Tackling the complexity of materials at Campari

Before 2021, Campari didn’t have a unified process to manage its materials in all 25 countries. Moreover, there was no single tool to help them keep track of all material information.

We built a workflow-based app called Master Material Data (MMD). It’s the core application for a business-critical process in Campari. MMD not only collects and centralizes global and local data on thousands of materials, but is also perfectly integrated in Campari’s SAP architecture. From standardizing the process, designing and developing the app to change management: Appfie played a crucial role in this business transformation.

The result? A dramatic increase in efficiency. Already in the early stages, the average material lead time has been reduced from 25 days to 17 days. But perhaps more importantly: all stakeholders are now aware of who is doing what. There is a clear and visible governance of the information for everyone involved. This makes the complex process of managing materials at Campari a lot smoother and more transparent.

The headache of material management

A world-renowned beverage, Campari has production sites in no less than 25 countries around the world. Each of those countries handles hundreds, if not thousands of different materials.

The material management consists of largely 4 processes:

• Purchase (e.g. glass)
• Create (e.g. the liquid)
• Transform (e.g. labelling bottles or creating gift boxes)
• Transfer (transporting materials)

All of these involve financial and logistical movements, says Laura Buseghin, Process Optimization and Automation Director at Campari in Milano.

“Material is something tangible which you need to manage”, she explains. “From banners and T-shirts to essential materials like herbs and liquid: we need to budget, stock, plan, forecast, understand where and when a specific material is needed, we need clear information about the stock and how much time it takes to purchase materials from an external company…”

Bet that Campari Spritz tastes even better now, doesn’t it?

Here’s the real headache: until recently, the process of handling the materials was different in every country. Campari didn’t have a stable process that was aligned across sites. And more importantly: there was no single tool for material management.

“This is a business-critical process”, Laura confirms. “If you’re not on top, you could end up stopping production because there’s not enough glass.”

The tool to end all tools: Master Material Data

In November 2021, Campari started a project to develop such a tool, and unify the materials process in every country.

“As you can imagine, it was a very complex project”, Laura continues. “We had to simultaneously standardize the process and develop the application. Since we didn’t have a stable process across all countries, it was an immense challenge to start developing the tool nonetheless. It meant the business requirements weren’t always clearly defined before the development phase. But we made it work.”

So what does the tool do exactly?

“It has a double objective”, says Alessandro Lana, Global IT Integration Architect at Campari. “On the one hand it’s a supporting tool for the materials process, creating basic information like supplier, quantity, price etc. We had to centralize all global and local data. On the other hand, it’s essential to gather that information in integration with our SAP environment, so we would have everything as a repository on SAP. And every country should be able to use the tool, whether they use SAP or not.”

Master Material Data is essentially a modern development workflow-based application with actions and activities that need to be fulfilled by a subset of people. As the materials move through the process, different people need to validate them or perform actions.

Integrating MMD in the existing architecture

The Power Platform solution is fully integrated in the global architecture of Campari. We created a set of APIs to let MMD communicate with the back-end, mainly SAP and a middle layer of other tools.

The integration is bidirectional: there are two integrations every time we need to extend material. Some connections are batched uploads for data coming from SAP, others are updated in real-time using APIs.

“MMD is the core tool for every material that is created within our systems”, Alessandro continues. “All but one of our processes are now directly managed by MMD. And we’re currently figuring out how to incorporate that last process as well and unify our whole operation within this one tool.”

The business transformation

“I can’t stress the importance of MMD enough”, Alessandro says. “We have a huge number of materials, and our entire production process cannot start without material management. It’s the starting point for everything that is at the core of our business.”

Campari also created a dedicated space for data integration and monitoring to prevent potential errors. It’s and end-to-end process that is held entirely within this application.

Some figures:

• The tool is up and running since December 2022.
• In the first three months of 2023, 1,400materials were created in MMD.
• There are at least 250 to 300ongoing materials each day.
• And at any time, there are about 300 internal and external users on the tool.