How Norma Group Drives Global Efficiency with Shibumi
Shibumi’s intuitive platform enables ~800 users to manage 2,000+ initiatives across 25 plants worldwide with streamlined self- service capabilities.
Company Name:
Norma
Industry:
Engineering
Location:
Maintal, Germany
Company Size:
€1,155 million in annual revenue
Use Cases:
- Strategic Portfolio Management
- Automation
- Cost Transformation
- Enterprise-wide visibility
Business Impact:
- 2,000+ initiatives tracked
- 200+ user-configured dashboards
- 25 plants worldwide connected
- 100% successful data migration
Customer Overview
NORMA Group is a large manufacturer of engineered joining technology serving numerous industries. The company is based in Germany, but serves partners globally through thousands of initiatives and dozens of production plants.
Goal
Unify Project Stream Planning, Execution, and Measurement for Greater Efficiency
NORMA Group is a publicly traded global manufacturer and supplier of engineered joining technology, operating across diverse industries from energy to retail. With 25 plants worldwide and numerous distribution centers, NORMA Group faced mounting pressure to increase its efficiency by automating and improving processes, leveraging new technology, and identifying savings potential and further growth opportunities.
“We are a company globally active across various industries such as shipbuilding and agriculture—you name it, we are a component manufacturer and supplier to it,” said Okan Celiker, CFO of EMEA & VP of Strategy at NORMA Group. “Changing technologies and cost pressure require that we continually increase our efficiency and automation.”
In the beginning of 2023, NORMA Group launched “Step Up,” an ambitious global program designed to increase growth and efficiency. The company needed a robust tool to consolidate planning and initiatives, to track KPIs, and to measure program success—all while supporting internal and external stakeholder communications. While NORMA Group had previously used another platform to support a former improvement program, “Get on Track,” its team quickly discovered that configuring the program for its larger purpose would be prohibitively time- consuming and expensive. The search for a better solution led them to Shibumi.
“Part of it is the system, and the system is great. But the other part is the people—we wouldn’t
be able to do it without them.”
Solution
Deploy Shibumi’s Standardized Platform for Global Initiative Management
When NORMA Group first encountered Shibumi, it immediately recognized its advantages. “We saw Shibumi was more standardized, almost a ready-to-go toolbox,” Celiker explained. The team worked with Shibumi to create an individualized setup that would be well-accepted by colleagues worldwide across all functions.
The implementation focused on several key areas: Intuitive User Experience: “It’s very intuitive, very easy to put the data in, especially the
financial data, and that’s the most important aspect for us,” said Dr. Daniel Koch, Senior Innovation & Strategy Manager at NORMA Group.
Self-Service Capabilities: Unlike other tools, which require constant technical support for any changes, Shibumi empowered users with drag-and-drop functionality and easy configuration options. “The approval process was quite easy to set up in Shibumi,” Celiker noted. “It is also a very fast tool; other tools are not that fast.”
Project Planning Features: Teams use detailed project planning capabilities to track milestones and timelines, providing transparency so senior management can see initiative status without having to contact individual owners.
User-Configured Dashboards: NORMA Group has created more than 200 different dashboards, enabling teams to focus on what matters most to them—and making it easy to share update reports with top management directly within the system.
“The whole tool is just much more convenient for the end user. It’s very self-service.”
DR. DANIEL KOCH, SENIOR INNOVATION & STRATEGY MANAGER, NORMA GROUP
Results
~800 Users Managing 2,000+ Initiatives with Unprecedented Efficiency
Rapid Adoption: “We had a steering team help configure Shibumi to NORMA Group’s needs and did weekly trainings. Now we do monthly trainings, and honestly, now there are only very few on the call!” Koch reported. “We get very few questions from the field. The solution is so easy to use.”
Scalable Growth: Within the Step Up program, NORMA Group has expanded to additional use cases including cost avoidance initiatives and engineering team projects. “We didn’t think of it at first, but the system is able to support these additional uses cases, and that is great,” Celiker
noted.
Attractive Total Cost of Ownership: Compared to its previous solution, NORMA Group finds better value and superior functionality with Shibumi, at a lower total cost of ownership.
Hands-On Partnership: NORMA Group also values Shibumi’s knowledgeable support team.“We appreciate how knowledgeable the Shibumi team is about the solutions,” Celiker said. “Our Shibumi Client Success manager is very responsive, especially in setting up and adapting the solution to our needs, this was a critical success factor.” Seamless Migration: Moving data over to Shibumi was a successful endeavour. “We did the transfer from the previous tool, and I was nervous, but it worked so well,” Koch recalled.
The combination of intuitive design, speed, and ease of setup has made Shibumi integral to NORMA Group’s operations. As Celiker summarized: “It’s extremely intuitive, very nice appearance, easy to set up, and it’s fast. These are the most important elements for me.”
With Shibumi, NORMA Group has successfully create a unified view of their global transformation efforts, enabling better decision-making and driving sustainable growth across their worldwide operations. “Part of it is the system, and the system is great,” the team concluded. “But the other part is the people—we wouldn’t be able to do it without them.”
