Anchor business value firmly in your project, determine the requirements early on, and don’t forget change management: These are just three of the 10 quality criteria that SAP recommends for successful implementations.
Companies that have followed these guidelines in an exemplary way were recognized recently at the SAP Quality Awards.
In December 2016, SAP Germany held the 10th annual SAP Quality Awards ceremony at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, recognizing the very best of the nominated SAP implementation projects from the past year. The recipients of the Gold awards were industrial powerhouse Siemens AG in Munich, steelmaker Bleistahl-Produktions GmbH & Co. KG in Wetter a. d. Ruhr, and discounter giant Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG in Neckarsulm.
On this 10th anniversary of the SAP Quality Awards, one customer succeeded in winning prizes for two different SAP projects within a year for the first time: Sick AG in Waldkirch.
Prizes were awarded by the head of SAP Active Quality Management, Irini Kalamaris, from the Customer Success Office of the MEE Region.
SAP Quality Awards in Three Categories
Successful SAP implementations demonstrate excellent project planning and execution, with high levels of quality, and a concentration on rapid, cost-effective implementation that reflects the SAP standard. The objective is to achieve projects that generate business value and meet the demands for short implementation cycles. This year, SAP Quality Awards were presented in the following categories: Business Transformation, Fast Delivery, and Innovation
Thanks to a special nomination procedure by the Active Quality Management Team, SAP Germany was able to identify organizations and companies whose achievements particularly met the award requirements.
The projects were assessed based on the 10 principles of quality that SAP recommends for successful implementation projects. The judging panel then drew up a shortlist, from which this year’s winners were selected.
Winners in “Business Transformation”
Gold went to Siemens AG, a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability, and internationality for more than 165 years. The company is active in more than 200 countries, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. In fiscal 2016, which ended on September 30, 2016, Siemens generated revenue of EUR 79.6 billion and net income of EUR 5.6 billion. At the end of September 2016, the company had around 351,000 employees worldwide.
Siemens tackled the migration and consolidation of more than 50 SAP landscapes on the latest, standardized SAP release (ERP ECC 6 EHP7/Unicode) and SAP HANA. Around 100,000 users now benefit from the migration. The judges were impressed by the development of program management, which industrialized all the migration projects to SAP HANA within the program in just a few steps and in a short time frame. The program and project organization, which were closely coordinated with Atos IT Solutions & Services GmbH, made it possible to develop well-planned standard processes, while at the same time watching out for peculiarities in the individual projects.
The silver award was given to Sick AG for its SAP project to implement SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM), to create a distribution center capable of meeting future requirements. The technical implementation of the new distribution logistics was supported by other SAP software solutions (NetWeaver, ITS Mobile, ERP). Important, specialized third-party solutions included the KNAPP/KIS Shuttle Add on and the solutions from the project partner for the software implementation, SALT Solutions GmbH: Salt Connector and the Salt Add on KEP Monitor.
The bronze award went to the University of Hohenheim for the fundamental transition of its financial management and purchasing to SAP ERP, performed by a small project team. Cooperation with universities and SAP projects in Baden-Württemberg have enabled the development of a preconfigured university solution. The project partner was SAP Consulting Germany.
The SAP Quality Awards winners. (Click for full picture)
Winners in “Fast Delivery”
Bleistahl-Produktions GmbH & Co. KG (gold) has been developing, producing, and supplying valve seat inserts and valve guides for the automotive industry worldwide since 1954. Bleistahl gives combustion engines an advantage in long life and economic efficiency and supports its customers in their efforts to develop competitive, low-emission engines
Bleistahl set up a project to replace a variety of legacy systems with an integrated SAP Financials and Warehouse Management system with EDI connections to its customers. The judged were impressed by how skillfully Bleistahl replaced complex legacy procedures in sensitive warehouse management processes in its warehouse and in exchanging data with its customers in a seamless, nearly unnoticed go-live. The SAP project, which is supported by itelligence AG, will be enhanced with a number of logistics components in a future step.
The silver award went to STAEDTLER Mars GmbH & Co. KG for their precisely planned, quickly implemented database migration to SAP Sybase ASE for ERP and SAP BW powered by SAP HANA, including a change of the hosting provider, with support from project partner Fujitsu TDS GmbH.
The bronze award went to Airbus DS Optronics GmbH for their rapid implementation of SAP S/4HANA Finance with project partner SAP Consulting Germany.
Winners in “Innovation”
The Innovation category recognizes comprehensive rollouts of recent SAP solutions.
The business model by Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (gold) — “Best quality at the best possible price” — in a pleasant shopping environment; simplicity and process orientation define daily activities in the stores, distribution centers, and international subsidiaries of the company, which was founded in Germany’s Swabia region as a grocery wholesaler in the 1930s. Lidl has a presence in 30 countries worldwide, operating around 10,000 stores and more than 140 merchandise distribution centers in 27 European countries and employing around 215,000 staff.
The scope of the SAP for Retail project, eLWIS powered by SAP HANA with international rollout, is defined as part of the largest IT transformation in Lidl’s history. The judges were impressed by the extraordinary business value of the first country rollouts in Austria and Northern Ireland, which were achieved through high-quality planning and execution by a committed, international project team within efficient decision-making structures. Lidl is carrying out the implementation project with project partner KPS – close to the SAP for Retail standards and quickly, thanks to novel implementation methods for modeling the end-to-end processes.
The silver award went to Roland Berger Holding GmbH for their SAP Business ByDesign (ByD) cloud project. Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, founded in 1967, is the only leading global consultancy of German heritage and European origin. With 2,400 employees working from 36 countries, the company has successful operations in all major international markets. The project partners were itelligence AG and SAP Consulting.
The bronze award went to another project by Sick AG, this time for the implementation of SAP Hybris Commerce and Web Content Management. After a global rollout for 33 subsidiaries, they now reach customers from 140 countries. The project partner was dmc digital media center GmbH.
Gold award winners in Germany automatically qualify to participate in the SAP Quality Award Europe competition. According to current plans, the winners of the SAP Quality Award Europe will be selected by an external judging panel in the first quarter of 2017.
Learn more about the SAP Quality Awards