IES966

October 2023

Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

Joan Jané

Competing through a digitally enhanced supply chain

In his Amsterdam office, Dirk Holbach, corporate senior vice president of supply chain at Henkel
Laundry and Home Care, was giving all his attention to Wolfgang Weber, the global head of
digital supply chain transformation.
Holbach, the mastermind behind Henkel’s digital initiatives for the Laundry and Home Care
division, always took Weber’s opinion very seriously when rethinking the division’s priorities
regarding digitalization. This time, Weber was presenting some of his team’s key insights on the
potential use of 5G (fifth generation), blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled supply
and demand planning.
Dirk, since we started our industrial digitalization, we’ve rapidly increased the number of
devices connected in our facilities, with an exponential growth of data transmitted in real
time. We’ll soon have a scalability challenge to guarantee the capacity, speed, and security
of our communications.
That’s where 5G comes into play. It will provide ultra-reliable, low-latency communication
and allow massive machine-based communication as well as Internet of Things connectivity.
Furthermore, the possibility of network slicing will enable the creation of virtual independent
proprietary networks in our premises, all of them catering to a specific need and securing the
privacy of each of them.
Holbach, connecting the dots, mused, “So, you’re saying 5G could be the connective tissue
bridging all our tech components?” “Yes,” Weber affirmed. “Our facilities operate with a mix of
wired and wireless technology, but 5G would become the standard for communication from the
smallest sensor in the field to our cloud operations.”

This case was prepared by Professor Joan Jané. This case is a condensed version of the case “Henkel: A Digital Transformation
Journey”, P-1186-E, from Joan Jané and Rafael Ruiz, MBA 2020. October 2023.
IESE cases are designed to promote class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective management of a given
situation.

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Last edited: 2/10/23

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 OIT-25-E Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

Weber, sensing Holbach’s interest, took a deeper dive:

Beyond our production facilities, our supply chain, complex as it is, could also benefit from
blockchain technology. Now, we depend on a myriad of systems to control our suppliers,
factories, and warehouses. With blockchain, we could create a common and open
information ledger, have end-to-end visibility of all our sites and partners’ data, and control
the transactions in a robust and reliable way. Imagine streamlining every link in our chain,
from real time tracking of purchasing and goods in transit to quality audits and the
automation of “smart contracts.”
Curious, Holbach inquired, “Smart contracts?” Weber elaborated:
Yes, automated, transparent contracts embedded as “software” that will self-execute based
on some clear rules and actions. We could automate a lot of our commercial transactions and
monitor the change of ownership of our goods in transit. This is blockchain beauty; its
transparent and decentralized nature perfectly aligns with our Industry 4.0 spirit.
Holbach recognized the opportunity but also the challenge.
I see the advantages, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to get all our suppliers and partners joining
in. We have a lot of problems making sure they provide accurate data and visibility now.
Maybe you’re right, and blockchain—with its decentralized approach—will provide greater
trust and reliability.
Weber, never one to lose sight of the core, said,
But Dirk, beneath all these advancements remains our core—supply and demand planning.
We’ve been enhancing our forecasting and planning capabilities, introducing some advanced
analytics tools in Oracle and SAP. Some of these were off-the-shelf third party tools and some
were developed ad hoc internally. But with AI, the game is changing. New players in the
market are offering fully integrated AI-based solutions, and they are promising more than
better demand forecasting and capacity planning. We can now optimize sales and margins,
taking into account seasonality, promotions, media spending, different channels, etc. We can
also prescribe prices and product assortments, taking into account different channels,
customers, and product introductions.
“So, what you’re painting is a future where our digital supply chain isn’t just a function. It’s a
revolution,” Holbach acknowledged. Weber, with a determined nod, concluded, “Exactly, Dirk.
We’re on the cusp of a new era.”

Henkel and purposeful growth

In the bustling city of Aachen in 1876, Fritz Henkel and two visionaries did something
unprecedented. They launched Henkel & Cie and introduced a universal detergent, not as loose
powder but in a game-changing packet form (see Exhibit 1). From then on, a relentless ambition
steered Henkel’s growth into a global behemoth with three business units: Laundry and Home
Care, Adhesive Technologies, and Beauty Care (see Exhibit 2).

