Molex Streamlines Material Planning by Connecting Kinaxis to SAP with ifm
To boost supply chain agility, Molex implemented Kinaxis Maestro for advanced planning—but quickly encountered visibility gaps when trying to act on those plans within SAP.
The challenge: Bridging the visibility gap
Molex manages part of its material planning outside SAP using Kinaxis Maestro, which enhances their ability to predict demand and dynamically adjust production schedules. However, this shift introduced complexity for a subset of parts configured with MRP Type X0, where Kinaxis exclusively drives MRP. For these parts, SAP’s Group 7 MRP exception messages, which govern key scheduling decisions (e.g., schedule in, schedule out, cancellations, and plan adherence), were no longer visible in SAP. While most parts continued leveraging SAP MRP, this subset created a critical visibility gap.
Additional challenges included:
- Lack of actionable insights in SAP – Planners and buyers couldn’t process Kinaxis-driven exceptions natively in SAP, slowing down response times.
- Fragmented workflows – Switching between Kinaxis and SAP created misalignment, inefficiencies, and increased the chance of error.
- Exception message overload – Over 30,000 exception messages per day made it difficult for planners to separate urgent actions from noise, reducing effectiveness.
Key requirements
To regain control and visibility, Molex needed an integrated solution that would:
- Display Group 7 exception messages from Kinaxis directly in SAP
- Enable corrective actions in SAP, including:
- Displaying Kinaxis exceptions within SAP’s user interface
- Providing a consolidated view of production and purchase orders linked to exception messages
- Converting Purchase Requisitions (PRs) to Purchase Orders (POs)
- Mass rescheduling of PRs and POs based on Kinaxis data
The solution: Connecting SAP and Kinaxis with ifm’s Procurement solution
Molex worked with ifm Supply Chain to enhance its Procurement & Material Planning solution, enabling native integration between Kinaxis and SAP. This solution allowed planners to import, filter, view, and take action on Kinaxis-driven exceptions—all within the SAP environment.
How it works
- Automated data flow: Kinaxis exception messages are imported in a custom ifm-developed table in SAP, updated daily.
- Embedded exception visibility: Messages are presented in ifm’s Procurement Cockpit embedded within SAP, merging Kinaxis and SAP data across the MRP Main List, Purchase Orders, Production Orders, and Purchase Requisitions.
Enhanced processing capabilities:
- A mass schedule button enables planners to reschedule multiple POs based on Kinaxis-recommended dates.
- Exception source identification clearly flags Kinaxis-driven exceptions as “RR” (Rapid Response) messages.
- Processing indicators provide real-time tracking of which exceptions have been resolved.
Ongoing innovation: Molex and ifm are now extending similar mass-update capabilities to production orders, further strengthening end-to-end exception handling and control across procurement and manufacturing.
Measurable impact
Before implementing ifm, Molex’s planners were inundated with 30,000+ exception messages per day, limiting their ability to identify meaningful actions. With advanced filtering, that number was reduced to 8,000 actionable messages—a 75% reduction in noise, enabling planners to focus on real supply chain disruptions. By integrating exception message filtering and automation, Molex transitioned from a decentralized planning model to a more collaborative and centralized structure. This restructured approach improved real-time decision-making, cross-team coordination, and overall MRP efficiency by 40-50%. With fewer manual interventions and a more streamlined workflow, planners could focus on high-value material planning strategies instead of time-consuming administrative tasks.
Key business outcomes: Increased efficiency and seamless workflows
- Enhanced visibility: Kinaxis exceptions are now fully accessible within SAP
- Improved decision-making: Teams can act on exception messages directly in SAP
- Operational efficiency: Mass rescheduling dramatically reduces processing time
- Seamless user experience: Users no longer switch between systems.
Conclusion
Molex’s collaboration with ifm Supply Chain successfully bridged the gap between Kinaxis Maestro and SAP exception management, restoring visibility, reducing silos, and enabling full exception handling in one platform.
With ifm’s native SAP integration, Molex optimized both procurement and material planning workflows, reducing exception message overload by 75% and improving MRP execution efficiency by 40–50%. Their teams now work proactively within SAP, making faster decisions and focusing on high-impact supply chain strategies.
Want to achieve similar supply chain success?
Contact ifm Supply Chain today to learn how our optimization solutions for SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA can elevate your planning and execution performance.
