Walki faced fragmented legacy systems, manual operations, and limited visibility across global supply chain and finance processes.
Walki implemented Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management to unify operations, automate tasks, and enable real-time insights.
Standardization improved delivery speed, reduced month-end close time by 25%, and enhanced inventory and cost visibility across sites.
Walki Group Oy, owned by Oji Holdings, is an international producer of technical laminates and protective packaging materials. The company has 16 manufacturing plants in Finland, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Poland, the United Kingdom, and China.
Because it needed to standardize processes and reduce manual tasks, Walki implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. With this new solution, Walki unified processes, gained better visibility into inventory and costs, and saved time through automation.
“Dynamics 365 provides us with transparency across the enterprise, visibility into our inventory, and mobility in the warehouse.”
Hannu Pääkkönen, Group ICT Director, Walki Group
Cut month-end close time by 25%
Walki is a Finnish global packaging company that delivers sustainable solutions by converting traditional packaging into recyclable, compostable, and renewable materials. Committed to driving toward a zero-waste future, Walki is organized into three business areas: Consumer Packaging, Packaging Materials, and Engineered Materials. The company produces everything from chocolate bar wrappers to solid and corrugated board liners and building membranes.
Walki is increasingly focused on organic growth and market expansion through mergers and acquisitions. To effectively support these strategies, Walki needed more standardized processes and solutions, which was challenging because the company had different outdated legacy systems, such as Movex for supply chain, SAP for financials, and custom-made solutions for optimizing raw paper reels and production planning. Many of these systems were at the end of their lifecycle or required major upgrades, and some were heavily customized to support site-specific requirements and special needs. “We had different systems that weren’t connected, so it was difficult for us to find out what was happening in the warehouses at any given time,” says Grzegorz Ceranka, Chief Accountant, Walki Poland. “We didn’t have visibility into the business.”
Walki was also heavily dependent on manual processes to run its business, and supply chain processes were managed separately at each manufacturing plant. For example, raw material purchasing was performed manually, as were inventory management and product shipments, with inventory data and invoicing maintained in separate systems. Warehouse operations were also manual, and production reporting required manual processes to report consumptions and final goods back to the ERP system. Streamlining these processes and tasks was especially important because Walki is increasingly responsible for managing custom orders within its Consumer Packaging business.
To meet its needs, the company knew it needed to automate its critical business processes and improve global visibility from order to delivery. “We wanted to implement ‘One Walki Way’ of doing business, which meant standardizing processes across the business,” says Hakan Durgun, Floor Planner, Walki Belgium.
In 2021, Walki chose to streamline its operations by adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management as its foundational ERP solution, integrated with third-party applications including Greycon MES for shop floor execution and Cosmo Print and Packaging, a solution tailored for the printing and packaging industry. “Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a modern cloud-based ERP system, which brings clear benefits in terms of new functionalities and regular updates,” says Viktoria Korobchenko, ICT Project Manager at Walki Group.
Walki utilizes Planning Optimization within Supply Chain Management to enhance master planning processes, and Warehouse management to streamline warehouse operations. The Warehouse management capability offers real-time inventory visibility, customizable rules for optimizing material movements, and automated picking and put-away functionalities. Additionally, Walki implemented the Warehouse Management mobile app to efficiently manage inbound and outbound warehouse activities, transitioning from paper-based processes to handheld devices, and thereby achieving greater operational efficiency and reduced paper consumption. “We are using the Warehouse Management mobile app to manage products onsite without having to spend time writing things down or going to the office to report deviations,” says Hannu Pääkkönen, Group ICT Director, Walki Group. “Using the app, we can optimize our warehouse operations so we can keep our promises to our customers. Dynamics 365 provides us with transparency across the enterprise, visibility into our inventory, and mobility in the warehouse.”