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 Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged) OIT-25-E

By the time Holbach and Weber spoke, Carsten Knobel, chief executive officer (CEO) of Henkel
since 2020, had envisioned a future in which Henkel would lead the 2020s not only in profits but
also with purpose. This vision hinged on three key objectives:
• outgrow the markets through superior customer and consumer value
• differentiate through a positive impact on society and the planet as leaders in sustainability
• enable people to grow with a sense of belonging
To deliver on their aspiration of sustainable growth, the new strategy proposed six focus areas:
a winning portfolio, innovation, digitalization, sustainability, future-ready operations, and a
collaborative, empowered culture (see Exhibit 3). Among these pillars, the digital supply chain
and a future-ready operating model were crucial to improve gross margins and strengthen
Henkel’s brand position in mature and emerging markets.
For Dirk Holbach, the renewed emphasis on digitalization was only a natural continuation of the
efforts made over the past years in the Laundry and Home Care unit. They had developed the so-
called Henkel Data Foundation (see Exhibit 4), a cutting-edge, fifth-generation cloud platform that
allowed them to store and manage millions of data assets from the entire Henkel value chain,
including data coming from enterprise resource planning (ERPs), business intelligence tools,
internet of things (IoT) devices, consumer-facing apps, and other external data. This connected
and data-rich infrastructure was at the core of the division’s numerous initiatives to digitalize
operations and the supply chain. Among the more relevant ones were a global system for factory-
level energy consumption and sustainability control and a platform to globally analyze overall
equipment effectiveness (OEE) to boost filling-line productivity. But also other initiatives as fully
automated warehouses, real-time dispatching and shipment tracking, and diverse tools to sense
real-time demand.
Both Holbach and Weber were proud of all this progress. “Digital transformation isn’t a
buzzword here; it’s our DNA,” commented Holbach. But now, in light of the renewed 2020 vision
and with the rapid advance of technologies such as 5G, AI, and blockchain, it was clear that they
had to go beyond to achieve the desired vision of having a true digitalized supply chain. The
question was what to prioritize first.

The digital transformation program

While Weber shared his ideas for the future, Holbach mentally reviewed the history of the entire
Henkel digital transformation journey since its inception as well as the lessons learned over the
years. Overall, it was a success story, but there had been roadblocks and surprises along the way.
Only very recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF) had recognized Henkel as a frontrunner of
the fourth industrial revolution. In January 2020, Henkel became a member of the WEF’s Global
Lighthouse Network 1 with other leading advanced manufacturers, ranked first out of 14 end-to-
end lighthouses globally and first of two end-to-end lighthouses in the fast-moving consumer
goods (FMCG) industry at the global level. This was thanks to the systematic approach taken in

1 World Economic Forum. “Industry Leaders Are Driving the Adoption of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies,” last

modified January 19, 2023. https://www.weforum.org/our-impact/advanced-manufacturing-factories-light-the-way-as-

learning-beacons.

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 OIT-25-E Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

recent years, a state-of-the-art Laundry and Home Care digital factory in Düsseldorf, Germany, and
the efforts of many colleagues who drove the digital transformation over almost a decade.

Building the digital foundation

In 2011, Henkel’s Laundry Supply Chain division initiated the ISO 50.001 “Energy Management”
certification, covering all 28 global sites by 2012. Motivated by Henkel’s sustainability goals, the
leadership envisioned real-time energy consumption benchmarking. Dirk Holbach, senior vice
president (VP) of supply chain, commented, “We chose to monitor energy and water consumption
in real time, believing we could only improve what we measured.”
The monitoring was enabled with an open system, granting both management and plant workers
access to energy data. This facilitated insights into energy patterns and encouraged actionable
changes. It relied on the advent of the a global platform that connects the division’s
factories and warehouses in real time. Wonderware, a mid-sized provider that later became part of
Schneider Electric, was the chosen IT contractor due to its ability to provide local support and offer
a customized deployment. The global engineering team led the digital project, while the lean
manufacturing team devised “best operating practice” checklists to optimize energy and waste
consumption (see Exhibit 5). The project took two years instead of the projected one, but the system
delivered tangible financial and sustainability benefits. The team realized they had created an
important digital asset, the digital backbone, which gave Henkel the ability to test technology at its
early stages, assess the results, and rapidly determine technology adoption and integration.
By 2013, the engineering team was focused on digitalizing quality control for products and
processes. After some years of experimenting with high-speed automated image-processing
devices, the team envisioned that the technology could check every bottle label in real time; with
adequate real-time supervision, the lines could be adjusted in case of deviations, and a 100%
perfect labeling could be achieved for the 2 billion detergent bottles produced annually. After
successful pilot validation, the technology was rolled out globally and integrated into the digital
backbone. Wolfgang Weber elaborated, “Within 12–18 months, we expanded to over 70 devices,
aiming for aesthetic perfection in all products.” By 2016, over 2,000 devices were connected.
Controlling the quality of the bottles’ contents was a natural next candidate for digitalization.
Pilots were run using specific AquaSpec analyzers. In this case, however, the project failed to
deliver the expected return on investment (ROI) during pilot runs, so it was repurposed for raw
material quality checks. The international engineering team’s efforts then moved on to
improving OEE as a way to enhance productivity in the filling lines (see Exhibit 6), focusing on a
promising online efficiency system that was also provided by Wonderware. After some back and
forth during a year and a half in the Lomazzo plant in Italy in 2015 and 2016, the solution was
scaled up globally, culminating in over 250 lines and more than 3,500 meters on fully connected
production lines by 2020 (see Exhibit 7).

