What do Treatment Plants, Leather Furniture, and Luxury Cars Have in Common?
Brush teeth. Flush toilet. Shower. Wash clothes. Repeat.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average American family uses over 300 gallons of water per day at home. With all that waste water flowing down drains and into sewage, it is imperative that water treatment plants work properly and safely. That’s why when the Moundsville Wastewater Treatment Plant in West Virginia ran into issues with a lagoon tank, it decided to not only fix a broken blower unit, but to also correct an outdated approach to wastewater treatment.
The Solution
The treatment plant turned to Kaeser Compressors Inc, a compressed air systems and compressed air consulting services company based in Coburg, Germany, for help. By installing a new blower, new sensors to control airflow, and two new tanks, Moundsville is saving approximately $50k-$60K a year in energy costs. The plant regained control of waste management and is keeping city citizens healthy and unharmed.
Kaeser is dedicated to providing innovative and cutting edge solutions as well as optimal customer service to businesses in over 100 countries globally. However, a huge challenge for Kaeser was gathering information from all of its operation sites. The company supplies compressed air stations in remote locations around the world: on land, on ships at sea, and even in desert zones. To provide optimal customer service, Kaeser sends service technicians to customer sites for maintenance and support. However, without knowing what was going on at these remote compression stations, it was difficult for Kaeser technicians to arrive onsite to fix the issue without allowing a period of downtime.
To better monitor operations onsite and step up customer service, Kaeser partnered with SAP to build a custom predictive maintenance solution powered by SAP HANA.
SAP HANA now enables Kaeser to streamline data collection from the compressed air stations using an internet of things client which electronically sends the measurements from remote locations all over the world to the SAP HANA service. This data is then integrated into Kaeser’s SAP CRM powered by SAP HANA application.
With central real-time analytical machine monitoring enabled by SAP HANA, Kaeser now has constant insight into global onsite operations and can use predictive maintenance to avoid unplanned downtime. The company can track (in real time) special sensors inside the machines to monitor specific operations of the compressor and then use predictive analysis to predict machine health. Kaeser technicians and sales personnel are then able to identify the customer problem long before being dispatched to the customer site. The technician can better prepare the service order, know which parts are required, and can individualize exactly how to fix the compressor.
Kaeser’s CIO, Falko Lameter explains in his blog that with SAP HANA, Kaeser has predictive insights to “proactively attend to maintenance needs and increase service levels for customers.” He continues, “We are seeing improved uptime of equipment, decreased time to resolution, reduced operational risks, and accelerated innovation cycles. Most importantly, we have been able to align our products and services more closely with our customers’ needs.”
West Coast Customs
Do you remember the US-based show “Pimp My Ride” on MTV? West Coast Customs is the company behind the vehicle transformations showcased on this program, the star of its own show on Fox Sports 2, and the company that performed high profile luxury builds for celebrities such as Shaquille O’Neal, Paris Hilton, Sylvester Stallone, Snoop Dog, Mark Wahlberg, and Justin Bieber. The company largely credits its success to its use of Kaeser equipment. By using only the highest quality air, West Coast Customs ensures that fabrication, paint, and interior customization tasks are completed with the utmost quality.
Collaboration is Key
With customer services now under control, Kaeser began optimizing its sales force by implementing a collaborative strategy. With SAP CRM powered by SAP HANA along with the cloud-based social learning platform, SAP Jam, Kaeser can carefully scrutinize the entire lifecycle of sales process, from lead management to requirements analysis, solution planning, and solution implementation. Kaeser’s database response times are five times faster than before and with this real-time information, it has streamlined its supply chain to deliver on customers’ changing needs while generating healthy margins. In the future, Kaeser aims to move their SAP CRM powered by SAP HANA solution entirely to a private cloud, as it is already seeing the benefit of using cloud-based solutions such as SAP’s Ariba Network for their buying and supplying transactions.
American Leather
American Leather offers 130 leather furniture collections sold in popular stores across the US including Create & Barrel and Macy’s. American Leather’s creation processes were suffering; there was downtime, inaccurate cuts, and excessive scrap material. To improve operations and product creations, American Leather called on the help of Kaeser’s service representatives to aid in transforming the way they were using their Kaeser machines. With Kaeser maintenance, the company saved an estimated $25,000 per year and reduced their power cost from $119,000 to less than $45,000 per year. .
Learn more about how SAP HANA helps Kaeser simplify operations and transform its customer service in this video interview:
Kaeser Compressors in partnership with SAP is transforming the way companies work. To answer the title question (if you’re still stumped): Kaeser Compressors is behind the operations of companies that produce services and products that we take for granted in everyday life. Who would ever think that a water treatment plant, leather furniture manufacturer, and a luxury car maker would contain a unifying thread? The list doesn’t stop there. Companies all over the world use Kaeser products, and people all over the world can continue to reap the benefits.
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