Case Studies

Walki

Products Used

Who?

Walki Group is a leading international producer of protective packaging materials and technical laminates, specialising in fibre-based, sustainable solutions. The company operates a highly complex manufacturing network across multiple countries, utilising diverse technologies such as laminating, coating, slitting, sheeting, and rewinding. By focusing on multi-layer laminates and circular economy packaging, Walki serves industries ranging from food packaging to construction and medical applications, all while striving to build a connected, digitalised manufacturing future.

Why?

For several years, Walki’s global operations were managed through a fragmented landscape of legacy systems and site-specific practices.

While locally effective, this “siloed” approach created several critical hurdles:

• Lack of Visibility: Fragmentation made it difficult to optimise operations on a global scale or gain a single version of the truth regarding production data.
• Operational Complexity: Managing the precise coordination between raw materials, machine constraints, and specific customer requirements across various product lines was increasingly difficult with manual or outdated processes.
• Regulatory & Sustainability Pressure: New frameworks, such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), added an urgent requirement for granular traceability and transparency across the entire supply chain.
• Inefficiency: Without centralised optimisation, even minor inaccuracies in cutting patterns or scheduling led to significant material waste and sub-optimal machine utilisation.

How?

To address these challenges, Walki launched the “One Walki Way” program, a multi-year digital transformation designed to create a unified digital foundation.

The solution was built on a collaborative ecosystem involving Microsoft, Digia, and Greycon:

• Enterprise Backbone: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (implemented with Digia) provides a consistent platform for finance, supply chain, and core enterprise processes.
• Specialised Manufacturing Optimisation: Walki integrated Greycon’s advanced suite to handle the specific complexities of fibre-based converting. This includes:
- o opt-Studio (APS) Modelling machine constraints, material characteristics, and delivery priorities simultaneously to move from isolated planning to global optimisation.
- o X-trim (Trim Optimisation): Utilising sophisticated algorithms to determine the most efficient cutting patterns, directly reducing material waste.
- o GreyconMill™ (MES): Through GreyconMill™, Walki monitors production in real-time, capturing data on performance, consumption, and quality as materials move through the shop floor.
- o Closed-Loop Integration: Demand captured in Dynamics 365 flows into Greycon for planning, and the resulting production data is fed back into the ERP to support accurate costing, inventory management, and shipping.

Results

The transformation journey reached its final milestone in November 2025, resulting in a fundamentally redefined operating model:

• End-to-End Connectivity: Walki achieved its goal of digitalising processes from the supply chain through production to finance, ensuring data flows fluently across the organisation.
• Increased Efficiency & Reduced Waste: The production plans now automatically balance Make-to-Order and Make-to-Stock demands, maximising material utilisation and generating realistic inventory replenishment orders.
• Advanced Traceability: Every material and process step is now linked across the production lifecycle, providing the transparency required to meet EUDR standards and sustainability commitments.
• Scalable Growth Foundation: The successful implementation across international sites provides Walki with a proven, standardised model that allows them to scale global operations with consistent control and visibility.

Seamless end-to-end digital connectivity.
Improved efficiency and reduced waste.
Enhanced traceability and transparency.
More accurate inventory management.
Scalable global operations.

“Greycon and Digia are both capable of implementing this kind of big ERP and MES projects together. Our objective to build a platform for future growth was well achieved. Both companies were demonstrating responsibility towards program targets, yet understanding the business requirements as needed all the way through”

Hannu Pääkkönen

Group IT Director, Walki