Digitalizing the supply chain

In 2016, Henkel outlined a new digital supply chain strategy, identifying five pivotal technology
arenas for their FMCG business: sensorics, robotics, analytics, visualization, and end-to-end
integration. To support the strategy’s rollout, a Digital Transformation group was established.
This group reported directly to the CSVP supply chain with regional hubs in Europe (Spain, the
Netherlands), Singapore, Dubai, and the US (Stamford). In 2017, the company also rolled out a
global network of on-site experts who served as single points of contact (SPOCs). The SPOCs

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 Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged) OIT-25-E

played a combined role in the factories, eagerly advancing the company’s digital transformation
and coordinating digital projects. New monthly meetings called “digital SPOCs” were initiated in
which the Digital Transformation team and factories jointly reviewed digital initiatives. By 2020,
the network of SPOCs had grown to over 50.
With the new structure gradually being established, projects continued to be tested and rolled
out. Following the global online OEE systems in 2016, the Digital Transformation group
subsequently introduced formula fingerprinting, using machine learning, and, in 2018, real enzyme
measurement. A standardized machine-to-machine language suite (Pack ML) was also introduced
to fully connect filling lines globally and enable the future introduction of “self-optimization”
routines in those lines. In 2018, the Holthausen facility embarked on a 3D printing pilot for spare
parts in collaboration with the in-house Heidelberg competence center. Considerable savings
(around €200,000) were achieved by 3D printing a set of 20 expensive spare parts locally. Stefan
Kozielski, Plant Director Holthausen, emphasized communication and training, asserting their role
in the success of the plant.
Digitalization was also extended to logistics operations. By 2017, the company had conducted
its first trials of drones and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). While the utility of drones proved
doubtful, AGVs demonstrated effectiveness and were adopted in several facilities. Intense
worker training and adaptation to the new automated procedures was necessary. Furthermore,
it was expected that the effectiveness of AGVs would boom with the use of 5G technology.
In 2018, Henkel also decide to digitalize the entire track-and-trace process of inbound and
outbound deliveries using the external provider FourKites (see Exhibit 8). 2 FourKites provided
real-time tracking and used predictive estimated time of arrival (ETA) to identify trucks’
locations. Possible delays were estimated on the basis of factors such as traffic and weather
conditions, and customers could be contacted by Henkel’s operations teams to mitigate
rejections and returns. FourKites would integrate with Henkel’s transportation management
system (TMS) and SAP platforms. 3 After piloting, the system was rolled out in the US in 2018 and
gradually in countries in Europe, including the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy by 2019. Francisco
García, head of International Planning and Logistics, emphasized the importance of training and
the necessity of integrating clients directly in the track-and-trace system.
As the projects and connectivity increased, Henkel was obliged to update its data infrastructure
and data analytics capabilities. In 2017, the company started to unify data in a data lake, the
Henkel Data Foundation, which was initially hosted on Cloudera-Knime, a lab server–based
analytics platform, and transitioned to Microsoft Azure cloud in 2019 (see Exhibit 9). All systems
applications, such as SAP, Oracle, and the TMS as well as factory sensors and meters, were
connected to the central repository.
This centralized approach would enhance the development of descriptive and predictive analytics,
with an emphasis on improving forecast accuracy. By mid-2017, Henkel had built team capabilities
and developed reports in the area of supply and demand planning as well as logistics, making use

2 FourKites optimizes global supply chains for industry-leading brands. It combines powerful machine learning with the

world’s largest data network to provide real-time visibility and data-driven insights.
3 A TMS is a logistics platform that uses technology to help businesses plan, execute, and optimize the physical movement

of goods, both incoming and outgoing, ensuring that the shipment is compliant and that proper documentation is available.
This kind of system is often part of a larger supply chain management (SCM) system.

