Recently, IBM adopted the IBM Rapid Move innovative data migration solution based on SNP Bluefield technology migration, and successfully implemented the upgrade project of the enterprise operation data system from ECC to S/4 for FAW-Volkswagen . The system switching of the project took only three days. It not only helped the customer migrate system data efficiently and smoothly, upgraded the data base, but also greatly improved the operational agility of the entire enterprise and reduced operating costs through system integration unification and return to standardization. It enhances the stability of the system, and at the same time reserves space for further optimization and expansion of the system in the future, laying the data cornerstone for the next stage of enterprise development.
As we all know, the automotive industry has a complex industrial chain, a high degree of globalization, and involves many production links. At the same time, it has industry characteristics such as rapid industry updates and fierce competition. Require. In fact, many car companies began to use modern data tools such as ERP to improve their operational management efficiency decades ago.
However, with the passage of time and the development of technology, the old operating system often faces a series of practical problems such as aging and outdated systems, huge data, and service support expiration. Implementing data migration and system upgrades to adapt to the development of enterprises in the new era has become a The general demand of major car companies. After all, keeping pace with the times, realizing efficient data processing and improving operational efficiency is crucial in industry competition. While many car companies are still waiting and watching, FAW-Volkswagen Co., Ltd. has become a pioneer who dares to innovate and challenge.
FAW-Volkswagen was established in Changchun in 1991. It is one of the largest automakers in China and a model of Sino-German cooperation. As early as the 1990s when it was established, FAW-Volkswagen has widely adopted modern management tools such as SAP within the enterprise to support the company's daily operation processes from sales to production, procurement, logistics and many other systems. For more than 20 years, starting from the early management system, it has undergone many iterations and expansions in the middle. This system has largely supported the efficient operation of FAW-Volkswagen in various fields and helped it grow step by step into a leading car company in China.
However, the problems of its old data system, such as huge and complex data, transmission congestion, poor connection, and poor stability, have become increasingly prominent, making it difficult to adapt to the rapid development needs of enterprises. After FAW-Volkswagen made overall considerations in terms of customer experience, efficiency, quality, cost, etc., it decided to upgrade its data system to optimize end-to-end business processes and empower its own digital transformation.
As a strategic partner of FAW-Volkswagen's digital intelligence transformation, IBM's automotive industry team and SNP immediately organized a team of senior experts to communicate and communicate with customers in depth, and designed a SAP solution for FAW-Volkswagen based on customer needs and characteristics. ECC to SAP S/4 upgrade program. Among them, the complexity of the SAP data table structure is the difficulty of system upgrades. Traditionally, more new implementation methods are adopted, which is equivalent to re-implementing a set of S/4. During the switchover period, only part of the static data at the beginning of the period and outstanding Dynamic data, while the historical data assets of the original SAP system cannot be continued. The solution provided by IBM applied the innovative migration method of IBM Rapid Move (that is, the SNP BLUEFILED method) for the first time in the country. While solving the above problems, it successfully achieved efficient and smooth migration. It used 50 hours to achieve a record of 27T historical data migration , and set a new industry benchmark with the delivery effect exceeding customer expectations.
On October 7, 2022, the new system was successfully launched. From the effect point of view, the project migrated 3 years of historical data synchronously, ensured the business continuity of FAW-Volkswagen's 6 plants in 5 places and 4 subsidiaries, corrected tens of thousands of technical points and thousands of non-standard self-developed programs, and completed Adapted and adjusted thousands of interfaces of hundreds of surrounding systems, optimized and implemented more than a dozen modules, increased the platform speed by dozens of times, optimized hundreds of business processes, and optimized nearly a hundred application functions. Save tens of millions of costs. It can be said that this upgrade implementation project can be regarded as a classic successful case of SAP ERP upgrade implementation worldwide so far in terms of difficulty, scale, and cycle.
Picture: After FAW-Volkswagen completes data migration and system upgrade, the first car officially rolls off the production line
Dou Hengyan, director of FAW-Volkswagen Management Service Department, said: "The new integrated system platform allows us to efficiently communicate with the company, connect the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and also provide solutions for future new energy transformation, customizable products and 'one vehicle, one cost'. ' and other new trends and requirements provided conditions. The successful implementation of this tailor-made solution is a reflection of the data capabilities, industry experience and professionalism of the IBM implementation team. In the future, we will continue to deepen based on this successful project experience Collaboration on digital transformation.”
