Most people who drive a modern car are you’re benefiting from Profil’s work without even knowing it. As a pioneer in Mechanically Attached Fasteners (MAF), Profil has been solving complex joining challenges for over 50 years. Their fasteners are tucked into BIW structures, underbodies, EV battery trays, and chassis for some of the world’s biggest automotive OEMs.
But as their products kept pace with new vehicle designs, Profil’s service operations in Europe were facing a different challenge. Manual reporting, slow scheduling, and siloed systems were eating into efficiency. Customer service leader, Sascha Weidinger, knew the team needed a smarter, faster way to keep technicians, managers, and systems in sync.
That’s when Profil turned to Routine Automation. They wanted Salesforce solutions for the automotive industry, built on top of Salesforce FSL (Field Service Lightning), and ready to plug into SAP without disrupting global operations.
The Challenge: Too Much Manual Work, Not Enough Flow
Profil’s European service division had a simple problem: too much of the work was still on paper or buried in spreadsheets. Technicians were writing up reports by hand and spending evenings finishing timesheets. Managers who needed to shuffle jobs around were dragging rows in Excel or chasing updates over email. Nothing about it felt quick or convenient.
On its own, each task seemed manageable. Put together, they slowed everything down. A technician who should have been at the next site was still tied up filling forms. A manager who needed to move resources around couldn’t do it with a click; it took time and energy. Customers sometimes felt that lag.
The systems weren’t helping as much as they could. Salesforce was there, SAP was there, but they weren’t talking properly. Information had to be entered twice, and even then, it didn’t always line up. Transfers and service notifications went missing. Staff were checking, rechecking, and still losing hours. That’s the gap Profil needed to close.
They wanted:
The Solution: Field Service That Finally Works the Way Teams Do
Profil didn’t want a giant global rollout all at once. They wanted to get their European division running smoothly first, prove it worked, and then think about scaling. Routine Automation started there, shaping Salesforce Field Service Lightning to match how Profil’s service team actually worked day to day. Here’s what we built:
Custom Setup for Everyday Service
The first step was pulling the basics out of paper and spreadsheets. Service reports and activity logs that used to be filled out by hand were moved directly into Salesforce. Timesheets, which had been a painful weekly job, could now be generated automatically from those activities.
Importantly, the setup didn’t rely on geolocation tracking, technicians could log their time without feeling like they were being watched, and managers still had accurate records. It gave both sides what they needed: visibility without friction.
Drag-and-Drop Scheduling
Workload management was another pain point. Before, reassigning jobs could mean emails back and forth, or even phone calls to check who was free. Now, with the Service Appointment Gantt, managers could drag and drop jobs to a different technician and know instantly that the change was reflected everywhere.
Technicians saw updated assignments on their end, and customers benefited from faster responses. What used to take hours of coordination could now be done in minutes.
Tying SAP Into the Mix
Profil’s backbone has always included SAP, handling product transfers, notifications, and critical operational data. But SAP and Salesforce had been running side by side without much connection. RA built a direct integration so the two systems finally shared information automatically. When a job was updated in Salesforce, SAP received it.
When SAP triggered a product transfer, Salesforce reflected it right away. No double-entry, no mismatched records. That single link cut down on errors and gave both systems a shared view of what was happening.
Automation Where It Counts
The final layer was automation, tweaking the Salesforce Service Cloud and SAP workflows through an isolated implementation process, to avoid impact global operations. Instead of technicians remembering to send a notification when a job changed, the system did it. Timesheets drew directly from logged activities instead of requiring hours of manual entry. Service updates flowed through automatically to the right people.
For technicians, that meant more time on the road and less admin. For managers, it meant fewer surprises and more predictable operations. For Profil’s customers, it meant issues were addressed faster, with clearer communication from start to finish.
The Results: Service That Finally Runs Smoothly
The impact showed up faster than anyone expected. Within weeks, technicians were finishing their visits and moving straight on to the next job instead of sitting down to wrestle with paperwork. Reports were logged in Salesforce automatically. Timesheets that used to chew up part of Friday afternoon were ready with a couple of clicks.
Managers felt the change just as much. Instead of shuffling through Excel files and trying to guess who could take on another job, they had a real-time view of the schedule. If a customer issue popped up, they dragged the appointment over to a free technician and the system handled the rest. No long email chains. No delays.
The SAP integration solved another long-standing headache. Updates that once had to be typed in twice now flowed through without anyone touching them. A change in Salesforce showed up in SAP, and the other way around. For the first time, the two systems were speaking the same language.
Inside the division, the atmosphere shifted. People weren’t chasing missing data or fighting with forms. They were focused on solving customer problems. Customers noticed. Calls were handled faster. Service felt smoother. Complaints dropped.
For Profil, the before-and-after was clear. What had been a patchwork process became a connected system. The European service team could finally run at the same standard of precision that Profil’s fasteners bring to the automotive assembly line.