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 OIT-25-E Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

of data visualization and analytics tools such as Tableau and Power BI (see Exhibit 10). 4 Between
2018 and 2020, the platforms handled more than 2,500 users and 20,000 single report access
requests by more than 450 different users per day on a global scale.
By 2019, Henkel had also ventured into predictive maintenance, an initiative that came from the
Dusseldorf plant. With the support of a specialized Dutch start-up, the local engineering team
trained the model for three months using engine data and successfully predicted machine
malfunctions with a 91% accuracy rate. “It was the first time the company moved from
‘visualization and diagnosis’ to predicting demands and prescribing user actions,” commented the
project’s international DT lead.
Simultaneously, Henkel started to experiment with other prescriptive analytics tools in supply
chain management. A “cost to serve” tool, launched in 2019, was instrumental in negotiating
contracts with partners and optimizing partnerships. Tarun Rana, International Digital
Transformation lead, highlighted the tool’s usefulness in negotiations regarding excess distribution
costs with Amazon due to their unique demands.

Henkel’s digital transformation approach

Led by the Digital Transformation team under Holbach, Henkel had gradually refined a very
structured “vertical/horizontal/global” approach in its digital strategy (see Exhibit 11). It was
vertical in the sense of testing concrete applications on a very specific area to achieve specific
benefits, horizontal because, once tested, the applications were adopted in other areas and more
data were integrated. The approach was global because solutions were scaled up to various plants.
Leveraging the network of SPOCs, ideas were generated both centrally and locally, and a three-
step scaling methodology was used to select which technologies to adopt:
1. Piloting at one to three sites for three to six months
2. Go/no-go decision based on a clear business case
3. Global scaling over the subsequent 12 to 18 months
A central committee with global supply chain representatives regularly reviewed the initiatives
that were proposed for scaling up. Each initiative needed a business case with either a specific
ROI or long-term strategic value. The number of rejected projects was not negligible, including
“chemical fingerprinting” and the use of Google Glasses, but rejected concepts were not utterly
abandoned. Instead, they were periodically reconsidered in light of technological advances. For
instance, 3D printing was initially rejected despite the savings but was successfully adopted later.
The corporate role was restricted to aligning actions with business goals, setting targets, and
tracking outcomes. Dirk Holbach commented,
We have one global framework and one single process leveraging the whole organization. It is a
smart combination of top-down and bottom-up approach involving the key users and stakeholders
early in the solution design process and with a guided ‘application by application’ focus.

4 The powerful Tableau, the fastest-growing data visualization tool in the business intelligence industry, simplifies raw data
into a very easily understandable format. Microsoft Power BI is a business intelligence platform that provides nontechnical
business users with tools for aggregating, analysing, visualizing, and sharing data.

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 Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged) OIT-25-E

Preparing the workforce for the digital transformation

The path to digitalization also obliged the company to consider the involvement of their workforce.
In the initial phase, the impact of the digital projects and the use of digital infrastructure was limited
to a few people in factories, such as plant managers and some controllers, but access to data had to
be expanded to other groups quickly as the initiatives gained momentum. An example was the OEE
projects, which involved shift leaders, production managers, head electricians, and logistics and sales
managers. Insights from the digital backbone were analyzed in daily joint meetings that yielded lean
manufacturing and quality improvement actions. This expansion of digital tools challenged human
resources (HR), as it required new skill sets. Henkel’s solution was two-fold: upskilling existing
employees and hiring new talent with specific digital competencies.

