Manufacturers today operate in an environment defined by complexity, global competition, and rising cost pressures. CIOs and COOs are tasked with modernizing operations while maintaining uptime, controlling costs, and meeting rising expectations for product quality and speed.
One of the biggest differentiators in manufacturing is visibility. Production data often lives in multiple systems across the plant, from machines and sensors to manufacturing execution systems (MES) and ERP platforms. When this information isn’t integrated, manufacturers struggle to identify bottlenecks, trace quality issues, or respond quickly to disruptions. The result is slower decision-making and missed opportunities for optimization.
Modern digital manufacturing platforms help solve these challenges by connecting machines, data, and enterprise systems into a unified environment. Cloud-based manufacturing execution systems such as SAP Digital Manufacturing enable manufacturers to monitor production in real time, automate workflows, and analyze performance across multiple sites.
With the right technology foundation and the right implementation partner, manufacturers can transform their operations, improve efficiency, and build more resilient production environments.
To understand how this transformation happens, here are three real-world examples of manufacturers that modernized their operations with digital manufacturing solutions.
King’s Hawaiian: Building an Autonomous Smart Factory
King’s Hawaiian is widely recognized for its signature sweet rolls and bakery products, which have become a staple on tables across the United States. As the company continued to expand its production capacity, leadership saw an opportunity to restructure operations by building a new manufacturing facility powered by smart factory technology. Working with Syntax experts, King’s Hawaiian deployed SAP Digital Manufacturing to support the launch of its state-of-the-art bakery facility. The goal was to create a highly automated production environment (smart factory) where machines, production lines, and business systems work together seamlessly. By integrating shop floor equipment with enterprise data in real time, the company could gain unprecedented visibility into production performance.Results from the King’s Hawaiian transformation
The outcome was significant. By connecting more than 400 machine data points across the production environment, King’s Hawaiian gained real-time insights into performance and quality metrics. Production teams can now monitor operations from a centralized control center, improving visibility and enabling faster responses to production changes. Key outcomes included:- Consistent product quality supported by advanced analytics and reduced manual intervention
- Seamless integration between shop‑floor machines and ERP systems
- Optimized production processes and improved productivity through real-time data insights
By designing the plant around connected technologies, King’s Hawaiian created a production environment that is not only efficient today but also ready to scale and innovate in the future.
Making Irresistible Bread with Data in a Sustainable, Automated Plant
Landis+Gyr: Creating a Global Manufacturing Single Source of Truth
Landis+Gyr, a global leader in energy management and smart metering solutions, faced a different type of challenge. Through acquisitions and global expansion, the company accumulated a wide range of manufacturing execution systems across its production sites. At one point, Landis+Gyr operated 18 different manufacturing execution system platforms across nine manufacturing facilities. In some cases, multiple manufacturing execution systems were even running within a single plant. This fragmentation created a complex IT landscape where production data was inconsistent and difficult to analyze. Quality investigations were especially challenging. If issues occurred in a production process, teams often struggled to locate the relevant data needed to determine where and when the problem originated. To address these challenges, Landis+Gyr partnered with Syntax to deploy SAP Digital Manufacturing as a standardized manufacturing execution system platform across its operations. The goal was to establish a global production database—a single source of truth for manufacturing data.Results from Landis+Gyr’s Transformation
The platform delivered several key benefits:- Real-time visibility across production lines and materials
- Centralized control of manufacturing processes through cloud-based manufacturing execution systems
- Elimination of manual data transfers and siloed reporting
By consolidating its manufacturing execution systems landscape and establishing a unified data foundation, Landis+Gyr created a platform for continuous improvement. With real-time visibility and centralized data management, the company can identify inefficiencies, reduce costs, and scale its operations more effectively.
Gerresheimer: Integrating Data to Eliminate Operator Inefficiencies
Gerresheimer, a global leader in pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery solutions, operates more than 40 production plants worldwide and employs nearly 14,000 people. As its existing manufacturing execution system platform approached end of life, the company needed a modern solution that could integrate seamlessly with its existing SAP environment. Gerresheimer implemented SAP Digital Manufacturing integrated with its SAP ECC system using SAP Business Technology Platform. The goal was to connect production processes, quality management, and plant maintenance into a unified digital workflow. The scale of the challenge was significant. The company managed more than 250,000 MES-relevant data points, many of which overlapped across different business areas.Results from the Gerresheimer transformation
Key outcomes included:- Seamless integration between SAP systems and shopfloor operations
- Improved workflows across production, quality, and maintenance
- Integration with Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Teams to enable faster collaboration and decision-making
By integrating systems and automating analysis, Gerresheimer significantly reduced operational friction.
