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Digital transformation drives dishwashing innovation
Manufacturer Winterhalter chooses SAP S/4HANA on IBM Power10 and IBM FlashSystem to enable next-generation performance
Winterhalter dishwashing systems can be found in commercial kitchens worldwide – and the company’s newest products use software and connectivity to offer innovative features such as pay-per-wash and connected wash. To deliver sparkling results from highly sustainable solutions, Winterhalter wanted to develop new business models and accelerate its digital transformation, based on high-performance IT.
With a reputation for quality and service, Winterhalter focuses on manufacturing excellence, product performance, and sustainability, relying on SAP software running on IBM Power servers for many years to drive its complex business operations.
Erhard Klein, Director of IT & Operations, says, “Our most-famous dishwasher is probably the ‘Bavaria,’ seen at the Munich Oktoberfest. As well as the machines, Winterhalter also manufactures consumables and water treatment systems, and the company is committed to developing resource-saving, sustainable washing solutions.”
On the manufacturing side, Winterhalter wanted to gain even greater insight into production efficiency. To strengthen the foundation for its data-driven future, it wanted to refresh its mission-critical IT infrastructure. In addition, with corporate sustainability commitments in mind, the team looked for ways to cut power consumption, reduce carbon footprint, and enhance operational performance.
Over the years, Winterhalter has extensively tailored its SAP systems. Erhard Klein comments, “We focus on high data quality to drive operations, increase automation, and optimize production. We chose SAP solutions because we could embed our corporate philosophy into best practices, to help set us apart from the competition.”
With 420 virtual systems and about 40 core SAP systems, combined with significant customization, Winterhalter looked at ways to move its SAP ERP landscape to SAP S/4HANA, and engaged its long-standing service provider BLUE Consult, an IBM Business Partner, to assist.
by running IBM Power10 compared with Intel-based servers
compared with the previous systems
Winterhalter and BLUE Consult reviewed options for cloud and on-premises solutions. Balancing the costs and performance requirements, the team decided against the cloud subscription model. Further, Winterhalter considered administration workload, likely availability of skilled IT personnel, and the customizations of its SAP ERP application that might be difficult to replicate on a software-as-a-service platform.
“Winterhalter is a family-owned business, and we like to make independent choices, selecting the solutions and the partners we prefer best,” comments Erhard Klein. “We consider the total cost of ownership over five years and invest in the right strategy for Winterhalter.”
Advised by BLUE Consult, Winterhalter chose to make the move to SAP S/4HANA, implemented on premises, running on IBM Power10 servers in two data centers.
“We have been running our existing SAP solutions on IBM Power servers for many years, delivering total reliability and resilience, and we were able to scale up as the workload grew,” explains Erhard Klein. “Based on that experience, we selected the new IBM Power L1024 servers with the latest IBM Power10 processors to deliver both today’s performance and the capacity for future SAP S/4HANA demands.”
Divided evenly across two data centers, Winterhalter deployed four IBM Power L1024 servers, four IBM SAN Volume Controller nodes to support highly available storage virtualization in combination with two IBM FlashSystem 7300 and IBM FlashSystem 5015 storage systems.
Erhard Klein comments, “There is no alternative to IBM FlashSystem in terms of energy consumption, performance, physical space, and reliability. Winterhalter has been operating IBM FlashSystem for more than five years, and we are very happy with our experience.”
At this point, with 24 active Power10 processor cores and 8 TB of memory in each server, the solution is more than capable of handling the current workload.
“Synergy with SAP HANA on the Power Platform made our decision to choose IBM FlashSystem easy. Data deduplication, compression, and predictive analytics in a very small footprint is really very attractive. Flexibility to expand for data growth as future market requirements shift was also an important factor,” explains Erhard Klein.
“Working with BLUE Consult the deployment of our new IBM Power10 solution was carefully planned and expertly implemented. And should we need additional performance in the coming five years, we can easily scale out cost-efficiently by adding servers to enable simple and rapid expansion if necessary,” explains Erhard Klein.
By moving to SAP S/4HANA on IBM Power10 servers, Winterhalter has transformed its operational productivity, and set its strategy for the next five years.
“We have consolidated our server landscape from seven to four servers, increased performance and capacity, and yet cut energy consumption by almost fifty per cent. In addition, we calculated more than 80 per cent savings on energy over five years when compared with Intel-based alternatives.”
For the memory-intensive SAP S/4HANA solutions, the IBM Power10 platform provides a step-change in processing and memory capacity, says Erhard Klein: “With IBM Power10 we have nearly three times the memory available per core, and yet with fewer, more-powerful processors we can reduce license costs even as we improve performance. This is an outstanding development, especially for SAP HANA workloads.”
Choosing a scalable and future-proof infrastructure platform was essential for Winterhalter’s move to SAP S/4HANA. BLUE Consult played a key role in the transition to the IBM Power10 platform, too. “Support from BLUE Consult was essential, and extremely valuable,” explains Erhard Klein. “As support for SAP ECC will end soon, many companies will compete for limited resources in the form of consultants and technical infrastructure. My advice is that companies should start their SAP S/4HANA plans yesterday!”
Erhard Klein concludes, “BLUE Consult and IBM were able to design exactly the right solution for Winterhalter, based on highly reliable and efficient IBM Power10 servers, with low carbon footprint, excellent performance, and flexible and scalable capacity for the future.”
Winterhalter manufactures dishwashing systems, from standalone units to high-capacity conveyors, designed for commercial kitchens. Founded in 1947 and headquartered in Meckenbeuren, Germany, the company employs more than 2,000 people, sells equipment in 70 countries through 40 subsidiaries, and generates annual revenues of more than EUR 400 million.
Based in Krefeld, Germany, BLUE Consult offers a comprehensive range of IT services and business solutions, from infrastructure architecture to the digital workplace. The company’s consulting services and solutions are focused on the individual challenges of its customers in trade, industry, and the public sector. Naturally, achieving business results is of great importance, enabled by advanced technology, and of course without forgetting cost efficiency and sustainability.
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Produced in the United States of America, December 2023.
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