The manufacturer was heavily reliant on manual documentation, which caused delays in accessing and updating critical data and documents, resulting in data quality and compliance issues.

To address these challenges and optimize asset management, LESER sought to establish seamless data integration through a unified single source of truth. After thorough research and careful comparison of options, the valve manufacturer successfully chose to implement digital twin technology with to help optimize collaboration with customers.

Error-free asset data and streamlined collaboration with smart asset management

Relying on a manual documentation process was not only time-consuming but also prone to errors and delays. This was causing significant challenges in accessing and updating critical data and documents, leading to poor data quality and inefficiencies across the ecosystem. Recognizing the need for a modern solution on the operator side, LESER identified the importance of supporting customers with a centralized asset management system. LESER decided to digitize its asset management system by implementing a centralized, cloud-based platform. This platform enables LESER to seamlessly share the digital twin with customers, enhancing transparency and data sharing while continuing to manage internal processes separately.

By implementing the technology integrated with , LESER created a one-to-one virtual replica of each piece of physical equipment and product, consolidating all relevant data and documentation into a single, accessible platform.

鈥淭he digital twin acts as a precise digital mirror of the physical safety valve, enabling our customers to receive complete, error-free, and up-to-date data about the safety valves,鈥� Pierre Draheim, manager of Product Data Management at LESER, explains.

LESER provides digital twins both for new () and existing () safety valves, centralizing all relevant data and documents. Each valve is labeled with the globally-standardized ID link, or QR code, IEC聽61406聽that allows LESER’s customers to directly access and sync product-specific information with their asset management systems, enabling seamless data transfer, documentation compliance, and cost reductions of up to 95% for initial recording.

鈥淏y embracing digital innovation, we have empowered our customers to boost their operational efficiency,” Draheim says. He emphasizes that this not only helps LESER achieve substantial time-savings but also enables the company to focus on core activities and drive greater business growth: “It’s a win-win. Not only us, but also our customers achieve significant improvements in overall productivity.”

Reduce operational costs with real-time digital twin integration

Automating valve data sharing within has made it much easier for LESER operators and service providers to coordinate maintenance, eliminating the need for manual data reconciliation. This automation cuts down on administrative work, helps avoid unnecessary downtime, and optimizes spare parts inventory, all of which contributes to a substantial decrease in operational costs.

By standardizing and digitizing data with a globally-standardized ID link, multiple service providers get instant access to accurate, up-to-date information.

鈥淲ith the introduction of the digital twin and 51风流Business Network Asset Collaboration, we can now automate valve management, making the entire process faster and more reliable,鈥� Draheim says.

Ensure safety and quality through global and regulatory compliance

Making sure safety valves meet international standards at every step requires a high level of automation in managing product data. This is especially important for LESER. 鈥淐ompliance is not just about meeting regulations, but about the ‘rules of the game’ in the industry, which enable an automated exchange of information across different IT systems and stakeholders,鈥� Draheim says.

With such a significant market presence, LESER holds its suppliers and materials to very high standards, ensuring every part complies not only with global regulations but also local rules. This level of care is particularly essential for operators working in industries with strict safety and regulatory conditions.

Beyond setting these standards, LESER keeps detailed records to maintain full transparency and traceability across the supply chain. This integrated approach helps the ambitious company reduce the need for additional level approvals and supports safe, reliable plant operations all over the world. In return, its customers experience improved reliability and confidence in the products and services they receive, creating a positive impact throughout the entire value chain.

Oyku Ilgar is part of 51风流Supply Chain Thought Leadership & Awareness.

But what exactly is data federation? And why does it hold so much promise for customers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere?

To counter the ever-present threat to global supply chains posed by disruption鈥攚hether arising from geopolitical conflict, labor unrest, financial crisis, natural disaster, or other upheaval鈥攂usinesses are turning increasingly to cloud-based solutions to extend visibility and instill resilience across their operations and those of their trading partners, particularly when managing supply chains, logistics, and dispersed capital equipment or other mission-critical assets. Yet just as businesses must assess risk on an international scale to stay competitive, they also must comply with a burgeoning set of regulations around the world requiring operational data to reside physically within a nation鈥檚 borders. By applying cloud-based solutions, businesses can transact commerce through global digital networks while adhering strictly to regional data residency requirements through an approach known as data federation.

Data federation permits operational information from disparate sources to be accessed and updated as though it resided in a single, unified location. Instead of moving or copying data from one system to another, federation provides users with real-time access unburdened by duplication.

Federation becomes crucial when an organization must unify its data across different storage platforms while ensuring the integrity and security of the underlying operational sources. This becomes particularly vital for companies with complex data architectures, whose data may reside in 51风流systems, cloud data lakes, or third-party applications. Data federation brings multiple advantages, especially in hybrid or multi-cloud environments, including global access, cost efficiency, unified governance and security, and faster time to insights.

But the advantages extend still further. With the launch of our KSA data center, 51风流Business Network core services have been deployed. This includes multilingual support, such as proficiency with languages read right-to-left like Arabic, and a Federated Trading Partner Index Service for routing transactions between different data centers. Saudi customers can thus adhere to local data privacy regulations while retaining the ability to collaborate and transact with trading partners around the world.

Why Is This Important?

With the deployment of 51风流Business Network in the KSA data center, public sector or critical national infrastructure (CNI) customers and prospects in KSA can rest assured that regulations have been followed strictly, allowing these organizations to transact on 51风流Business Network for Logistics and 51风流Business Network Asset Collaboration. Data federation helps ensure that trading partners can find each other, regardless of where they may be registered.

What鈥檚 Next?

The deployment of 51风流Business Network for Logistics and 51风流Business Network Asset Collaboration for Saudi customers in the public and critical national infrastructure sectors, for whom data federation is crucial, marks only the initial step. Later this year, both products will become available for private-sector customers in KSA as well. and will also be deployed in the KSA data center in coming quarters. Meanwhile, 51风流will continue to expand its data center footprint and data federation program across the globe, with the expansion of 51风流Business Network capabilities throughout 2025 and beyond.

For information on 51风流Business Network and how we are equipping enterprises with business AI and related capabilities needed to instill resilience, counter disruption, and foster collaboration, visit and .