Upskilling and connecting the workforce

To address employee training, Henkel in 2017 started to build a library of focused digital tutorials
for its employees. This evolved into a comprehensive online training repository and paved the
way for the 2019 global digital upskilling initiative for the company’s 53,000 employees.
Evaluations and assessments measured employees’ digital proficiency and directed them to
tailored training. Partnering with the Innovation Hub, Henkel introduced maize.PLUS, an online
tool that fostered an innovation-driven mindset. For specialized roles, Henkel collaborated with
Accenture to establish a digital capability framework, offering targeted training sessions for each
job family (i.e., marketing, sales, information technology (IT), and HR). Training was delivered
through a specialized online talent management platform developed by the company
Cornerstone, which emphasized continual upskilling tailored to individual requirements.
Apart from individual training, Henkel introduced “digital gyms” (see Exhibit 12) for frontline
worker upskilling as well as a connected worker app platform in 2020 to facilitate the exchange
of ideas among employees.

Finding new digital talent

Recruiting outside talents with new digital skills was also necessary. For that, traditional
evaluations of engineers’ curriculum vitae (CVs), which focused on the candidate’s academic
progress (graduate, master’s, Ph.D.), evolved to place heightened emphasis on IT and digital
proficiency over conventional engineering backgrounds. To address the gap, Henkel also began in-
house training of what it termed “digital engineers.” The idea was to augment a chemical
engineering background with IT expertise.
Sylvie Nicol, senior VP of Global Human Resources, highlighted the significance of this shift,
emphasizing the importance of equipping the diverse global team with necessary digital tools and
anticipating a three- to five-year journey for this transformation. As a future initiative, Henkel
aimed to expand access to learning tools for all operators.

A vision beyond 2020

As Dirk Holbach mentally reviewed the digital supply chain transformation, he began to consider
the ambitious midrange goals established by the company’s new strategy: reduce manufacturing
and distribution costs by a double-digit MEUR p.a., reduce inventory by over 20%, enhance
customer satisfaction through tailored service offerings, and increase line efficiency by up to

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 OIT-25-E Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

30%. “My team has constructed an impressive digital foundation,” Holbach reflected, “but I
wonder how we accelerate the digital transformation even further. We can harness the power
of the fourth industrial revolution lighthouses. Success, however, hinges on managing change,
with the ‘human element’ often being the pacesetter.
With Henkel’s units now benefitting from more available data than ever before, he believed the
key was to empower employees to make quicker, data-informed decisions. A paradigm shift was
in motion: from hierarchical decision-making to moving decision power to where the information
was, at employees’ fingertips.
Thinking ahead, Holbach realized that the company had to focus on attracting digital talent, especially
younger people who were keen on joining highly digital businesses rather than big, traditional
corporations. To change the perception that Henkel was among the latter, the company had to
communicate proactively and share its digital projects with universities and the digital community.
Holbach believed that the company could achieve supply chain competitiveness only through
digital innovation in the end-to-end supply chain. Innovation started with people who could
make digital transformation and technology adoption succeed, and investments in training the
entire workforce were necessary to foster users’ new capabilities. A connected workforce could
emerge only when user-centric new applications were developed. After a few seconds of silence,
Weber asked Holbach again:
Dirk, what are your thoughts about 5G, blockchain, and AI-enabled supply and demand
planning solutions? In those domains, we’ve received proposals from innovative startups and
other, more mature companies that are willing to work with us. We should determine
investment priorities and the type of partners we should work with in these domains.
Holbach was not thinking only of these opportunities but also of everything they might leave
behind along the way. He did not want to miss opportunities in the digital transformation
journey, yet, at the same time, he wanted to ensure digital adoption was increasing in speed
and effectiveness. “We enjoy a high degree of automation and have invested heavily in robotics
over the previous years,” he continued,
but I believe there is still room for improvement toward touchless factories. In spite of
automation, people will always be required in factories, but with a higher value contribution.
The recent COVID-19 crisis enabled the development of new digital automation solutions to
control social distancing inside factories.
He was convinced that more automation opportunities in material handling and production
environments could be developed.
Another priority I have is the expansion of end-to-end modeling of the supply chain—in other
words, developing a digital twin of the supply chain. So far, we have built so many data models,
but now we aim to improve that real-time representation of our supply chain in two aspects: data
density and frequency. Bottom line, a digital twin of the end-to-end supply chain will promote
faster and better decisions, which are required more than ever in the post-COVID scenario.
Concisely, the adoption of new technologies is critical to advance our digital transformation
journey, but I wonder what I can do with new technologies if I am not successful in managing
change in my organization and having my entire workforce prepared. I’m afraid of
overloading my organization with too many changes at the same time; there is a risk that
something breaks down. I strongly believe I must be very selective in my decisions, with a
limited number of initiatives per year. How we explain, deploy, and digest is key.

