after cutover.

The platform was never the problem

The S/4HANA software worked. What failed was sixteen years of master data nobody had governed. We measured the real condition of it first, with evidence, so the remediation plan was grounded in facts rather than assumptions.

Clean once, migrate once

We deduplicated and cleansed against rules the business owners approved, then turned those decisions into the transformation rules the migration reused. No disconnect between cleanup and the move, and a full audit trail behind every change.

Proof the data landed correct

We reconciled every load against source by object and by value, so finance could prove completeness and correctness on the first close. That is what let leadership commit to the date with confidence.

Results

9 wks From kickoff to a clean, reconciled load
41k to 12k Duplicate vendor and material records resolved
$640K Annual reconciliation and rework labor avoided
On time Go-live held with zero data-related slippage

The platform work was never our problem. Our data was, and it was the one thing nobody had measured. Thinklytics found the real condition of it, fixed it, and gave us a number we could take to the board.
VP of IT, Industrial manufacturer (representative)