How Şişecam Conquered Global Supply Chain Planning Challenges
Şişecam redefined its operations through a digital transformation powered by ICRON, leveraging AI and automation. Through this initiative, Şişecam enhanced production efficiency, reduced waste, and strengthened its ability to address complex global supply chain challenges. ICRON’s decision intelligence solutions played a critical role in optimizing the supply chain network, improving sales and operations planning (S&OP), and supporting sustainability initiatives. This collaboration reinforced Şişecam’s operational resilience and helped maintain its competitive position across 14 countries.
With 88 years of expertise, Şişecam continues to position itself as an industry leader driven by innovation across glass manufacturing and chemical production. Operating across four continents, the company integrates scale, sustainability, and technological capability to deliver value across its diverse portfolio, from flat glass and glassware to packaging and fiber.
Building on this foundation, Şişecam has advanced its digitalization strategy by strengthening its corporate data architecture while fostering a data-driven decision-making environment. By integrating advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and automation, the initiative optimizes production processes, improves energy efficiency, and reduces environmental impact. This approach enables Şişecam to respond effectively to evolving market demands while maintaining production quality, operational efficiency, and long-term competitiveness in the global glass industry
As part of its digital core, Şişecam leverages ICRON’s native integration with SAP S/4HANA, enabling seamless, real-time data flow between SAP enterprise systems and ICRON’s AI-powered planning and decision intelligence platform. This ensures continuous alignment between strategic planning, operational execution, and financial systems.
Şişecam’s performance reflects its ability to adapt to evolving market conditions and manage a complex, multi-continental supply chain. Its operational challenges span the coordination of production across multiple facilities, ensuring reliable delivery schedules, and addressing volatility in raw material pricing, quality requirements, and environmental regulations. These factors underscore the importance of robust, data-driven planning and optimization capabilities, such as those delivered through its collaboration with ICRON.
As the world’s largest glassware manufacturer, Şişecam offers a broad portfolio of high-quality tableware, kitchenware, and home decoration products. With production across multiple countries and sales in over 150 countries, the company serves retail and B2B markets worldwide.
Şişecam Chemicals is a market leader in the production of sodium dichromate and basic chromium sulfate, serving a wide range of industrial applications.
With an annual production capacity of approximately 2.6 million tons, Şişecam ranks among the top five glass packaging producers in Europe. The company manufactures packaging solutions for the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries.
Şişecam supplies automotive glass to leading European and global vehicle manufacturers, including BMW, Audi, Bentley, Škoda, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
As the world’s largest glassware manufacturer, Şişecam offers a broad portfolio of high-quality tableware, kitchenware, and home decoration products. With production across multiple countries and sales in over 150 countries, the company serves retail and B2B markets worldwide.
Flat Glass
As the world’s fifth-largest flat glass producer by production capacity, Şişecam manufactures high-quality flat glass using advanced float glass technology.
Chemicals
Şişecam Chemicals is a market leader in the production of sodium dichromate and basic chromium sulfate, serving a wide range of industrial applications.
Glass Packaging
With an annual production capacity of approximately 2.6 million tons, Şişecam ranks among the top five glass packaging producers in Europe. The company manufactures packaging solutions for the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries.
Automotive Glass
Şişecam supplies automotive glass to leading European and global vehicle manufacturers, including BMW, Audi, Bentley, Škoda, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
Glassware
As the world’s largest glassware manufacturer, Şişecam offers a broad portfolio of high-quality tableware, kitchenware, and home decoration products. With production across multiple countries and sales in over 150 countries, the company serves retail and B2B markets worldwide.
Şişecam’s collaboration with ICRON was driven by a shared vision of redefining its planning and production capabilities through intelligence and agility. The goal was to future-proof operations, strengthen decision-making, and establish a foundation for sustainable growth.
Streamline complex multi-plant operations with automation and data-driven precision.
Unify planning, forecasting, and scheduling into one connected ecosystem.
Reduce waste, optimize resource use, and build adaptability for long-term success.
Responding quickly to fluctuating demand requires better visibility and agility to optimize capacity, materials, and inventory.
Coordinating production across multiple facilities in various countries requires advanced synchronization to ensure on-time delivery while managing supply chain networks, quality standards, and regulatory differences.
Managing planning cycles, inventory levels, and furnace utilization across multiple plants has been difficult with legacy systems that rely heavily on manual input.
Responding quickly to fluctuating demand requires better visibility and agility to optimize capacity, materials, and inventory.
Disconnected business units have created inefficiencies and limited visibility. Complex supply, demand, and production dynamics require better coordination, and financial and sustainability goals need to be aligned with daily operations.
Operational Excellence
Streamline complex multi-plant operations with automation and data-driven precision.
Integrated Decision Intelligence
Unify planning, forecasting, and scheduling into one connected ecosystem.
Sustainability and Resilience
Reduce waste, optimize resource use, and build adaptability for long-term success.
Business Complexity and Challenges
Responding quickly to fluctuating demand requires better visibility and agility to optimize capacity, materials, and inventory.
Complex Supply Chain Management
Coordinating production across multiple facilities in various countries requires advanced synchronization to ensure on-time delivery while managing supply chain networks, quality standards, and regulatory differences.
Planning and Scheduling
Managing planning cycles, inventory levels, and furnace utilization across multiple plants has been difficult with legacy systems that rely heavily on manual input.
Balancing Supply and Demand
Responding quickly to fluctuating demand requires better visibility and agility to optimize capacity, materials, and inventory.
Enabling Integrated Planning
Disconnected business units have created inefficiencies and limited visibility. Complex supply, demand, and production dynamics require better coordination, and financial and sustainability goals need to be aligned with daily operations.
These challenges underscore the need for an intelligent, connected platform that delivers speed, consistency, and precision in decision-making.
ICRON provided an integrated suite of solutions covering multiple areas of the client’s supply chain:
Strategic Planning
Demand Planning
Production Scheduling
Through these solutions, ICRON helped the client integrate its global operations into a cohesive decision-support environment where planning and execution are seamlessly aligned. The spotlight, however, remains on the integrated business planning (IBP) system that ICRON created for the client. Read on to know more about it.
For a global glass manufacturer with a vast and complex network of plants, warehouses, and product lines, operational alignment can be difficult at times. ICRON partnered with the company to build a unified IBP system that transformed fragmented planning into connected intelligence.
The implementation of ICRON’s solutions has enabled the manufacturer to:
Improve end-to-end visibility and responsiveness across its global network
Automate previously manual and time-consuming planning processes
Strengthen its IBP capabilities with reliable, data-driven insights
Advance ESG objectives by reducing waste and enhancing energy efficiency
Support smarter investment and production decisions through predictive insights
Strengthen alignment between financial objectives and operational execution
Establish a planning ecosystem that continuously learns, adapts, and drives resilience
Şişecam’s journey from traditional glass production to technology-driven operations reflects a clear vision for the future, anchored in innovation, intelligence, and sustainability. ICRON’s partnership has been integral to this transformation, equipping Şişecam with AI-powered decision capabilities and an integrated business planning system that connects strategy to execution and ensures resilience amid market volatility.
Together, Şişecam and ICRON continue to advance a new era of digital excellence, strengthening global supply chain planning and intelligent manufacturing across Şişecam’s international operations.
ICRON Demand empowers businesses to navigate uncertainty through accurate forecasting using AI-driven methods that take into consideration historical data, reaTime updates, and fast adaptation to changing market conditions and disruptions.
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