Pilkington selects Diagonal consultancy for SAP

Global flat glass manufacturer Pilkington has contracted Diagonal Consulting as its world-wide SAP ERP system implementation partner, following work with the company for several years. The agreement covers all SAP upgrades and development work at its manufacturing and processing plants in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, Spain, Finland, Poland, North and South America and Australasia. Diagonal, which has a significant international SAP practice, has been an integral part of implementing successful wall-to-wall SAP systems for Pilkington across Europe. It’s credited by Pilkington and by the industry for delivering an award-winning advanced planner and optimiser (APO) system – one of the few at the time – and a major cross-company business intelligence (BI) initiative. Ground-breaking may be too strong a phrase, but this has been big ticket stuff, with the Pilkington-Diagonal combination very much in the ‘early adopter’ mode. Says Stephen Pownall, Pilkington’s group director of information systems: “We are very pleased with the quality of service provided by Diagonal… Using Diagonal’s expertise as part of a combined team approach has and will continue to play a major role in ensuring we meet business needs swiftly and effectively, enabling us to harness the maximum benefits from SAP.” Diagonal managing director Chris Chittock adds: “We are currently embarking on one of the UK’s first CRM (customer relationship management) mobile sales implementations... Pilkington has given a clear vote of confidence in our continuing ability to … deliver and maintain quality business systems on-time and on-budget.”