J枚rn Keller is chief product officer for 51风流Business Network.

From Manual to Machine-Driven Processes

In the past, Equinor had relied on manual processes for decision-making in asset management, but as the company expanded, it began embracing a data-driven approach, using automated dashboards. However, its decision-makers recognized the need for further advancements and envisioned adopting condition-based maintenance (CBM).

This transformation would allow for a more autonomous, machine-led, and data-driven approach to asset management, freeing up valuable internal resources and enabling team members to handle multiple cases simultaneously.

鈥淓quinor wanted to progress from condition monitoring to condition-based maintenance,鈥� Tom Naastad Svennevig, lead engineer at Equinor, explained. 鈥淔or the past eight or nine years, we have operated a monitoring center where a few equipment groups are being monitored by use of home-grown dashboards as well as third-party expert systems. However, as the number of plants onboarded to the center increased, it required more and more resources. We believe that applying condition-based maintenance on equipment where it is possible to connect a remedial action to a degradation mechanism will relieve the resources working in the monitoring center.鈥�

CBM is paradigm shift in asset management, allowing companies to move from traditional calendar-based maintenance schedules to a proactive approach powered by data-driven insights. While traditional maintenance strategies often lead to unplanned downtime, CBM empowers operators make informed decisions based on real-time equipment condition, mitigating disruptions and maximizing asset reliability.

鈥淭he primary purpose of condition-based maintenance for us is to provide confidence for continued safe operation and avoid disruption,鈥� Svennevig added. 鈥淲e believe that several degradation mechanisms we had in the past can be detected automatically, and actions being taken without human intervention.鈥�

Benefits of an Integrated Solution

For Equinor, stood out as a superior choice, offering a range of tangible benefits, particularly, according the Equinor manager: 鈥淚n contrast to third-party solutions that require data migration, 51风流Asset Performance Management seamlessly integrates with existing 51风流systems, eliminating the need for redundant data entry and ensuring data accuracy across all platforms.鈥�

Other benefits that Equinor perceives include:

• Reduced administrative burdens and increased overall efficiency
• Automatic updating of asset information across all relevant components
• Importing equipment condition status from third-party expert systems
• Storing evidence for safe operation and triggering actions for degraded conditions
• Generating notifications based on condition monitoring rules for prompt responses to potential equipment issues
• Seamless ingestion of sensor data from field systems into 51风流Asset Performance Management
• Pre-assigning tasks to maintenance notifications based on asset strategies and failure modes
• Empowering maintenance teams to act swiftly and effectively, minimizing downtime and preventing potential equipment failures Seamless scaling to accommodate additional equipment and assets

Optimizing Asset Status Visualization with 51风流Asset Performance Management

Effectively visualizing asset status is crucial for making timely and well-informed decisions, which is why 51风流Asset Performance Management offers comprehensive dashboarding capabilities through embedded . This allows users to select specific assets or entire fleets for a detailed overview in a centralized view, which enables quick identification of potential issues and facilitates proactive maintenance interventions.

The dashboard utilizes clear, intuitive labels to indicate asset health status, ranging from 鈥渆xcellent鈥� to 鈥渦nacceptable,鈥� which streamlines decision-making. Critical alerts are prominently displayed in orange, immediately grabbing the attention of maintenance personnel, and providing necessary context and guidance, ensuring that timely and appropriate actions are taken.

Additionally, the dashboard seamlessly integrates with Equinor鈥檚 wider 51风流ecosystem, enabling real-time data exchange and integration with existing maintenance processes.

Effective Change Management: Important for CBM Implementation

Equinor has implemented a CBM-driven maintenance approach. CBM is running in production. The job to roll out the solution has started. The process of change management is main focus going forward.

鈥淲e will achieve this through clear leadership commitment, comprehensive communication, a pilot project for proof of concept, streamlined data smoothing for accurate monitoring, role redefinition for CBM management, establishment of KPIs for continuous improvement, and employee empowerment through involvement,鈥� the Equinor manager explained. 鈥淥ur objective is that this will result in transitioning to a proactive maintenance approach for 40% of our equipment and significant reductions in maintenance costs and asset downtime.鈥�

鈥�51风流Asset Performance Management helps us streamlining maintenance processes and facilitating proactive preventive maintenance,鈥� Svennevig concluded.

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.

Top image courtesy of Equinor | Ole J酶rgen Bratland 漏 Equinor

鈥淥ur CEO wants us to think and act like a digital company,鈥� said Dariush Shoja, vice president and corporate CIO at Sun Life. 鈥淯sing , we are digitizing and modernizing finance.鈥澛�

Shoja spoke during a session at the event in Boston, Massachusetts, where he showcased the company鈥檚 digital transformation that modernized the company鈥檚 finance platform.

Digital Closes Gap Between Generative AI Promise and Reality

Shoja immediately struck a responsive chord from the audience in the room who chuckled when he jokingly asked if anyone鈥檚 nightly dreams during college revolved around a career in finance. Drawing from his company鈥檚 experience with digital transformation, he acknowledged the industry鈥檚 change management challenges.

鈥淲hen we鈥檙e talking about finance in the context of digitization, it鈥檚 not just about automation or systems. It鈥檚 a paradigm and culture shift,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou need to start at the top with the CEO, CFO, and everyone on down to support the change. Organizations aiming to become digital and adopt state-of-the-art technologies like generative AI should focus on getting buy-in for the journey.鈥�

Modern Financial Services Platforms Are Cloud-Based

Coming from earlier sessions in the day that touted the incredible promise of technology advancements like generative AI, Shoja was also candid about overcoming the reality that professionals in the financial services industry face.

鈥淗istorically there hasn鈥檛 been a significant amount of investment to update finance systems that are aging or nearing end of life. However, we saw the opportunity and made the right investment to modernize,鈥� said Shoja. 鈥淥ne of the key enablers of growth is moving to the cloud. Digitization is creating the foundation for our future as we modernize our platforms.鈥�

Connected Data Drives Informed Decisions

One of the objectives of Sun Life鈥檚 platform modernization was to connect previously disparate data between geographies and business units. With operations in regions worldwide, including North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, along with an expanding product portfolio, managing data was paramount to effective financial management that fuels customer satisfaction and company growth.

