Process integration: Saving time and increasing user acceptance
ebm-papstThe Challenge
At ebm-papst, Industry 4.0 stands for process optimization, process monitoring and production transparency. ebm-papst has been investing in this area for many years and has already received several awards for its successes and achievements to date. In line with this development, another company-wide digitalization project has been initiated in 2020 with the goal of standardizing the IT landscape. Also in this project, the focus was on greater efficiency, transparency, compliance and security. The project included the connection of the tools Jira and SAP Solution Manager that are used in parallel. SAP Solution Manager with the scenarios Solution Documentation and Test Management have been introduced at ebm-papst for rollout projects in 2009. Incident management and change request management have been added to the current processes over the years and are now commonly used by the users. Jira was initially used by Scrum teams to manage projects and tasks within agile software projects and has become the main tool for requirements and projects. Its parallel use caused high efforts as well as confusion among the users and therefore found low acceptance in the team. Therefore, the goal was to migrate the entire operating business to Jira and to connect SAP Solution Manager via interface at the same time. SAP Solution Manager was to be used further due to compliance requirements and its technical strengths in change, deployment and transport management.
The Solution and Benefits
With its product SNP ALM Integrator for Jira, SNP delivers a ready-made solution for the integration of SAP Solution Manager and Jira. Already after the first meeting, it became clear that the SNP solution was a perfect fit for ebm-papst’s requirements.
SNP ALM Integrator for Jira combines technical functionality with easy expandability. At the same time, it enables fast implementation using prepackaged integration scenarios that are based on experiences from integration projects of more than 15 years with SAP Solution Manager. By using official Jira REST APIs, neither additional middleware nor changes in Jira are required.
The solution was implemented and went live as part of an introductory project. In five project days, the team adapted the configuration according to ebm-papst’s requirements, made minor adjustments and added requirements, performed an acceptance test and prepared the go-live.
- Integrated processes enable professional users and IT employees to make the most of the tools
- Increased efficiency and high acceptance by eliminating manual efforts for content
alignment - Very fast implementation thanks to standardized software solution
- Adjustments in Jira not necessary thanks to the standard REST API
SNP connected our systems Jira and SAP Solution Manager, allowing us to combine the agile tools and usability of Jira with the technical strengths of SAP Solution Manager. We can now make the most of both tools to manage our changes and transports. We were impressed by SNP’s solution down the line: It was implemented very quickly and easy to customize to our requirements – and it worked right away!
Christian Salch
Head of IT Business Solutions, ebm-papst
About ebm-papst
The ebm-papst Group is the world’s leading manufacturer of fans and motors. Since its foundation in 1963, the innovative technology company has continuously set global market standards.
With more than 20,000 products, ebm-papst offers the right, energy-efficient and intelligent solution for just about any task in ventilation and drive technology. The company has around 15,000 employees worldwide located across 29 production sites, including Germany, China and the USA, and 51 (58) sales offices (subsidiaries).