The successful implementation of this difficult migration project fully demonstrates the IBM team's ability to manage and execute large and complex projects, as well as the ability to collaborate with customers and other parties in the cooperation between the IBM team and SNP.
During the whole project process, we cooperated with more than 170 key users, SAP development engineers and related operation and maintenance, process support and other partners from various departments of the customer from demand research, process sorting, blueprint design to function implementation, and each module fought separately , while ensuring overall coordination. Whether the project team withstood the pressure in the first 9 months, took 8 migration drills, gradually accelerated from the initial 60 days to only 50 hours to complete the migration, or hardware configuration adjustments, hardware parameter tuning The optimization process in aspects such as splitting of key bottleneck tables, parallel migration process, and front-end of data classification all embodies the wisdom and strength of the team.
In view of the characteristics and difficulties of the project, such as high complexity, large migration scale, and short implementation period, the project team gave full play to the spirit and ability of innovation based on customer needs, and cooperated with the global expert resources of IBM and SNP, Initiated the strategy of multi-batch migration, and migrated part of the data that can be migrated in advance one month in advance to ensure the minimum impact of business switching. At the same time, compared with the traditional system migration method, this innovative migration method can migrate all historical data of customers to the new system environment.
The person in charge of the FAW-Volkswagen project said: "If the traditional migration method is used, it is estimated that it will take 10 days. In this project, IBM only took three days for the entire data migration, which minimized the impact of data migration on our operations. The lowest. For FAW-Volkswagen, an enterprise with annual sales of hundreds of billions of yuan and a daily output value of about billions of yuan, every day the system is suspended means a huge impact on production and revenue. And these innovations of IBM Make the migration efficient and smooth, and let FAW-Volkswagen get a good experience of 'senseless' switching. "
The project successfully overcame the challenges of a huge amount of data migration, new module implementation and function optimization projects. After the migration was officially completed and launched, the actual number of system problems was far lower than expected, and the customer was able to quickly resume normal production. After the upgrade, the customer's system returned to the "standard", and the core part of the system was replaced with a standard solution such as SAP, which is equivalent to completing a "heart transplant". The integrated system architecture based on this standard scheme has also been greatly simplified, solving many previous problems.
In the process of project execution, we successfully dealt with the cross-module and multi-module collaboration issues of multiple business directions of the client, involving many product lines (such as Audi, Volkswagen, Jetta). The skillful handling of such typical closed-loop scenarios in the automotive industry fully reflects the project team's profound vertical industry capabilities. The team members overcame the difficulties and dangers brought about by the sudden outbreak of the local epidemic in Changchun, worked hand in hand with the customer team, worked hard, and finally delivered results that satisfied the customer.
He Zhiqiang, partner of IBM Consulting in Greater China and general manager of China's auto industry, said: "Currently, to achieve better development in the next stage, all major auto companies are faced with upgrading and standardizing their data bases to make them more agile, Flexible and stable requirements. The complex data system migration project we implemented for FAW-Volkswagen was very successful, and I believe it has also provided a model for other auto companies. IBM hopes to continue to rely on its professional capabilities and industry experience on the road to digital transformation Help more partners in the automotive industry to complete the transformation of the data base as soon as possible, and win opportunities in the ever-changing industry development."
The implementation of the IBM Rapid Move technical solution in this project is based on the BLUEFILED method of SNP, a professional data transformation software company, and a global gold partner of SAP. Helping businesses around the world unlock the full potential of their data and shape their own journey to the digital future. SNP's Data Excellence Platform CrystalBridge® and BLUEFIELD™ approach sets comprehensive industry standards for retooling and modernizing SAP systems more quickly and securely, while leveraging data in the cloud to drive innovation. Provide SAP user systems with data transformation services such as system upgrades, system splitting, merging, data standardization, ERP archiving, and SAP data integration.
The company has cooperated with about 2,000 customers of different sizes in various industries around the world, including 21 of the DAX40 and 103 of the Fortune 500 companies, with more than 14,500 successful cases. SNP Group has approximately 1,400 employees in more than 40 cities in 15 countries around the world. The company, headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, has preliminary revenues of approximately EUR 173 million in fiscal 2022.