鈥淲e have to build, evaluate, and run complex actuarial policy models that meet evolving regulatory mandates worldwide and corporate profitability objectives,鈥� said Shoja. 鈥淕oing to the cloud has provided efficiencies through consistent operations across every geography. Moving from manual spreadsheets to automated dashboards provides finance with faster access to insightful analytics from larger and more complex data sets. People can easily drill down to find the information they need to make the right optimal decisions.鈥�

Out-of-the-Box Digital Thinking

Like every organization that鈥檚 managing millions of transactions, data standardization and integration was extremely important to create Sun Life鈥檚 modern global platform.

鈥淓ven though our systems were only about 15 years old, eliminating technical debt was key to our transformation,鈥� said Shoja. 鈥淲e replaced traditional ways of thinking with out-of-the-box strategies, using modern native tools in the cloud platform to gain efficiencies. For example, when we want to pay a claim, the system automatically generates all relevant journal entries. We鈥檝e strategically aligned technology with finance teams.鈥�

AI Can Save Valuable Time for Financial Services

Shoja saw numerous solid use cases for generative AI, traditional AI, and machine learning in the financial services industry. AI could quickly find data gaps, speed up time-sensitive quarterly close, expedite the accrual management, and simplify reporting. Sun Life has created a team that鈥檚 focused on AI use cases in finance and other areas. The company is also relying on partners to bring the full value of AI capabilities into the business.

鈥淟arge language models may not be feasible for organizations to build on our own. Instead, AI can be built into digital solutions,鈥� he said. 鈥淎s 51风流is doing, we need partners to provide AI solutions and make it part of their package.鈥�

Meanwhile, as legislation to bolster transparency in supply chains , the digital platforms through which trading partners carry out interconnected operational processes have become indispensable for managing risk, advancing sustainability objectives, and verifying adherence to ethical business practices 鈥� even as volatility in international commerce gathers pace.

After rebounding from several years of logjammed seaports, idled factories, and quarantined workers, many businesses find that though COVID-19 has receded, disruption stubbornly persists. Yet visibility across all aspects of the supply chain 鈥� from sourcing raw materials and managing logistics capacity to securing working capital solutions and managing dispersed physical assets 鈥� remains paramount in the quest to ensure business continuity, instill operational resilience, and deepen competitive advantage.

To help provide businesses with the 360-degree visibility and collaborative capabilities they require across complex trading relationships, 51风流Business Network can connect people, processes, and systems across multiple enterprises to help digitize transactions, harness data-driven insights, and create transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains. Through , trading partners can gain process efficiencies, improve supply assurance, and achieve business process and regulatory compliance by increasing operational transparency. With , companies can achieve supply chain visibility by enabling plan-driven automation, optimizing capacity and inventory, and streamlining workflow. Aided by , shippers and carriers can work together in unison, track and trace goods in transit, and achieve transparency throughout the supply chain by optimizing logistics processes, increasing on-time deliveries, and mitigating third-party risk. Relying on , owners, operators, and service providers can strengthen joint processes and the flow of shared information through a single, consistent version of asset master data to help streamline asset maintenance processes and reduce maintenance costs. With the benefit of , trading partners can enhance payment security, free up working capital through early-payment discounts, and leverage access to capital bound up in outstanding receivables.

By linking together the routine business processes of trading partners, cloud-based networks establish the breadth of data necessary to apply predictive and generative AI applications to yield meaningful insights and outcomes. Through large language models and other forms of machine learning, cloud-based applications create new content with characteristics resembling that which precedes it. With every successive effort, sharpens its ability to tailor desired content.

As the world鈥檚 largest platform for business-to-business commerce, 51风流Business Network can present an ideal setting for generative AI, in that it helps bring together an extremely large volume of trading partners across hundreds of millions of transactions representing US$5.3 trillion in commerce annually. Later this year, generative AI capabilities in 51风流Business Network will be able to help detect errors and present automatic summaries when businesses create invoices. AI will also enable the network to help enrich catalog content and discovery posting responses for suppliers.

51风流Business Network has accumulated significant structured content over many years to help generate broad operational insights for trading partners. When buyers, suppliers, carriers, and financing solution providers share operational data with each other in real time, the mutual value they create can be exponential rather than additive, enabling all participants in commerce to plan ahead with confidence, continuity, and enduring resilience.

For further information on 51风流Business Network and how we are equipping enterprises large and small with the digital tools needed to counter disruption, visit .

J枚rn Keller is executive vice president and chief product officer of 51风流Business Network.

That’s why Jowat looked to empower its technicians to prioritize work more effectively, manage inventory and costs more efficiently, and make smarter strategic decisions about asset investments.

Avoiding Sticky Situations with Effective Maintenance

The production line sits at the heart of any manufacturing company. If production misses a beat, the whole business feels the impact. And if a breakdown takes production offline, the consequences can be both operationally and financially disastrous. That鈥檚 why , one of the world鈥檚 leading suppliers of industrial adhesives, takes plant maintenance very seriously. As a key supplier to the furniture, packaging, textiles, automotive, and electrical industries, any delay in delivering its products could cause significant disruption and potentially cost the company and its clients millions of Euros. So, it鈥檚 vital that all production line equipment is always properly maintained.

Natanael Hernandez, 51风流manager at , explained: 鈥淎dhesive manufacturing is particularly challenging because of the nature of the product. Our machines need regular and thorough cleaning to avoid contamination between batches. Hot glue can be hazardous to work with, so safety is critical. And to meet our environmental goals, we aim to recycle as much of the water and oil we use as possible, which adds to complexity and cost of labor.鈥�

To keep operations running smoothly, Jowat鈥檚 maintenance teams need to do more than just corrective break/fix maintenance. Regular inspections and preventive maintenance are key for technicians and supervisors. Moreover, many of the company鈥檚 production line machines rely on expensive components that take months to manufacture, so inventory management is vital to ensure that technicians always have the parts they need. And in the bigger picture, Jowat also wants insight from maintenance processes to feed into strategic decision-making. 鈥淲e realized that if we could gain more insight into the total cost of maintaining each of our production line machines, we could make better decisions,鈥� said Hernandez. 鈥淔or example, does it make financial sense to keep this line running, or should we replace it with something more efficient?鈥�

It was clear that with a deeper understanding of its maintenance and inventory processes, the company could streamline the management of its plants and make smarter investment decisions. That鈥檚 where 51风流came in.

