Groundbreaking SAP S/4HANA Selective Transition involving 190 company codes,
30 billion data records, and more than 6,000 users
The Viessmann Group, headquartered in the German city of Allendorf (Eder), North Hesse, and one of the world’s leading energy system manufacturers (12,000 employees, with annual revenue of € 2.5 billion), completed a transition to a whole new digital platform of the future on the basis of SAP S/4HANA. The seamless go-live was implemented in a big bang over the course of one weekend, migrating a total of 28 production units in 34 countries as well as 78 international sales organizations to SAP S/4HANA. This complex greenfield project is the biggest S/4 transformation in the global manufacturing industry to date. There were a total of 190 company codes and 30 billion data records to be transferred. More than 6,000 users worldwide were affected by the transition. Viessmann also selectively optimized and harmonized processes, implemented innovations, established global standards, streamlined systems, and cleaned up data. The transition was implemented with near-zero downtime. The entire project was completed within just 18 months.
“We couldn’t have afforded a long and drawn out business project lasting five years or more. For a global player like Viessmann, the S/4 transformation is a business-critical future project of strategic significance. At the same time, it was the biggest IT project in Viessmann company history. So it is something of a quantum leap to be able to actually complete a project of this magnitude in the shortest of time frames and at a fraction of the cost,” explains Dr. Harald Dörnbach, Managing Director of Viessmann IT Service.