With its SAP landscape now running in the WAGNER AG cloud, Hoffmann Neopac has embarked on an exciting new chapter in the company’s long history.
Frank Werdermann says: “In the past, maintaining the relevant IT skills in-house to support 24/7 operations was a challenge. Now, WAGNER AG’s team of highly skilled experts takes care of our complete SAP landscape. The managed service saves us a great deal of time and effort, while also keeping total cost of ownership low. It means that our small IT team can focus on adding value to the business, not just keeping the lights on.”
The IBM infrastructure delivers round-the-clock availability and high performance—top priorities for Hoffmann Neopac, with production sites in five countries across ten time zones. WAGNER AG guarantees a service-level agreement (SLA) of 99.9 percent uptime and response times of 350 milliseconds or less.
“In daily operations, response times are under 100 milliseconds 90 percent of the time, thanks in large part to the impressive performance of the IBM Power Systems and IBM FlashSystem storage,” says Frank Werdermann. “Most of our customers need just-in-time delivery of our products, so high availability and geographically dispersed resiliency are essential. Since moving to the WAGNER AG cloud, we have experienced 100 percent availability, ensuring 24/7 operations of our mission-critical SAP applications.”
Supported by WAGNER AG, Hoffmann Neopac will also take full advantage of the increased agility and speed of insight provided by SAP S/4HANA.
Frank Werdermann explains: “Real-time analytics powered by SAP S/4HANA will enable us to measure business performance faster and more accurately than ever before. SAP S/4HANA will also allow us to achieve a higher level of automation, so that we will be able to react to changing market conditions, consumer trends and packaging regulations in a more agile manner. Because we will be better able to identify and understand these trends, we will be able to make smarter, data-driven strategic plans.
“Real-time operational insight will also help us to avoid production errors and reduce waste. The introduction of barcode scanners into production and logistics processes will further reduce rejection rates, lowering the number of defects and improving the quality of our output, which in turn will increase customer satisfaction.
“We also expect the SAP S/4HANA solution to make life easier when it comes to proving compliance with customer and industry regulations, since we will have an end-to-end audit trail of all production processes. For example, we will be able to prove that packaging contents are not exposed to any contaminants during production. This will significantly reduce the manual effort taken to complete audits while also building customer trust.”
Furthermore, by harnessing SAP S/4HANA like many of its customers, Hoffmann Neopac will achieve closer integration with their business processes, boosting efficiency. For example, the company is planning to offer vendor-managed inventory services with automated planning and ordering processes, streamlining supply chain operations for both Hoffmann Neopac and its customers. Closer integration with customers’ business processes will also enable Hoffmann Neopac to better anticipate spikes in demand and shorten development cycles.
Frank Werdermann concludes: “Deploying SAP S/4HANA in the WAGNER AG private cloud based on IBM Power Systems will enable us to digitize, automate, streamline and accelerate many of our core business processes, helping us to build a leaner, greener packaging business—setting us up for further success in the years to come.”