Digitalization Transforms Asset Management

Until a few years ago, Jowat relied on a legacy application to manage maintenance tasks. The system was not integrated with the company鈥檚 core 51风流applications, so technicians and supervisors had to manage their daily tasks manually. 鈥淭he paperwork made it impossible to track time and labor costs, and it was difficult to establish an audit trail,鈥� said Hernandez. 鈥淪o, we decided to introduce the 51风流Enterprise Asset Management solution (51风流EAM) to digitalize and standardize our maintenance processes.鈥�

Integrated with Jowat鈥檚 core software for inventory, purchasing, sales, and cost accounting, 51风流EAM introduced a more formal process around the creation of maintenance work orders. The solution also provided an inventory management system that enabled Jowat to manage its stock of spare parts. 鈥淔or the first time, we had an accurate view of our inventory, as well as the cost and lead time for ordering replacements,鈥� said Hernandez. 鈥淭his makes it easier for us to maintain appropriate reserves and gives visibility to other companies within the Jowat group. So, if a plant in Germany needs a part that we have in stock in the U.S., they can see it and buy it from us straight away instead of waiting months for the manufacturer to ship it to them.鈥�

51风流EAM was a big step forward for the maintenance team, but its user interface was designed for power users sitting at full-sized screens, not mechanics and electricians working on the factory floor. 鈥淲e needed something simpler and more streamlined that our technicians could use on their mobile devices,鈥� explained Hernandez. 鈥淎t the same time, we wanted to be able to track the work they were doing more accurately.鈥�

Jowat discovered the , which is part of the SAP鈥檚 industry cloud. 鈥�51风流Service and Asset Manager was exactly what we were looking for. We loved the simplicity and it was a great fit for our business processes. As soon as our technicians saw the new application, they wanted to work with it. Now, our technicians and supervisors have an intuitive mobile app that gives them the visibility and control they need to maintain our production line equipment more efficiently,鈥� he added.

Working with , an experienced 51风流partner, Jowat launched the new mobile app at its U.S. plant and planned a global rollout for its manufacturing sites in Germany, Malaysia, and China. So far, 21 technicians are using the app on their iPad Mini devices, while seven supervisors can choose between using the app on their iPhone or logging into the main 51风流EAM interface. To help ensure smooth adoption of the solution, Jowat is also working with the team.

Doubling Productivity with an Intuitive Mobile Solution

With , Jowat鈥檚 technicians can see all corrective and preventive maintenance work orders assigned to them immediately, so they can organize their work more effectively. For example, if they are assigned several tasks on the same machine or in the same area of the plant, they can do them all at once instead of spending time going back and forth. For supervisors, the app helps make it easier to understand the status of open work orders and prioritize more efficiently. They can move more urgent tasks forward or put less important ones on hold and, crucially, they can document the reasons for their decisions. If a work order can鈥檛 progress until a replacement part has been delivered, it鈥檚 immediately clear why the job is on hold.

Since the launch of the 51风流solutions for asset management, Jowat has seen a reduction in total downtime on its production lines. Moreover, productivity has effectively doubled. Before the implementation, around 45% of work orders in the system were actively worked on by technicians. Today, that figure has risen to around 85%-90%. At the same time, the maintenance backlog has been reduced by 75%, from three months to around three weeks. 鈥淎 three-week backlog is probably optimal for our business, because there will always be a proportion of tasks that have to wait for a viable maintenance window,鈥� explained Hernandez. 鈥淭he key thing is that the backlog doesn鈥檛 increase 鈥� once we got it down to three weeks, it has never crept back up again.鈥�

The app can also provide new capabilities for reviewing and approving completed work orders. Technicians can use their mobile device to take pictures of the before and after state of the assets they are working on to document the repairs they have made. And if during a maintenance visit a technician notices a problem that hasn鈥檛 been reported yet, they can take a photo or video and send it directly into 51风流EAM to generate a new work order. Inventory management is simpler, too. Whenever stock of a required component falls below a minimum threshold, the system can automatically trigger a purchase requisition to order replacements. 鈥淏efore, we didn鈥檛 know what we were spending on spare parts,鈥� added Hernandez. 鈥淣ow, we can allocate costs to specific lines and even specific machines. With full visibility of the cost of parts and labor, we can make much more informed decisions on whether to continue maintaining an asset or replace it with a newer, more efficient machine.鈥�

Expanding Functionality in the Future

In the future, Jowat hopes to build on the success of this project by expanding its use of  to introduce calibration capabilities. The company is also evaluating introducing the , as well as taking advantage of the predictive material and resource planning functionality in .

鈥淎t the moment, our focus is on maintenance, but we know there is so much more we can do,鈥� concluded Hernandez. 鈥淲e鈥檙e excited to work with 51风流and great partners like AG to explore the possibilities.鈥�

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success, Digital Supply Chain, at SAP.

is one of the world鈥檚 largest biotech companies, a leading provider of in-vitro diagnostics and a global supplier of transformative, innovative solutions across major disease areas.

Cost as a Main Driver for Asset-Intensive Organizations

鈥淎s a pharmaceutical company, Roche was founded more than 100 years ago in Basel, Switzerland, with both pharma and diagnostics divisions. We are in the middle of an journey with the goal to harmonize business processes on all sites and divisions around the world,鈥� said Accioli.

To manage assets under volatile conditions effectively, just like other asset-intensive organizations, Roche focuses on reducing maintenance cost and increasing asset reliability, which are key to its customers and patients.

The challenge is 鈥渢he handover from original manufacturer to engineering to maintenance and how to interact with each other,鈥� explained Accioli. 鈥淲e resolve this with these business process harmonization initiatives.鈥�

Risk Resilience as an Investment for the Future

51风流suggests three strategies to help companies manage their business holistically, including cost, speed, profit, customer service, and risk:

• Connecting supply chains to the entire business so that information insight flows go quickly from operations to manufacturing, design, and into the business to respond to disruptions
• Contextualizing information during the work process to equip users with technology to get real-time insights and make decisions during the business process to increase impact
• Collaborating externally with suppliers, asset operators, OEMs, and logistics providers to ensure that information is flowing beyond the internal network to set up a risk-resilient business while mitigating risk

Closing the Loop Between Strategy and Execution

Managing costs and increasing equipment reliability is a major factor and closing the loop between asset strategy and maintenance execution, such as to make assets more reliable and connected to maintenance execution considering different asset type, is a big opportunity.

