Endress+Hauser: Improving customers’ operations through collaborative asset management
Explore Endress+Hauser’s journey with SAP
Endress+Hauser believes “competence is knowing how it all fits together.” True to this mantra, the measurement technology company is helping customers transform how they manage their manufacturing plants using the SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration solution and SAP Business Technology Platform.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Industrial manufacturing | Weil am Rhein, Germany | ~17,000 employees |
saved per asset on managing initial documentation handovers.
saved searching for and organizing maintenance information each week.
saved per asset each year with automatic information updates.
Business Development Manager, Innovation and Digitalization, Endress+Hauser (Deutschland) GmbH+Co. KG
Tapping into measuring instrument data to empower customers
Every day, a staggering 5.3 billion of us – about two-thirds of the world’s population – come into contact with products made using measurement technology from Endress+Hauser. The family-owned business helps more than 100,000 customers worldwide operate process applications and plants safely, reliably, efficiently, and sustainably.
Its industry expertise, deep application knowledge, and insights into customers’ processes help businesses worldwide solve challenges and make better decisions. For example, Endress+Hauser’s Heartbeat Technology allows its measurement devices to constantly monitor themselves, increasing the reliability of customers’ applications and helping prevent system downtime.
Many of these customers are hindered by enterprise-centric systems that are not designed for intercompany and cross-company visibility and collaboration. They can struggle with a lack of standardization and common asset definitions, not enough complete and consumable asset information, and siloed supply chain processes. And they may find it challenging to manage changing roles as products and services become ever more complex.
Endress+Hauser wanted to help its customers address these challenges by harnessing the wealth of information its measuring devices produce. It knew digitalization held the key to widening its products’ capabilities, expanding its offerings, and simplifying customer tasks.
Enabling collaboration and harmonizing data to manage assets more efficiently
Endress+Hauser knew the SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration solution offered the functionality and features it needed to help customers optimize their processes.
First, the solution would enable collaborative asset definition, helping the company share best practices for electronic data handover, management, and maintenance of equipment. Second, it would provide a single repository of asset and equipment information to enable effective asset management. And third, it would support collaborative asset maintenance, enabling integrated and more-secure work-order collaboration among asset owners, service providers, and OEMs through different nodes of the service chain.
In addition, SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) would enable process enhancements by combining data and analytics, AI, application development, automation, and integration in one unified environment. For example, it would provide a uniform presentation layer that enables centralized access to prestructured, validated data based on a data catalog, supporting enhanced analytics and new services.
And the SAP Master Data Integration service, which runs on SAP BTP, would facilitate a consistent view of master data across customers’ hybrid landscapes.
The figure illustrates how SAP solutions facilitate built-in condition monitoring and predictive maintenance for Endress+Hauser’s customers.
Turning data into knowledge with network-based asset collaboration
Supported by accurate, integrated master data and more than 50 million digital twins of devices, Endress+Hauser is already enhancing processes and helping customers cut costs.
For both Endress+Hauser and customers, the time spent on collecting, sorting, and handing over asset documentation has significantly fallen. In addition, electronic handover enables instant information sharing, saving both time and material costs.
When it comes to maintenance, automated master data updates minimize the time spent on searching for and organizing information. Having the correct information available can save up to one hour per site visit and help prevent incorrect decisions that cost further time and money. On the procurement side, improved master data integration can reduce time spent on identifying the correct asset or spare part and help ensure the correct items are ordered.
Customers appreciate having direct access to information in one central place. Automated updates save them time, and documentation is up to date and automatically synchronized with Endress+Hauser’s database.
SAP solutions also underpin new customer offerings such as built-in condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. They help provide accurate information on diagnoses and planned maintenance activities, trigger maintenance activities based on asset condition, and share information and documents between supplier and customer.
What’s more, using SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration and SAP Master Data Integration, Endress+Hauser has developed Netilion, an award-winning cloud-based Industrial Internet of Things ecosystem designed for industrial processes. Netilion connects the physical and digital worlds to send valuable information from the field straight to customers’ phones, tablets, or other devices, enhancing efficiency and innovation. Combining plant lifecycle data from diverse assets, it enables transparency across the plant for a wide range of device types and manufacturers, with the master data of new assets automatically provided to the business network.
Embracing intelligent technologies and the power of digitalization
Having witnessed the advantages of combining SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration, SAP BTP, and SAP Master Data Integration, Endress+Hauser is continuing to explore the potential of network-based asset collaboration.
Its plans include looking at how it can aid mobile workers by combining its extensive know-how with the potential of AI. The company also wants to use digital technologies to rethink business processes so customers can continuously improve plant performance – and understand even more deeply how things fit together.