Off-Highway Powertrain Services – A stable and future-facing SAP

Off-Highway Powertrain Services GmbH – A stable and future-facing SAP.

As a leading global supplier of high-tech powertrain solutions, Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany GmbH makes sure every powertrain performs when needed—in industrial, marine and agricultural applications. For the 20 global locations, a joint ERP system in an SAP environment is critical, but the time had come for the operating system and database to be updated. Thanks to Bechtle’s SAP Managed Services, Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany now works with a stable, future-facing platform and has access to end-to-end support with Bechtle helping maintain the SAP landscape.

Project details.

Services

Managed Services
Software

Industry

Manufacturing

Manufacturer

SAP, Oracle

Company size

250 – 1,500 employees

Challenge.

Off-Highway Powertrain Services is part of the Walterscheid Powertrain Group and provides a wide range of products and services for powertrain systems all planned, managed and organised in a comprehensive SAP landscape that is also used as a central ERP system for finance, controlling and materials management. SAP is, therefore, crucial for operations and production at the company’s sites in Europe, the USA and Asia meaning the systems must always be up-to-date and stable. It became clear during stock-taking that the previously used database solutions and Windows releases would very soon no longer be supported by SAP, which is why a transformation roadmap for a future-proof system landscape was jointly developed. After the upgrade, all SAP systems should run without errors and be managed by experts within the framework of a transition to Managed Services.

Bechtle carried out the update so quickly and easily that we didn’t even notice it was happening. It was all very impressive and today our systems are all running stably—just as Bechtle promised. They really took care of everything SAP-related so that our IT department could focus on their core tasks.

Thomas Wasmuth, IS/IT Director Services, Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany GmbH

Solution.

On the back of a long-term, successful partnership, Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany approached Bechtle for support in day-to-day IT operations. After a thorough analysis of the existing SAP systems, Bechtle first updated the Windows Server version and the Oracle database and worked closely with Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany to define next steps in a series of workshops.

Bechtle then updated the underlying Windows platform and the previously used Oracle database before upgrading ERP 6.0 to the latest Enhancement Package version. In this way, Bechtle paved the way for Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany’s SAP ERP systems to be migrated to new (virtual) servers (Windows 2016). To do so, Bechtle created a heterogeneous system copy in which the latest version was installed before the entire system was transferred. Bechtle continuously and intensively tested the concept so that there would be no errors during the actual data migration via the SAP Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM). In the end, Bechtle needed just one weekend to migrate all the data and, apart from a few previously agreed downtimes, the employees of Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany remained oblivious to what was going on. The Bechtle experts held regular update meetings with Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany to coordinate the project.

Since the update, Bechtle actively monitors the SAP systems, generates a report and checklist every morning and manages the entire SAP landscape. This includes installing security patches, monitoring the lifecycle and continually optimising the system. The regular meetings continue to take place and Bechtle uses them to make suggestions for further optimisation. Locations in the USA and China benefit from Bechtle’s 24×7 support.

Business benefits.

By updating the database and Windows versions, Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany’s SAP systems are now stable and save costs as both system and production downtimes are avoided and risks kept to a minimum. The entire SAP landscape is now perfectly optimised for the future with support secured until at least 2024 and Bechtle taking care of everything the company needs to run its SAP environment within the framework of a Managed Services contract. Thanks to Bechtle’s 24×7 support, Off-Highway Powertrain Services Germany is able to continuously optimise and its technology is always up-to-date.