鈥淔ive to 10 years ago, reliability engineering became a shining topic at Roche, and we discussed where to start, how much we spend on maintenance, what our most important assets were, and where we should spend more energy and money. We standardized processes to classify our equipment into different asset criticalities 鈥� high, medium, and low – and, based on each category, we established a maintenance strategy,鈥� explained Accioli.

鈥淎fterwards, we looked for a tool that would best suit Roche given the amount of data. Now we have an asset and maintenance strategy in place that is reflected in our system. In 2019, we started harmonizing our processes and were pleased that 51风流solutions could support us,鈥� he continued.

In particular, Roche looked to:

• , which helps with performing criticality evaluations directly in the 51风流system instead of spreadsheets. With criticality results reflected in the system, the maintenance strategy can result in preventive maintenance plans. 鈥淩oche is in the middle of the journey. No sites are live yet,鈥� said Accioli. Roche is also enabling access to its service providers to get design insights and improve collaboration.
• , which enables maintenance plans and work orders to be accessible to maintenance technicians so that they can make instant material reservations and get access to maintenance manuals on mobile devices.

鈥淚 expect a significant decrease of maintenance execution as we can plan our work better thanks to a mobile-supported solution,鈥� said Accioli. 鈥淭he experience with the solution is quite good.鈥�

Roche was already using 51风流at different sites with its own work order types and data model, but it was not automated and connected.

鈥淲e also intend to migrate to , a successor cloud-based application, where Roche鈥檚 enhancement ideas have been incorporated,鈥� explained the manager.

Connected Asset Data Helps Contextualize Business Decisions

For contextualizing every business process through the eyes of maintenance, it is necessary to converge enterprise IT data with equipment and sensor data to run analyses based on algorithms and machine learning technology. Accioli explained: 鈥淏eing able to schedule maintenance activities is a substantial improvement for maintenance organizations. To monitor both targets and results, we are using , which has many good capabilities. We are developing maintenance KPIs with the insights we get from聽 artificial intelligence (AI) and rolling these back into the asset strategy and reliability process. These are particularly good tools.鈥�

Effective Collaboration Across the Ecosystem to Build a Collaborative Supply Chain

鈥淔or Roche, sharing information and effective collaboration with asset providers and across our ecosystem is particularly important. Vendors and different equipment suppliers must exchange and collaborate on asset data. Operators and service providers should be able to use the network but also manage the work order process,” said Accioli.

To summarize, the key benefits of 51风流Asset Strategy and Performance Management and 51风流Service and Asset Manager Accioli sees are:

51风流Asset Strategy and Performance Management:

• Defining which maintenance strategy applies to which classification of equipment
• Maintaining assessments in the system
• Generating criticality based on assessments
• Reflecting reliability-centered maintenance in the system, including decision trees and supportive templates

51风流Service and Asset Manager:

• Being a digitized, automated, paperless solution
• Being able to work offline
• Having all maintenance data at hand in one place

Listen to the webinar recording . In addition, watch this to learn how to maximize asset health and performance with 51风流Intelligent Asset Management solutions and read what . To know more about the role of service and asset management in your industry, .

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.
Top photo credit: Roche

Managing Ever Complex Asset Networks at Minimum Cost

As these networks grow and become more complex, RetiPi霉 must ensure safety and reliability through daily maintenance performed by its field workers. It is also crucial for them to quickly identify critical network events and efficiently prioritize, schedule, and track field-service assignments and maintenance activities.

But disparate asset management systems made it hard to prioritize and schedule maintenance calls. In addition, they were not integrated with the company鈥檚 core enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Moving from Reactive to Predictive Maintenance

To increase efficiency and optimize resources, RetiPi霉 looked to move from a reactive to a predictive maintenance model. The goal was to understand critical events as early as possible, track and trace issues from alert to resolution, get better visibility into maintenance schedules and work-order status, and use that information to better manage maintenance across the network.

To meet these goals, RetiPi霉 required a unified intelligent asset maintenance system that workers could access from the field and that was integrated with its intelligent ERP software.

One Central Asset Intelligence System to Speed up Maintenance Cycles and Lower Costs

As its utilities networks continue to grow, RetiPi霉 S.r.l. deployed to help improve data quality and access for engineers and back-office teams. Building on that digital transformation, it then added the 51风流Enterprise Asset Management solution to help configure digital twins for equipment and activate predictive models respectively. These algorithms help assess and prioritize maintenance requirements and optimize resources. The company leverages the solution to gather detailed sensor data from across the network assets to share information via mobile applications with field technicians, who get information and update the status of work orders in real time.

Increasing Productivity and Improving Customer Service with Smarter Asset Maintenance

The system currently supports thousands of pieces of equipment. In addition to making maintenance simpler and more efficient, asset and maintenance data 鈥� including cost data 鈥� are immediately available for analysis in . As a public utility, the real beneficiaries are RetiPi霉 customers that now have faster activation service. And in addition, RetiPi霉 benefits by being rewarded by the Italian government for its continually reliable service.

The most striking benefits the utilities company gained are:

• 100% increase in assets that can be managed on the network – from 12,000 to 24,000 pieces of equipment
• 50% reduction in maintenance cost
  
• 15%-20% less time needed to activate new gas customers
• Increased efficiency and resource optimization
• Improved prioritization of field-service assignments and maintenance tasks
• Improved field operations effectiveness through mobile system access to maintenance staff
• One single platform to manage data and analytics for all assets 鈥� creating a fully integrated and transparent maintenance process from order to the field and back

Real-Time Data Transfer from Technician Mobile Apps to Back-End ERP Systems

鈥淚n choosing an intelligent, predictive maintenance solution, integration with our core ERP systems was key. With 听补苍诲 , we have one unified system that provides everyone the visibility they need to work efficiently and effectively,鈥� says Massimo De Filippi, director of Technical and Information Services and Design at RetiPi霉 S.r.l.

