MAHLE reduces group-wide inventory 20% across 148 plants with Celonis Process Intelligence

MAHLE, a €13B+ global automotive supplier serving virtually every major OEM, operates nearly 150 manufacturing plants navigating simultaneous headwinds: material shortages, rising raw material and energy costs, geopolitical disruptions, and an accelerating shift toward electrification. Despite this complexity, material planners had no unified visibility into inventory-relevant factors — pre-booked orders, production requirements, goods receipts, and plant-to-plant stock movements all lived across fragmented SAP instances. Reporting disputes between plants were routine, proactive intervention was structurally impossible, and excess inventory continued to accumulate across the network, tying up working capital with no clear mechanism to address it systematically.

MAHLE deployed the Celonis Process Intelligence platform, which applies process mining to construct a living digital twin of the company's end-to-end supply chain — a continuous X-ray of how processes actually execute across all sites. Rather than launching directly into inventory, MAHLE first standardized Celonis across Accounts Payable, Procurement, and Order Management, building internal capability and a unified data foundation before tackling the harder problem. In 2022, the logistics and IT teams co-developed the Inventory Control Center with Celonis, consolidating all inventory-relevant SAP data in real time — covering pre-booked orders, production requirements, goods receipts, plant-to-plant transfers, consignment warehouse stocks, and wage provisions. An Inventory Projection App gives material planners forward-looking stock forecasts across their most critical materials, while Celonis Action Flows deliver automated alerts when overstocks or shortages are imminent, enabling planners to intervene before problems reach the shop floor.

MAHLE achieved a 20% reduction in group-wide inventory following deployment — eliminating excess stock that had accumulated across the global manufacturing network. The Inventory Control Center was rolled out to all 148 plants within a few months, enabled by the platform's deep SAP integration and standardized process architecture. Key qualitative outcomes accompanied the headline figure:

• Reporting disputes eliminated: all plants now operate from one trusted, real-time data source
• Proactive planning adopted: planners respond to projected overstocks weeks in advance rather than reacting after shortages materialize
• Cross-divisional coordination unlocked: the central inventory team can execute targeted, global optimization actions across business units for the first time

• Sequence the rollout deliberately — standardizing process intelligence on AP, Procurement, and Order Management before inventory builds the data foundation and internal credibility needed for more complex optimization.
• Fragmented SAP instances are the root obstacle; a single source of truth that resolves reporting disputes is a prerequisite, not a nice-to-have.
• Forecast-driven alerting (impending overstock vs. actual overstock) is where working capital is recovered — pair a projection app with automated action flows to close the loop.
• Digital twin visibility must capture all demand and supply parameters, including plant-to-plant transfers and consignment stocks routinely missed in standard reporting.