Global ERP upgrade to IFS Cloud at HUBER SE
Worldwide go-live across 22 sites
- 15. April 2026
International growth brings opportunities while also placing high demands on processes, transparency, and system landscapes. HUBER SE, the global market leader in water treatment, has grown significantly in recent years: Around 2,000 employees in the HUBER Group and 25 subsidiaries worldwide work daily with central, business-critical processes.
This growth has also been supported by a reliable ERP foundation: HUBER has been relying on IFS solutions for several years—and successfully so. The systems have proven themselves in international use and form an important basis for the company’s operational business processes.
As internationalization increased, the requirements for integration, scalability, and speed of innovation continued to rise. HUBER therefore made a clear strategic decision: to upgrade from IFS Applications 10 to IFS Cloud in order to consistently evolve a proven system and position it for the future.
A deliberate decision to modernize
The decision for IFS Cloud is driven by clear strategic objectives: a platform that grows with the company, enables innovation, and remains up to date over the long term. The key drivers:
- Evergreen model: Instead of occasional large-scale projects, the system remains continuously up to date through regular releases. This means faster innovation with significantly less project effort.
- Technological foundation for innovation: IFS Cloud enables the direct integration of new technologies such as IFS.ai into existing business processes.
- Scalability: The platform grows with the company. New sites and business units can be integrated efficiently.
- Modern system architecture: API-based interfaces and a cloud-native architecture create sustainable integration capability.
- Long-term investment security: With IFS Cloud, HUBER remains technologically up to date over the long term—without the effort of cyclical migration projects.
Complex starting point—solved in a structured way
The project placed high demands: a globally distributed organization, established processes and system structures, and an ambitious timeline. At the same time, business continuity had to be maintained throughout the entire project duration.
The 22 sites are spread across multiple continents—from the German headquarters in Berching to entities in North and South America and sites in Asia. Different time zones, languages, and regulatory requirements were therefore part of the project planning from the outset. Not a side issue, but a central complexity factor.
A decisive factor for the project’s success was the long-standing, partnership-based collaboration between HUBER and FLEXiCODE. FLEXiCODE has known HUBER’s process landscape in detail for several years. This knowledge was the basis for sound planning and targeted implementation from the very beginning.
The ambitious timeline was met: Project start February 2024, worldwide go-live January 2026.
Targeted transformation instead of technical migration
The real challenge lay beneath the surface. It was not about simply “lifting” extensions technically. Many were directly dependent on one another and had both a business and a deeply technical context.
Each individual CRIM object was analyzed and assessed:
- Back to standard: Wherever it made business sense, the team deliberately returned to the IFS standard to improve clarity and maintainability.
- Future-proof extensions: Where industry-specific requirements made it necessary, extensions were rebuilt to be cloud-ready.
This meant the legacy solution was not simply carried over, but structurally cleaned up. That this process succeeded while operations continued was primarily due to the team’s deep system understanding. Instead of working with theoretical standard recipes, all decisions were based on real process knowledge—through close collaboration between the business units, IT, and FLEXiCODE. Risks were identified early, before they could become a problem during rollout. The result is a stable, consistent platform that meets HUBER’s global requirements: clearer, more maintainable, and future-ready.
“In a global rollout of IFS Cloud, it is about far more than technology—it is about trust. With FLEXiCODE, we have a partner at our side who understands our processes and guided us through the complexity with a hands-on mindset. That gives us the confidence we need for our global digital transformation.”
Thomas Meier (Head of IT) and Josef Stadler (Commercial Director), HUBER SE
A platform for further growth
With IFS Cloud, HUBER has laid the technological foundation for the next steps in growth. The ERP system is thus evolving from an operational tool into a strategic platform on which new sites can be integrated more easily and digital initiatives can be rolled out faster. The modern system architecture also creates the prerequisite for the next step in innovation: With IFS.ai, automation potential can be integrated directly into existing business processes.
Experience as a success factor
Large ERP projects rarely fail because of the technology itself. More often, it is a lack of understanding of established structures or insufficient alignment between business and IT.
This is exactly where the decisive difference lies: FLEXiCODE has been supporting HUBER’s processes and system history for years and has brought this knowledge into the project from the very first phase. Not only at go-live, but from the outset—planning in a structured way, addressing risks early, and actively steering the project. This turned a complex undertaking into a controlled, predictable transformation.
You can find more information about HUBER SE here: www.huber-se.com
Where does your ERP landscape stand today?
Some companies already feel that their system can no longer keep pace with growth. Others ask the question proactively: Is our current platform still the right foundation for the coming years? In both cases, it is worth assessing your current system reality objectively before structural limits become visible.
If you would like to know how upgrade-ready your current ERP landscape is, or which transformation strategy fits your goals, let us talk. In a structured initial consultation, we will clarify together which options are realistic and sensible for your company.