SBB AG – SAP Innovation Awards 2025
Winner in the Services Superstar category: SBB AG. To enhance customer experiences and sustainability, SBB AG implemented SAP Intelligent Asset Management integrated with SAP S/4HANA. This enabled proactive maintenance, standardized processes, and real-time asset insights, transforming our approach to reliability-centered maintenance. With SAP MaxAttention support, SBB AG achieved smoother operations and improved collaboration with partners, ultimately delivering better railway services. تحميل الوثيقةPUBLIC
Entry Pitch Deck
SBB AG
Urs Gehrig, Head of Enterprise Asset Management
Travel and transportation
Achieving railway reliability to make Switzerland
proud with integrated asset maintenance
Entry Pitch Deck
SBB AG
Urs Gehrig, Head of Enterprise Asset Management
Travel and transportation
Achieving railway reliability to make Switzerland
proud with integrated asset maintenance
COMPANY NAME:
HEADQUARTERS:
INDUSTRY:
WEBSITE:
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES:
Company information
2
SBB AG
Bern, Switzerland
Travel and transportation
www.sbb.ch
34,227
Transporting people and freight since 1902, SBB AG (also known as
Swiss Federal Railways) is a national train service that connects more
than 800 locations across Switzerland. Each day, more than 1.3 million
citizens rely on our services to get to their destination, while our trains
carry more than 175,000 tonnes of freight.
Trusted by passengers and businesses to run punctual and efficient
services while delivering high levels of customer service, we’ve invested
in modern, high-performance trains and state-of-the-art rail infrastructure.
But digitalized operations and asset maintenance processes are key to
keeping our trains on track and running smoothly.
PUBLIC
HEADQUARTERS:
INDUSTRY:
WEBSITE:
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES:
Company information
2
SBB AG
Bern, Switzerland
Travel and transportation
www.sbb.ch
34,227
Transporting people and freight since 1902, SBB AG (also known as
Swiss Federal Railways) is a national train service that connects more
than 800 locations across Switzerland. Each day, more than 1.3 million
citizens rely on our services to get to their destination, while our trains
carry more than 175,000 tonnes of freight.
Trusted by passengers and businesses to run punctual and efficient
services while delivering high levels of customer service, we’ve invested
in modern, high-performance trains and state-of-the-art rail infrastructure.
But digitalized operations and asset maintenance processes are key to
keeping our trains on track and running smoothly.
PUBLIC
CHALLENGE: SOLUTION: OUTCOME:
Keeping the rail network moving with reliable assets
3
Efficiency improvement targeted with
predictive maintenance
Of track to maintain Increase in passenger numbers anticipated
by 2040
25%
SBB AG
3,265 km 29%
We knew that asset management would be critical
to our efforts to deliver better customer experiences,
become more sustainable, meet growing demand for
our services, and run more efficiently. We needed an
integrated approach with standardized asset
management processes across different divisions,
enabling us to make proactive decisions about the
maintenance of our trains, infrastructure, and
buildings. But to support this cross-divisional model,
we needed a robust technology foundation that
would enable us to collaborate effectively, access
real-time insights into asset health, and take
advantage of the latest AI-enabled innovations in
predictive maintenance.
To support this enterprise-wide asset management
strategy, we began a phased implementation of
SAP Intelligent Asset Management solutions,
integrated with SAP S/4HANA. We also embarked
on a pilot project looking at how AI-based visual
inspection capabilities in the SAP Asset
Performance Management application could help us
detect maintenance issues earlier. We worked
closely with product management teams at SAP,
identifying key requirements and capabilities that we
needed to successfully meet our goals. In addition,
we had access to expertise and guidance through
the SAP MaxAttention program, helping ensure a
smooth deployment.
We’ve now adopted a reliability-centered
maintenance approach, predicting and managing
issues before they become problems while helping
us extend asset lifecycles and run more sustainably.
Standardized processes are helping us streamline
maintenance workflows, enabling more-efficient
labor and resource management. In addition, the
ability to use a single, cloud-based network for
communicating with maintenance partners is
improving transparency across our growing
operations, enabling better planning. Meanwhile,
we’re delivering on customer expectations for
punctual, safe, and clean railway travel.
PUBLIC
Keeping the rail network moving with reliable assets
3
Efficiency improvement targeted with
predictive maintenance
Of track to maintain Increase in passenger numbers anticipated
by 2040
25%
SBB AG
3,265 km 29%
We knew that asset management would be critical
to our efforts to deliver better customer experiences,
become more sustainable, meet growing demand for
our services, and run more efficiently. We needed an
integrated approach with standardized asset
management processes across different divisions,
enabling us to make proactive decisions about the
maintenance of our trains, infrastructure, and
buildings. But to support this cross-divisional model,
we needed a robust technology foundation that
would enable us to collaborate effectively, access
real-time insights into asset health, and take
advantage of the latest AI-enabled innovations in
predictive maintenance.
