Shop Integration for Salzgitter's Industry and Suppliers

Salzgitter's economic identity is inseparably linked to steel and automotive production. Salzgitter AG, Volkswagen suppliers and a dense network of specialized businesses in metalworking, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering form the industrial backbone of the city. For these companies, an online shop is not a replacement for traditional sales but an additional channel for spare parts, standard parts, operating materials and technical consumables. The challenge: this channel must fit seamlessly into the production-oriented IT infrastructure.

Automotive suppliers in Salzgitter frequently operate within a supply network that requires EDI connectivity to OEM systems. Delivery call-offs via EDIFACT DELFOR and delivery notes via DESADV run in parallel with online sales. Our middleware processes both channels through a unified data layer, keeping inventory, production plans and lead times consistent regardless of whether an order comes via EDI or from the shop. In addition, there is the mid-market around the steel industry: metal trade, tooling shops and technical wholesalers who want to offer customers digital ordering while retaining their proven ERP structures.

Every integration project in Salzgitter begins with an inventory of the existing IT landscape. How do orders flow into the ERP today? Which channels do you use to communicate with key customers? Where do the biggest manual efforts arise? The answers vary, but the underlying patterns are familiar to us: manufacturing companies with established SAP installations, technical dealers with JTL and their own warehouse, suppliers with EDI obligations who simultaneously want a modern shop channel for direct customers.

Salzgitter's industrial IT does not simply get replugged. SAP installations have grown over years with company-specific extensions, interfaces to production planning systems are tightly interlocked, and database structures deviate from standard. Directly wiring shop and ERP in such environments regularly produces fragile solutions: changes to the ERP break the shop connection, special logic cannot be mapped, and the source of errors is hard to isolate.

We therefore build on a middleware architecture that operates as an independent layer between shop and ERP. All data flows pass through this intermediary layer: format transformations, validations against required fields, error handling with automatic retries, and a complete audit log of every transaction. When your ERP system receives an upgrade or a new module is added, only the middleware adapts, not the entire shop integration. This architecture is especially relevant for Salzgitter industrial companies whose ERP systems change regularly.

In industrial ERP installations, as commonly found in Salzgitter, data quality is a challenge in its own right. Product master data originally created for production often lacks what an online shop requires: no images, incomplete descriptions, missing EAN codes, inconsistent units of measure between production and trade. These gaps must be closed before integration begins, not after.

Our integration concepts therefore always start with a data quality analysis. We check which fields are required for shop operations, which of these are missing or inconsistently maintained in the ERP, and develop a realistic cleanup plan together with your team. The effort pays off: a cleanly structured data basis in the ERP accelerates integration, reduces errors in live operations and makes future extensions easier. For Salzgitter industrial companies building their online channel step by step, this is the most solid foundation.

Beyond classic ERP-shop integration, we offer Salzgitter companies further connection points. If you sell on marketplaces in addition to your own shop, our marketplace integration links your ERP core with the relevant platforms. For technical wholesalers who want to keep their inventory management as the leading system and simply connect the online channel, we offer dedicated inventory management connectors. And for companies with bespoke API requirements, we develop custom REST or GraphQL interfaces through our API development service.

For Salzgitter businesses with international customers, multilingualism in both shop and integration is another topic. When product descriptions need to be maintained in English and German, price lists differentiate by export market and invoices are issued in multiple currencies, our integration solution covers these requirements fully. Reach us at +49 5123 9579000 or get in touch via our contact form.

A successful shop integration does not end at go-live. Knowledge about data flows, error patterns and monitoring tools must be transferred to your team. We train the employees who work with the integrated solution every day: the warehouse staff member who understands why an order was not transferred automatically, the IT manager who reads the monitoring dashboard and responds to alerts, and the sales employee who can explain to customers why a lead time message comes from the ERP. We carry out this knowledge transfer for Salzgitter companies directly on-site, in plain language and using your actual systems.

In Salzgitter's manufacturing operations, data protection and information security are not abstract compliance topics but operational requirements. Design data, production specifications and customer records are among the most valuable corporate assets. When an online shop is connected to the ERP system, a new data interface is created that must meet these protection requirements.

Our middleware solution transmits all data exclusively via TLS encryption. Operations run on servers in German data centers. Access rights are controlled granularly via API keys and IP whitelisting so that only authorized systems can access the interface. Personal customer data is processed in GDPR compliance: clients remain data controllers under the regulation, and the middleware layer is correctly classified as a data processor. A complete audit log documents every data access with timestamp, source and content. For automotive suppliers who must satisfy customer audit requirements, this documentation is directly usable.