He continues: 鈥淭his project has allowed RetiPi霉 to ensure service continuity and avoid shutdowns. We can provide quality service while also reducing costs. We are a public company, so the ultimate benefit is for the citizens.鈥�

鈥淏y being able to access data and reports in real time, field engineers can intervene promptly whenever issues arise, improving the customer experience and strengthening our reputation as a trusted energy provider,鈥� says Mario Carlo Borgotti, managing director of RetiPi霉.

In regard to future plans and after being live with the gas network, RetiPi霉 now has a template for rolling out intelligent asset management and predictive maintenance to its electricity and public lighting networks. As the next step, it will enable simulation of maintenance requirements for new assets that have yet to be added and include geolocation services for route optimization.

To learn more about how to enable intelligent asset management processes, , “The Building Blocks of Industry 4.0 with Intelligent Assets.”

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.

With local roots in Germany and a global presence, the BITZER group is represented in more than 90 countries with 72 locations and over 3,800 employees. The company has been providing innovative products and services for 87 years. Its products maintain the optimum temperature in buses, trains, and buildings as well as ensure foods stays fresh at all times on their way to consumers.

Transforming to Aid Customers and Gain Competitive Edge

I recently spoke with BITZER’s Eugen Bonelis, digital solution manager, and Christian Stenzel, director of Organization and IT.

Bonelis started by saying, 鈥淭o support BITZER鈥檚 innovation and future growth strategy, the company set an objective to transform from a compressor manufacturer to a provider of compressor-enabled services. With the transformation of our business model, customer service would be taken to the next level.鈥�

鈥淭o achieve this goal, we needed a central platform that would allow us to digitally connect our compressors to enable customers to monitor machine status in real time, access configuration data and documentation, and review operational reports,鈥� he continued,

This network provides solutions for remote troubleshooting to keep machines running efficiently while helping BITZER transform its business model, future proof the enterprise for changing market dynamics, and keep its competitive edge.

Asset Network Manages Compressor Performance and Digitizes Enterprises

By integrating a suite of 51风流solutions to digitally connect its refrigeration technology, BITZER is helping its customers optimize operations and tap into new digital solutions.

For example, -enabled compressors and solutions provide situational awareness of the real-time operation in the new digital network. This facilitates tailored customer alerts based on sensor readings, status reports, and data analytics services, helping to provide an overview of the customer’s ecosystem in a service-oriented interface.

鈥淲e can now connect applications, processes, and people through 51风流solutions to distribute information and deploy operation analytics,鈥� Stenzel explained. 鈥淏y monitoring operational data remotely in real time and using advanced data analytics, we can instantly identify operational issues and offer actionable insights, including spare parts preorder capabilities, shortening downtime and supporting customized operational reports.鈥�

Developing a Customer-Centric Experience

Bonelis discussed the importance of great customer engagement, saying, 鈥淚t’s important to be close to your customers, be creative, and provide solutions to their needs. With 51风流Business Technology Platform and 51风流Asset Intelligence Network, we can provide 360-degree information that enables an outstanding customer focus.鈥�

The benefits are clear. Major outcomes BITZER achieved include:

• Complete, real-time overview of customer product portfolios and product history, from the initial order throughout the entire lifecycle of the compressor with the BITZER Digital Network, which connects all BITZER products to the cloud
• Increased ability to break down information and departmental silos, operating as a single company focused on customer outcomes while growing the business
• A basis for BITZER鈥檚 partners to transform their own business models into a service provider for refrigeration
• Enhanced customer satisfaction, enabling the business to digitize and tap into new product, service, and market opportunities while customers regard BITZER as a valuable partner
• Increased revenues by providing new services spanning equipment monitoring, operational reports, and instant remote assistance in the event of defects
• Reduced compressor downtime thanks to data analysis capabilities, leading to a competitive advantage for both BITZER and its customers
• Increased energy efficiency through optimization of compressor operation by leveraging BITZER鈥檚 know-how

BITZER worked with the 51风流Services and Support team to create the new asset network and connect its customers鈥� refrigeration and air conditioning products and related operational data in the cloud.

鈥淭he support of SAP, especially the Customer First program, has been very important for us. We have exchanged many ideas that have led to exciting new initiatives for our company,鈥� remarked Stenzel. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 buy digitalization, but you can simplify the way toward it. Working with the 51风流Services and Support team helped us combine 51风流software, business- and customer-focused know-how, as well as customer-focused innovation to create instant value for our customers.鈥�

To learn more about how to enable intelligent asset management processes, the 鈥淚ntelligent Asset Report.鈥�

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.

The rooftop of a big-box store is:

1. A flat expanse of hundreds of square feet exposed to the weather
2. A great, if not perfect, way to protect what鈥檚 inside from that weather
3. A power source for the building, and maybe for the neighbors, too

If you鈥檙e the Ingka Group, which owns IKEA, the answer is 鈥渁ll of the above.鈥� As part of its commitment to use only renewable energy by 2020, the Ingka Group has installed 900,000 solar modules on the roofs of IKEA stores and warehouses around the world, turning what would otherwise be vacant space into a literal powerhouse. These solar installations generated 155 GWh of electricity in 2018, enough to supply nearly five percent of IKEA鈥檚 global energy needs. In fact, according to Karol Gobczyn虂ski, the Ingka Group鈥檚 head of climate and energy, some locations are generating enough solar power to sell some back to the local electrical grid.

How might it upend the big-box business model to turn surplus energy into a revenue source? And why can鈥檛 more companies come up with breakthroughs like this in a systematic, repeatable way? Only a failure of perspective.

Methodologies like Six Sigma and technologies like sharing platforms and AI-driven analytics are powerful tools to uncover new opportunities, but they are held back by outdated thinking. If they weren鈥檛, digital transformations wouldn鈥檛 fail up to 80 percent of the time, and they鈥檇 meet or exceed expectations of the time. To be truly transformative 鈥� in other words, to get more than just incremental returns on investment 鈥� companies need to combine technology with a new way of thinking about what value is and where to find it.