To support this enterprise-wide asset management
strategy, we began a phased implementation of
SAP Intelligent Asset Management solutions,
integrated with SAP S/4HANA. We also embarked
on a pilot project looking at how AI-based visual
inspection capabilities in the SAP Asset
Performance Management application could help us
detect maintenance issues earlier. We worked
closely with product management teams at SAP,
identifying key requirements and capabilities that we
needed to successfully meet our goals. In addition,
we had access to expertise and guidance through
the SAP MaxAttention program, helping ensure a
smooth deployment.
We’ve now adopted a reliability-centered
maintenance approach, predicting and managing
issues before they become problems while helping
us extend asset lifecycles and run more sustainably.
Standardized processes are helping us streamline
maintenance workflows, enabling more-efficient
labor and resource management. In addition, the
ability to use a single, cloud-based network for
communicating with maintenance partners is
improving transparency across our growing
operations, enabling better planning. Meanwhile,
we’re delivering on customer expectations for
punctual, safe, and clean railway travel.
PUBLIC
4
Our close working relationship with SAP
has been instrumental in helping us
introduce an innovative enterprise asset
management approach that is
transforming the reliability and
efficiency of Switzerland’s railways.
Urs Gehrig, Head of Enterprise Asset Management, SBB AG
PUBLIC
Our close working relationship with SAP
has been instrumental in helping us
introduce an innovative enterprise asset
management approach that is
transforming the reliability and
efficiency of Switzerland’s railways.
Urs Gehrig, Head of Enterprise Asset Management, SBB AG
PUBLIC
GLOBAL CHALLENGES
Challenges
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
PUBLIC 5
• Expectations of customers for high-quality, reliable rail services
• Ongoing increase in passenger numbers, with organizational
growth and increased efficiency required to meet demand
• Requirement of a publicly funded organization to deliver value
for money
• Need to run in a more sustainable way, delivering on a mandate
for greener transportation services
• Siloed approaches to asset management, with different SBB
divisions following different processes
• Shorter maintenance windows due to increased rail traffic
• Absence of a single platform for collaboration, hindering the
efficient management of internal and external resources
• No single source of truth, making it difficult to get visibility across
our operations
Challenges
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
PUBLIC 5
• Expectations of customers for high-quality, reliable rail services
• Ongoing increase in passenger numbers, with organizational
growth and increased efficiency required to meet demand
• Requirement of a publicly funded organization to deliver value
for money
• Need to run in a more sustainable way, delivering on a mandate
for greener transportation services
• Siloed approaches to asset management, with different SBB
divisions following different processes
• Shorter maintenance windows due to increased rail traffic
• Absence of a single platform for collaboration, hindering the
efficient management of internal and external resources
• No single source of truth, making it difficult to get visibility across
our operations
PROJECT OBJECTIVES WHY SAP
Objectives
6
• Extensive existing SAP software landscape
• Excellent and long-standing relationship with SAP, with our
recommendations on key requirements for the solutions taken
on board and actioned by the product team
• Comprehensive support for enterprise asset management, with
solutions for asset performance management, field service
management, and predictive analytics as well as a network for
collaboration among different stakeholders
• Standardize acquire-to-decommission processes across different
divisions and asset-clusters such as Rolling Stock, Networks, Real
Estate and Production means
• Cycles of the Go-lives for the different asset-clusters are staged over
a certain period of time
• Enable a proactive asset maintenance approach, using AI-enabled
predictive analytics to anticipate and address issues at an early
stage
• Establish a single, cloud-based network enabling different divisions
and external partners to connect and share information about assets
• Maximize productivity in maintenance activities using best-practice-
based resource management tools
• Improve transparency of organization-wide asset management
operations with real-time insights
PUBLIC
Objectives
6
• Extensive existing SAP software landscape
• Excellent and long-standing relationship with SAP, with our
recommendations on key requirements for the solutions taken
on board and actioned by the product team
• Comprehensive support for enterprise asset management, with
solutions for asset performance management, field service
management, and predictive analytics as well as a network for
collaboration among different stakeholders
• Standardize acquire-to-decommission processes across different
divisions and asset-clusters such as Rolling Stock, Networks, Real
Estate and Production means
• Cycles of the Go-lives for the different asset-clusters are staged over
a certain period of time
• Enable a proactive asset maintenance approach, using AI-enabled
predictive analytics to anticipate and address issues at an early
stage
• Establish a single, cloud-based network enabling different divisions
and external partners to connect and share information about assets
• Maximize productivity in maintenance activities using best-practice-
based resource management tools
• Improve transparency of organization-wide asset management
operations with real-time insights
PUBLIC