A Kind of Magic: “35 Countries in 80 Days” Form Rollout

Bürkert Fluid Control Systems, a leading international manufacturer of measurement, control, and regulation technology, faced a major challenge: outdated SAP forms that were difficult to maintain.

In collaboration with Softway AG, the experts in SAP output management, Bürkert modernized its form landscape—thereby achieving a significant increase in efficiency in development, maintenance, and international use.

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Initial Situation: A complex form landscape dating from the 2000s

Some of the existing SAPScript forms dated back to 2000 and 2003. The harmonization of several companies within the SAP system had resulted in a large number of form variations. Even minor changes required a significant amount of maintenance—and many requirements could not be implemented at all.

“Our forms had evolved over time, were highly complex, and had become virtually impossible to maintain. Even minor adjustments required a significant amount of effort.”
– Fabian Hespelt, Bürkert Fluid Control Systems

The complexity stemmed from the international structure: 35 sales organizations and 50 company codes had to be represented in just a few central forms—each with its own legal requirements, language variants, and layout specifications (e.g., A4, Letter, address on the left/right, Japanese, Chinese).

Challenge: Standardized forms for all countries

Bürkert deliberately opted for centralized forms to keep the number of templates to a minimum. However, this meant that many country-specific rules, layouts, and fonts had to be consolidated into just a few forms.

This structure was difficult to maintain and called for a modern, flexible solution.

Solution: Implement SSP Forms and train the teams

Following a joint kick-off meeting, Softway AG launched a hands-on training program: two days of theory and two days of hands-on practice on Adobe Forms and SSP Forms—based directly on Bürkert-specific requirements.

Next, we began implementing the first SD forms (Sales), including quotes, order confirmations, and invoices. The most complex form, the delivery note, was imported directly from Softway.

With SSP Forms, Softway’s SAP extension product, Bürkert was able to centrally manage and version its forms and maintain them through an intuitive customization interface—all without any in-depth programming.

Migration: From ECC 6.0 to S/4HANA – simple and secure

Bürkert initially used SAP ECC 6.0 as its technological foundation. Later, the company made a seamless transition to SAP S/4HANA. Since SSP Forms can be used on both ECC and S/4, only the data retrieval process needed to be adjusted—the form layout and customizing remained unchanged.

The forms were standardized based on the English template and then rolled out to 35 countries. Thanks to the predefined country-specific requirements and the flexible configuration in SSP Forms, each new sales organization could be implemented in just two days.

The company deliberately avoided migrating the old SAPScript forms—instead, Softway AG opted to reorganize the form logic in order to streamline old structures and ensure long-term maintainability.

Result: Consistent, maintainable, and multilingual forms

The benefits of the new solution are evident in our day-to-day work:

• Significantly reduced maintenance effort and faster response times to technical requirements
• Customizing Instead of Development: changes can also be made by SAP application administrators
• Clear development guidelines—no more logic in the form
• Easy expandability for special requirements
• Uniform corporate design and consistent form layout worldwide
• Multilingualism made easy: 19 languages, including dialects (e.g., Portuguese—Brazilian), can be managed directly through the SSP Forms translation tool
• Centralized translation management with usage tracking—no more changes to the form itself

“With SSP Forms, we can now quickly customize, expand, and translate forms. The solution is intuitive and saves a tremendous amount of time.”
– Fabian Hespelt, Bürkert Fluid Control Systems

Technical Features: QR Invoices for Switzerland

One of the specific requirements was the integration of the Swiss QR invoice.
Since Swiss banks no longer accept traditional payment slips, an additional form page with a QR code was added as part of the implementation.

Activation occurs automatically through Customizing—an elegant, integrated solution for country-specific payment processes.

Outlook: Expansion of the SSP Forms Initiative

Following the successful conversion of SD, MM, PP, FI, and CS forms, as well as EWM labels, Bürkert plans to use SSP Forms to create customer-specific labels and inventory documents in the future.

Conclusion: A Future-Proof Forms Environment with SSP Forms

With the introduction of SSP Forms and the support of Softway AG, Bürkert Fluid Control Systems has created a modern, scalable, and easy-to-maintain form solution—optimally prepared for the future with SAP S/4HANA.

Softway AG provided not only technological expertise but also practical consulting and training—from the initial concept through to the international rollout.

“Today, our forms contain only what we really need—simple, clear, and future-proof.”
– Fabian Hespelt, Bürkert Fluid Control Systems