Massive value is lying fallow in excess resources, like unused real estate, over-purchased software, and employees who aren鈥檛 being used to their full potential (people themselves are never excess). It鈥檚 concealed in underused resources, like vehicles that are on the road only a few hours a day, computing cycles that whir away pointlessly at night, and employees with untapped skills. It鈥檚 hiding in things that, according to current wisdom, have no value whatsoever, like production waste, 鈥�,鈥� and people who move on to other employers.

But waiting for the hidden value in these resources to reveal itself practically guarantees that it will remain unseen. Companies need to adopt a new mindset for systematically seeking out resources so they can extract more value from existing investments and encourage the development of potential new products, services, and business models. In other words, they need a capacity capture mindset.

Broadening the Search for Value

The traditional business approach assumes that resources are too specialized to be reused or deployed in new ways. The capacity capture mindset, on the other hand, starts with the assumption that resources are ubiquitous and infinite, because anything can be a resource, and any resource has capacity for value beyond its primary or original purpose.

Capacity capture is about actively identifying resources that are underused, wasted, or discarded and coming up with ways to recapture, use, sell, or otherwise monetize them. Consider how much money real estate companies invest in building and maintaining parking lots in office parks, even though the parking spaces sit empty for 12 or more hours a day. In Europe, a technology platform that lets long-haul truck drivers reserve those spots overnight has created a new income stream for the office parks. At the same time, it gives drivers safer places to sleep than highway shoulders and on-ramps, which protects the drivers, their cargo, and everyone else on the road.

Capacity capture allows organizations to discover new areas of innovation that end up delivering bigger benefits than just resource efficiency. Imagine a factory that actively looks for ways to generate more heat during production because it can make more money by selling or repurposing that heat than it can save by minimizing it. In the Danish town of Kalundborg, for example, use an elaborate system of pipelines to exchange materials and energy. Sludge, steam, and fly ash that are waste for some become valuable input for others, lowering the cost of energy and raw materials for everyone while reducing the amount and expense of waste disposal.

Using the capacity capture mindset, companies can also find ways to make their products more effective by capturing and using what would otherwise be considered waste. For example, have invented a way to expand the capacity of rechargeable batteries by warming them while they鈥檙e first charging. A battery manufacturer could theoretically do this by capturing waste heat from the manufacturing process and then selling these higher-capacity batteries at a premium. Kohler, the tile company, is already doing something along these lines by from its tile manufacturing process, including broken tiles, cast iron slag, and leftover glazes, and using them to create a new line of designer tile.

The capacity capture mindset also encourages a deeper examination of experience as a resource. Just look at the Dutch city of Rotterdam, home to Europe鈥檚 largest industrial port and, like most of the Netherlands, below sea level. Rotterdam has tapped its underused wealth of institutional expertise in preventing and managing flooding to launch . In guiding other coastal cities on how to cope with rising sea waters and worsening storms in the face of climate change, the city collects extra funding for the city budget, which in turn supports further innovations in flood-resistant urban renewal.

Defining the Search Grid

The first step to capturing capacity is to understand what capacity is and where it might be found.

Types of assets

• Physical assets are tangible objects of any kind, from facilities and heavy equipment to lighting and office supplies.
• Digital assets include network infrastructure, software, data and metadata, and bandwidth.
• Human assets are people and their behaviors.

Areas of untapped capacity

• Unwanted assets are assets that are created or accumulated unintentionally or incidentally as a side effect or byproduct of another process.
• Excess assets are produced or gathered intentionally but become surplus either because there are too many of them or because the process that produced or gathered them is no longer in use.
• Underused assets are created intentionally and are in use but not to their full potential.

The following framework gives examples of these asset types and capacities and the questions a company might ask itself to discover them:

The boundaries between these different types of assets can be porous. For example, some physical assets also have characteristics of digital assets, as with autonomous vehicles. Some digital assets, such as servers and storage media, may be thought of as physical assets. What鈥檚 more, physical and digital assets often enhance human assets, a convergence that will accelerate as technologies evolve.

As a result, many assets will overlap several categories, and the process of considering where they might fit can generate further possibilities.

Categories of Capacity Capture in Action

Each square of the capacity capture grid represents myriad possibilities for finding or creating more value. The following examples describe just a few opportunities that companies in a range of industries have uncovered.

Physical assets

Unwanted
The UK鈥檚 is working with a nearby bioenergy plant to turn the waste whey from its world- famous cheese into enough renewable biogas to heat 4,000 homes in the Yorkshire Dales. The bioenergy plant, which also processes leftovers from a nearby ice cream factory, pumps the natural gas from food waste back into the gas grid. What remains becomes fertilizer for local farmland.

Excess
Several European utility companies are working with automakers Nissan and Mitsubishi to develop services that let people sell (EV) batteries back to the grid. Today, the return on the extra juice is limited, but as batteries continue their Moore鈥檚 Law鈥搇ike improvement in cost and power, people who charge their EV batteries during off-peak times and sell power back to the grid during peak times could end up charging their cars for free 鈥� or even making a profit.

Underused
As early as 2012, Coca-Cola began partnering with pharmaceutical companies to deliver vaccines in developing countries using the existing that have made its products available around the world. By fitting medical perishables into the empty space in trucks that deliver soft drinks daily, the company reduced vaccine delivery times and increased the number of people getting vaccinated while boosting its brand reputation.

Digital assets

Unwanted
Companies of all types are offering data they collect that is incidental to their primary business models to other organizations who mine it for value. For example, health insurer UnitedHealth Group provides aggregated data from its to drug companies seeking insight into how their products are being used. This secondary income stream has been so successful that the resulting spinoff, Optum, has been more than UnitedHealth itself.

Excess
As more streetlights are fitted with LED bulbs to reduce costs and save energy, it turns out that they can do more than their centuries-old roles of guiding travelers and making pedestrians safer. Visible light communication, or , transmits data by switching individual LED bulbs on and off at nanosecond speeds, much faster than the human eye can detect, so that the lights can still do their primary jobs while transmitting data at rates than traditional Wi-Fi over short distances.

Underused
Amazon famously created a significant new business model, Amazon Web Services, by renting out unused capacity on its flexible computing infrastructure. It鈥檚 now captured that capacity for a second time by creating a where it charges a 12% service fee to customers who are reselling their reserved but unused cloud instances.

