The international customer supplies industrial robots for the semiconductor industry. The software for the control of industrial robots was replaced by a newer software version every 6 months. The development locations were Germany and the USA, the software images were manufactured in France, the packaging in Germany with subsequent worldwide shipping. The process was slow and prone to errors, especially since customer master data was often incorrect in the national companies. Long terms and high delivery rates led to high customer dissatisfaction.

Oparium optimized the original process by fetching software imaging to Germany. Furthermore, production and logistics routes as well as main sources of error were analyzed and changed. In addition, central data marts for customer master data and order data were created, the query surface was designed variably and fully electronic manufacturing processes with decentralized production and logistics processes were introduced. The challenge was to win 42 national companies for this project, to allow necessary access and additional work and to control the development of the data marts and ETL processes.

The measures proposed by Oparium reduced the time-to-customer from 3-5 months to 3 weeks and the error rate from over 30% to less than 1%. Ultimately, a 40% cost reduction was achieved.

The customer manufactures tools for DIY markets and specialist companies and sells them indirectly with a worldwide distribution network. The customer only maintains B2B relationships.

The original task was to optimize internal processes in the areas of purchasing, finance and IT in a cost-conscious manner. In detailed discussions, it was found out that costs for warranty claims had increased massively in recent years. It also turned out that there was no feedback on the causes of the warranty cases for product development. Development processes and the associated error / complaint management were also analyzed. Oparium determined that there was no data on warranty cases (neither technically nor commercially), which is why the development process does not optimize the KVP and the product.

In close cooperation, a web interface was created with a database for registering the warranty cases, analysis tools for data were set up, reports on error susceptibility and for geographical customer analysis for targeted marketing were introduced. The aim was to convince the B2B partners to optimize warranty processing and to get the funds approved by the management.

With the support of Oparium, a return channel and thus transparency of the warranty cases could be created, the product development processes improved and costs in the area of ​​development and warranty reduced.

As an international service provider, transparency of service provision (SLA) and automated accounting were important. In addition to reporting, customers were also increasingly asked to act proactively. Commercial data could only be assigned to the IT services manually.

The original task was to build an SLA reporting portal. Various monitoring tools offered specific reporting functions. However, there was no tool that could cover all requirements. Therefore there were different data islands. Accordingly, it was necessary to create a data pool with technical systems, assets, financial data and the corresponding analysis tools.

Oparium introduced an integration platform to connect all technical systems as well as an asset management system, CRM and SAP. Furthermore, a data pool with corresponding ETL processes was set up, analysis tools for structuring the data for SLA, correlation tools for analyzing log data for proactive error prevention, a return to the ITSM Suite and the Operations Automation Framework. The automation of accounting follows.

The establishment of an organizational data ownership model and the complexity of the interfaces and data models for the different data presented a challenge. Finally, the areas of finance, sales and IT could be agreed. The objective of a contractual provision of the SLA reports within 24 hours without manual work, possibilities of cost simulations, sample billing without manual effort, billing within 24 hours after the monthly closing and a saving of 4 FTE could be achieved at the end of the project.

With the introduction of new products in the area of ​​smart home and energy supply, the static consumption report should be made available to customers in an individual area on the company website in order to order, bill and pay for central services. The task was to control the classic web development. In detailed discussions for implementation planning with the departments, dissatisfaction with the classic implementation was heard. Through preliminary projects in the customer environment, knowledge about existing data was brought in and added value for SmartMeter customers was shown. (Consumption analysis, smart home functions) Different data sources had to be identified and the concept of a Hadoop cluster with corresponding analysis tools and UX display options had to be created.

The solution proposed by the Oparium was to integrate BI tools into the web interface, to rebuild the entire application structure on microservices and to set up CD / CI processes between the specialist departments and the IT department. One goal was to develop a technical concept but also to find support within the group without a budget. Furthermore, the state IT and solution partners had to be convinced of a corresponding test concept and CI process and then trained.

The success paid off through higher and more flexible implementation of requirements from the specialist areas, customer-specific analysis options in the personal web area and through complete automation of testing, integration and deployment.