BLANC & FISCHER Family Holding shapes kitchens as living spaces all over the world. It sought to improve manufacturing productivity and speed application development for its five subgroups. To support these efforts, the group became one of the world’s first companies to migrate its extensive SAP environment to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions on IBM POWER9. With this central, reliable infrastructure foundation, BLANC & FISCHER has achieved consistent global production processes, improved system availability, and reduced database response times by 30%.
Benefits
- Improved consistent worldwide production with central, standardized platform for SAP systems
- Reduced database response times by 30%—with fewer compute resources
- Enhanced production performance by eliminating downtime
Standardizing IT infrastructure for SAP environment
Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH is the central IT service provider to the BLANC & FISCHER Family Holding, which shapes kitchen living spaces worldwide. It includes E.G.O.-Group, BLANCO-Group, BLANCO Professional-Group, ARPA and DEFENDI-Group. The group employs about 8,300 people worldwide in 23 countries and at 56 locations. In 2019, the group recorded a turnover of around €1.2 billion.
Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH maintains IT systems and applications for several of its parent group’s businesses—including an extensive SAP landscape and global IT infrastructure. To improve manufacturing productivity and speed application development, Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH sought to transform its IT approach to focus on digital technologies and products.
Previously, the group operated its SAP HANA® database management on certified, x86-based hardware, followed by a Linux solution running on IBM POWER8 processors. However, supporting an extensive digital transformation required the adoption of a standardized IT infrastructure that would improve flexibility and support for agile development.
“As IT service providers, we have to provide our services quickly, consistently, and efficiently,” said Manfred Leistner, Director and Head of Technology of Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH. “To give our departments and factories as much flexibility as possible and support agile development, we need extended automation for our SAP environment and quick, efficient resource deployment.”
Pioneering innovation with early adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for SAP Solutions on IBM POWER9
Once the solution achieved certification to run on IBM POWER9, Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions as the foundation of its digital-focused IT environment.
“We prefer open source and open standards over proprietary technologies, and we’ve had a positive experience using open source platforms on IBM hardware for many years. Both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and IBM POWER9 are based on open standards,” said Leistner. “Red Hat kept us updated on the certification status of the solution, so we were able to complete testing before the official notification. We were eager to be early adopters.”
Once certification was complete, the group was among the first in Germany to adopt the combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions on IBM POWER9 servers. Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH quickly migrated the SAP Manufacturing Execution (SAP ME) system—which tracks the process of converting raw materials into finished goods—for the group’s BLANCO brands to the new Red Hat and IBM solution.
Unifying and enhancing SAP operations to work and deliver faster
Created consistent, standardized IT foundation for worldwide production
With its new, high-performance IT infrastructure, Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH can now run its global SAP environment from its operation headquarters in Germany. This centralized approach provides a unified environment for the group to run all of its SAP solutions, including SAP ME, SAP Global Trade Services, SAP Supplier Lifecycle Management, SAP Supplier Relationship Management, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence, and SAP ERP Human Capital Management.
With this central SAP foundation, Blanc und Fischer IT Services GmbH can flexibility provide computing resources to the group’s different businesses for digital transformation projects, reducing the need for local infrastructure management or provisioning work. After consolidation is complete, the group anticipates needing 75% fewer application instances—a reduction that will deliver financial and time savings.