Squando – Based on Collaboration and Joint Development by Schaeffler and apsolut

Together with the Schaeffler Group, apsolut developed a new tool for the qualification and onboarding of direct material suppliers as well as for material group management.

Best-of-Breed – Who wouldn't want to write that as a bold headline over their target IT architecture? But how do you get to the solution that reflects your very individual needs?

Schaeffler has been driving forward groundbreaking inventions and developments in the field of motion technology for over 75 years. The technology company manufactures high-precision components and systems for drive train and chassis applications as well as rolling and plain bearing solutions for a large number of industrial applications. The Schaeffler Group has identified collaboration and joint development as the key to its desired architecture. As a first outcome, Schaeffler teamed up with SAP procurement specialist apsolut. In a collaborative development approach, the two partners have developed a new supplier management tool and named it Squando – an acronym for “Supplier qualification and onboarding”.

In fact, the term framework best describes Squando. This framework is adapted and scaled to the individual business needs of an organisation. At Schaeffler, Squando is used to manage all production material suppliers worldwide.

Squando brings many benefits to Schaeffler which would not have been realised by any other existing solution in the market:

• New suppliers are guided through a clear, comprehensible onboarding process.
• Squando fulfils the individual requirements of all business divisions, containing all divisional documents and certificates.
• The fulfilment status of the divisional requirements is visualised and thus supports the approval process.
• The fully digitalised supplier creation process is significantly more transparent than previous solutions.
• Suppliers are actively involved into the creation and qualification process.
• Squando is based on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and thus is integrated with Schaeffler’s SAP system landscape.
• It has a user-friendly interface, based on SAP UI.
• It is capable to act according to the VDA and IATF standards common in the automotive industry.

“We were looking for a specific solution that did not exist yet. We didn't want to compromise. So we looked for the right partner to model a flexible tool so that we could configure the specific processes ourselves. We used our expertise and creativity to make Squando our global supplier management tool”, explains Ketylin Morello, Purchasing Strategy and Market Intelligence and Functional Product Owner for Squando at Schaeffler.