In an extensive project at Vaillant Group, IBsolution stabilized central, group-wide used workflows and migrated the workflow software from SAP BPM 7.31 to SAP PI/PO 7.50 in cooperation with SAP. In addition to project planning and control, the Heilbronn-based SAP consulting company also took over demand management and ensured the operative business through 2nd and 1st level support.
The Vaillant Group, one of the global market and technology leaders in the heating, ventilation and cooling technology sector, relies heavily on processes in its day-to-day business. Workflows, which are used by almost the entire business organisation, are mapped by the system. This applies, for example, to various workflows from the financial area, such as the monthly and annual financial statements in external accounting.
Various in-house developments and the use of non-standard components have made the workflow landscape at Vaillant Group increasingly complex and confusing. If difficulties arose in the processes for the monthly or annual financial statements, time-consuming manual reworking was necessary, which also affected subsequent processes.
Making processes fit for the future
Against this background, Vaillant Group set itself the goal of improving the performance, stability and support of the workflows, modernizing the established processes and preparing them for use in cloud environments. The Heilbronn-based SAP consulting company IBsolution took over the management of the stabilization project for the workflow environment and migrated the processes to a modern basis. The experts used various starting points for this: the infrastructure, the software architecture, the support organization and the process culture.
Important prerequisite for a major project
IBsolution succeeded in the project to improve the stability, flexibility and performance of the workflows, to ensure a functioning support and operation, to eliminate legacy problems and to make the code and implementations future-proof. The fact that the architecture and software were put on a modern basis was also decisive for Vaillant Group in another respect: as part of a separate large-scale project, a simple change to a new IT architecture was to be made possible.
“Our SAP BPM upgrade project is an extraordinary success story,” says Marc Stöver, Team Leader Group IT – Shared Technology Services at Vaillant Group. “Due to the high complexity of the environment, such a smooth project run is by no means a matter of course. I would therefore like to thank all those involved in the project. Now the workflows of Vaillant Group are ready for the move to our new IT architecture”.
Flexible, high-performance and easy to maintain
The complex project comprised numerous individual measures. To achieve greater flexibility, the workflow system was moved from on-premise servers to a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment in the cloud. Changing the operating system of the BPM server from Windows to Linux resulted in easier maintenance and greater stability. The upgrade of the workflow software from SAP BPM 7.31 to SAP PI/PO 7.50 also had a positive effect on stability and performance. The change of the database from MaxDB to SAP HANA ensured a higher speed of the workflows.
By means of an intensive transfer of know-how, the support team was enabled to assist users with problems with the modernized workflows. A concept that worked: The number of monthly incidents was reduced by more than half and the processing time was significantly shortened. In addition, user satisfaction is much higher because the processes work reliably and users hardly have to do any manual work or workarounds.
Optimized process efficiency
Within a few months IBsolution succeeded in making the workflows functional, reliable and performant again. In addition, the stability of the system was restored. Thus, the annual financial statement 2018 could already be executed successfully and without any incidents on the new environment.
“With the successful completion of the project, we have succeeded in stabilizing an environment in which difficulties have occurred several times in recent years – with considerable effects on process efficiency at Vaillant Group,” says Steffen Ascher, Group IT Director at Vaillant Group. “In addition, the success also represents an important step in our overall IT architecture roadmap”.
Photo: Vaillant GmbH
About Vaillant Group
The Vaillant Group is an international company headquartered in Remscheid, Germany, and is active in the fields of heating, ventilation and cooling technology. As one of the world’s market and technology leaders, Vaillant Group develops and produces tailor-made products, systems and services for living comfort. The product portfolio ranges from efficient heating appliances based on conventional energy sources to system solutions for using renewable energies. In financial year 2019 the company, which has been family-owned since its foundation in 1874, achieved sales of €2.6 billion with about 14,000 employees.
About IBsolution
IBsolution is a consulting company specialized in SAP with headquarters in Heilbronn and further locations in Germany, France, Bulgaria and Switzerland. The company sees itself as an expert for all SAP topics in the areas of business analytics, master data management, identity management, security, digitalization and cloud computing. And this already since 2003 – independently and owner-managed. More than 200 dedicated employees create solutions at IBsolution that inspire both the business departments and IT. Customers receive business benefits packed in fixed price packages, nearshore offers and innovative products that ideally complement the SAP portfolio.