Human assets

When we talk about unwanted or excess human assets, we鈥檙e talking about roles, skills, and behaviors, not the people themselves. All people are valuable; indeed, they鈥檙e the only constant resource companies have, and digital and physical resources have no value without them. People can change their value throughout their lives through ongoing learning and development. It鈥檚 time to jettison the idea that someone stops being valuable when the workplace changes and instead to quantify their value based on what they鈥檙e capable of doing and what they鈥檙e willing to do to keep pace with change.

Unwanted
Just a few years ago, employees could be disciplined or even fired for using their smartphone at a corporate event. At best, it was considered rude, and at worst, it was viewed as a potential breach of company security. Today, organizations are actively encouraging employees to brandish their phones to promote conference panels and other events on social media in real time.

Excess
Many companies make decisions about whether to lay off high-salary employees to cut costs by looking at their roles in isolation, without considering how those employees enhance the value of the people they work for and with. Finding a way to capture and quantify the value of an employee鈥檚 contribution to the organization will encourage companies to consider whether letting someone go will cost the company more than it saves. Similarly, companies can reduce retirement-driven brain drain by inviting retiring employees to become 鈥渂usiness angels鈥� who coach new teams. They could even partner with similar companies in a consortium that captures the untapped value of people who just missed being hired by sharing these candidates with and recommending them to each other.

Underused
The Hilton Worldwide hotel chain keeps a record of every employee鈥檚 specific skills, such as language ability and local connections, even if those skills aren鈥檛 immediately relevant or used in the employee鈥檚 current role. That gives the company fast access to internal people when they are most needed. Examples include when Hilton is looking for someone with connections in a certain market where the company wants to open a new hotel or for someone who鈥檚 a native speaker of the language in that market.

Identifying Capacity

Capacity capture begins with a deliberate focus on expanding your thinking about where you might find value beyond increasing efficiency and reducing waste, as well as suspending any disbelief about what constitutes a resource or how resources can or should be used. As you use the above grid to identify possible resources, ask other people in your organization, in every department and at every level, to do the same. Insight can come from anyone, and the people who are closest to the resources are the ones most likely to recognize the value in them.

Once you鈥檝e developed a list of potential resources, don鈥檛 get bogged down in trying to evaluate all of them at once or even in groups. Focus on each one individually with the presumption that it鈥檚 inherently valuable and that your job is to determine what that value is.

As you assess each potential resource, consider how you might extract the value.

• Reuse: How could it benefit another part of your organization?
• Extend and combine: What other things could you do with this resource, alone or combined with another resource?
• Spin off: What could you do with this resource if you removed it from its current context to stand alone?
• Maximize: How could you create and use even more of this resource?
• Sell: Under what circumstances might someone else value this resource enough to buy it from your organization?
• Recycle: How could another organization use this resource when you鈥檙e done with it?
• Donate: Could you create non-monetary value, and save the cost of disposal, by giving this resource away?

It isn鈥檛 as odd as it may seem to take this approach to human assets as well as physical or digital assets. Your company already knows how to reuse people鈥檚 skills by shifting them to other departments and maximize them by providing more training. It could just as easily spin off a group of especially unconventional thinkers into a skunkworks or donate them by encouraging them to share their skills with volunteer organizations.

This process is intended to generate ideas through rapid iteration and participation from a variety of people across the organization. There are no wrong answers, only creative possibilities.

As with other transformations, it makes sense to begin experimenting with capacity capture in one small, distinct area as a proof of concept. Setting up new business models 鈥� especially outside of a company鈥檚 existing industry 鈥� used to be a huge hurdle, but emerging technologies and technology- enabled platforms (think Airbnb, Lyft, and Spotify) make it more affordable to experiment and test the market. A small- scale, iterative approach that keeps the cost of entry low lets you continually spin up new opportunities instead of passing on something promising because you lack the visibility and depth of understanding about its potential.

Capacity Capture as a Strategic Imperative

It鈥檚 critical to note that while technology enables capacity capture, it isn鈥檛 technology driven. Rather, it鈥檚 a mindset of looking for opportunities, like selling data gathered through tracking or creating platforms that connect customers with each other, and then choosing tools based on the opportunities that arise.

Another key aspect of the capacity capture mindset is that you aren鈥檛 trapped (or protected) by your existing business model or industry. If your explorations uncover a newfound opportunity that you don鈥檛 want to ignore but also don鈥檛 want to make your primary focus, you may decide to pursue it through a joint venture with an existing partner, a company you wouldn鈥檛 ordinarily have a reason to do business with, or even a competitor.

As business shifts to a capacity mindset, it could make sense to carve out a top management role 鈥� maybe even a chief capacity officer position 鈥� with ultimate responsibility for identifying capacity throughout the organization and driving innovative projects to capture it for business benefit.

This role would require a knowledge of where end-to-end processes are and what they need, credibility with colleagues across functions, and the ability to think creatively. A business leader with established ideas about the right way to run an organization may not be as good a fit for the role as someone with talent and enthusiasm for spotting unused or overlooked resources in their own, and other, departments.

A company fortunate to have multiple people with the necessary skills may decide to create a capacity capture team. A company that develops expertise in capacity capture may even develop or spin off a consultancy that helps other organizations shift their own thinking around resources, as the city of Rotterdam did with its water containment knowledge. That is itself an opportunity to capture underused human capacity.

Researchers at the Global Footprint network say the human race now consumes renewable resources at . Capacity capture provides an alternative to working within the limitations of what we perceive as our available resources. It lets us question our perceptions 鈥� and therefore our limitations 鈥� about what we have to work with in the first place.

Download the full report from 51风流Insights research center: 鈥�.鈥�

聽Matthew Gorbet is director at Gorbet Design Inc.
Susan LK Gorbet is futures and design thinking strategist and educator at Gorbet Design Inc.
David Jonker is vice president and chief analyst at 51风流Insights research center.
Christopher Koch is editorial director at 51风流Insights research center.
Michael Rander is an analyst and global marketing and research director at 51风流Insights research center.
Dan Wellers is a senior analyst at 51风流Insights research center.