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 Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged) OIT-25-E

Exhibit 1
Henkel’s first branded product, the bleaching soda

Source: Henkel. (n.d.). . https://www.henkel.com/company/milestones-and-achievements/history

Exhibit 2
Henkel’s current product portfolio

Industrial Business Consumer Business

Adhesive Technologies Beauty Care Laundry and Home Care

Source: Seeking Alpha. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4187919-henkel-conservatively-financed-consumer-company-

adhesives-business-attached

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 OIT-25-E Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

Exhibit 3
Henkel’s strategic framework

WINNING COMPETITIVE FUTURE-READY

PORTFOLIO EDGE OPERATING
MODELS
INNOVATION
SUSTAINABILITY
DIGITAL

COLLABORATIVE CULTURE & EMPOWERED PEOPLE

Source: Henkel. (n.d.). . https://www.henkel.com/company/strategy

Exhibit 4
IT infrastructure

Business Intelligence Big Data Analytics Data-Driven

Reporting Dashboards Applications

Data delivery zone

Business
intelligence sets

Enterprise data
warehouse Unstructured
data processing

Data landing zone

Structured data Unstructured data (internal & external)

Source: Document provided by the company.

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 Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged) OIT-25-E

Exhibit 5
Best operating practices: sustainability example

ENERGY 5%
# Scope Description Status ABC Due Date One Pager Comment

1 Producti on Is the pres s ure i n compres s ed a i r s uppl y s ys tem No B modi fi ed

reduced to the mi ni mum l i mi t?
2 Genera l Are the moti on detectors i ns ta l l ed for s wi tch of In Progress
i l l umi na ti on ON & OFF i n the a rea s where
pers onnel i s pres ent ra rel y?
3 Genera l Are the LED l a mps i ns ta l l ed for i nterna l a nd Yes
externa l i l l umi na ti on?
4 Genera l Are a l l el ectri c motors over 10 kW whi ch ca n be In Progress
us ed wi th va ri a bl e l oa d equi pped wi th
frequency converters ?
5 Genera l Are the pumps for ci rcul a ti on of l i qui d ma teri a l s In Progress modi fi ed
des i gned a ccordi ng to needed ca pa ci ty?
6 Genera l Are a l l i ns ta l l ed pumps ha ve hi gh effi ci ency (not In Progress
l es s tha n 54%)?
7 Genera l Are therma l pumps us ed for wa ter hea ti ng? Yes
8 Genera l Are i nverters i ns ta l l ed where i t i s pos s i bl e? No
9 Genera l Are roof a rea s wi th tra ns l ucent pl a tes Yes modi fi ed
10 Genera l Are frequent checks of l ea ka ges i n compres s ed In Progress modi fi ed
a i r pi pi ng performed?

Source: Document provided by the company.

Exhibit 6
OEE improvement in terms of energy savings

Energy savings per year

Introduction
Online
L Energy KPI [kWh/t]

Energy
Metering

Base Improvement Increment via Digital

Source: Document provided by the company.

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 OIT-25-E Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

Exhibit 7
Evolution of the number of sustainability meters

3,500
3.500

3,000
3.000

2.500
2,500

2.000
2,000

1.500
1,500

1.000
1,000

500
500

00
2012
2012 2013
2013 2014
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
2000

Source: Document provided by the company.

Exhibit 8
Real-time tracking and tracing of customer shipments

Plants DC Customer

Source: Document provided by the company.

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 Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged) OIT-25-E

Exhibit 9
Henkel Data Foundation structure

Virtual Infrastructure Front End Physical Infrastructure

Source: Document provided by the company.

Exhibit 10
Line efficiency report example

Source: Document provided by the company.

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 OIT-25-E Henkel: A digital transformation journey (abridged)

Exhibit 11
Horizontal and vertical approach

Transparency & Visibility

Digital Backbone: End-to-End Analytics

Supplier Plant Distribution Customer

Center

Sensorics Analytics Robotics Visualization

IT Architecture & Systems

Agile Transformation Culture

Source: Document provided by the company.

Exhibit 12
DigiGym area setup (stationary example)

Source: Document provided by the company.

14 IESE Business School-University of Navarra

This document is authorized for use only in Dr. Akshay Khanzode's Industry 4.0 at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) from Sep 2024 to Mar 2025.