Furthermore, Walki leverages microservices-based features in Supply Chain Management, including Inventory Visibility, Tax Calculation, and Data Lake (Microsoft Fabric) integration. Dynamics 365 handles customer orders received via email, facilitates their processing, and coordinates transfer to Greycon for trimming and production execution. The platform also oversees raw materials procurement, inventory management, invoicing, and shipment scheduling.
With Dynamics 365, Walki standardized critical supply chain and financial processes in support of the company’s push for “One Walki Way.” “With Dynamics 365, we will have one way of working across different locations and countries,” says Ringa Valkama, Project Manager for Business Transformation & Global Design Lead for ERP Solution at Walki Group. “No matter which site a customer needs to purchase an order from, they’ll be served through the same standardized process.” That standardization helps Walki be more efficient by optimizing its supply chain delivery concepts. “With Dynamics 365, we can better understand and see the triggers for finished goods production and delivery,” says Valkama.
As a result, Walki anticipates faster delivery times overall. “For inventory management, we expect to see time savings on both the procurement and finished goods side of things, because we can optimize those processes in Dynamics 365,” Valkama says.
A standardized solution also helped Walki accelerate its month-end closing process, which was previously different for each business unit. “We have saved 25% of the time required for the month-end closing process by standardizing on Dynamics 365,” Ceranka says. “That is a big benefit from a financial perspective.”
“With Dynamics 365, we will have one way of working across different locations and countries. No matter which site a customer needs to purchase an order from, they’ll be served through the same standardized process.”
Ringa Valkama, Project Manager for Business Transformation & Global Design Lead for ERP Solution, Walki Group
By centralizing its systems into a single solution, Walki also gained deeper visibility into its day-to-day operations. “With Dynamics 365, we can see what’s happening with our operations in real time,” Ceranka says. “In the past, it was not always possible for us to see an overview of everything in one place. Now, we can see every single detail of cost, the supply chain, and customer service data. We can drill down to every production order and each instance of raw materials usage, and we have better inventory visibility.”
With a unified solution, data is now more accessible and usable, facilitating better reporting and faster decision making. “We have automated reporting of each production order in Dynamics 365, so we don't have to manually gather spreadsheet data and create reports anymore,” says Ceranka. Previously, manufacturing plant employees had to print and follow production instructions, which sometimes led to errors. Now, the updated order data is automatically tied to the order. “Sometimes, we had order specifications that were not 100% accurate because the data was not updated,” Durgun says. “We have more accuracy in customer orders now. In addition, demand forecasting will be more accurate because we have better data.”
“With Dynamics 365, we can see what’s happening with our operations in real time. In the past, it was not always possible for us to see an overview of everything in one place. Now, we can see every single detail of cost, the supply chain, and customer service data.”
Grzegorz Ceranka, Chief Accountant, Walki Poland
Walki has streamlined its previously manual production and material requirements planning processes by moving to Dynamics 365. By automating these processes, the company no longer needs to spend time building and managing production orders. “When I was a production manager, I received planning information in a spreadsheet, with a production map containing the bill of materials, raw materials usage, and production steps. Putting that information into a production order took about 100 minutes per machine once a week, for five machines per department,” says Durgun. “Dynamics 365 automates the entire production order process, so employees only need to click a button to get instructions on their screen immediately.”
“Dynamics 365 automates the entire production order process, so employees only need to click a button to get instructions on their screen immediately.”
Hakan Durgun, Floor Planner, Walki Belgium
Walki is expanding its global digital transformation by deploying Dynamics 365 across its extrusion coating manufacturing facilities in Belgium, Germany, and Poland, with two more plants planned to go live by the end of 2025. Building on lessons learned from the initial rollouts, the company is carefully planning future implementations and master data preparation to support its unified “One Walki Way” approach. In addition, Walki is developing a customer portal using Microsoft Power Pages, which will enable customers to track their orders and deliveries—demonstrating the company's ongoing commitment to automation, operational visibility, and customer service excellence. While significant automation progress has been achieved, Walki is focused on leveraging its established foundation to further extend and enhance its global solution in the coming years.
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