Clear up your information: A Laptop Weekly Downtime Add podcast

Gunnar Glasneck, information workstream lead at tobacco firm, Imperial Manufacturers, describes his position as the information tower lead. He’s accountable for information migration, as properly the implementation of the corporate’s SAP analytical cloud.

Laptop Weekly met up with Glasneck through the UK and Eire SAP Consumer Group (UKISUG) convention in Birmingham initially of December to debate the position of robust information administration in profitable SAP S4/Hana initiatives.

The corporate has grown by acquisition. This resulted in 50 or so ERP methods in operation, which weren’t actually built-in. Imperial Manufacturers recognised it wanted to carry all of those legacy ERP methods collectively into one single S4/Hana occasion.

Understanding information has been a key consider Imperial Model’s profitable S/Hana deployment. However as Glasneck notes, this was the hardest side of the mission. It required mixing succesful individuals from the enterprise and purposeful consultants and analysts. “I chosen three individuals from enterprise who’re comfortable with information,” he says. However this generally is a problem. “The subject of knowledge possession is tough to implement if you do not have a knowledge tradition,” Glasneck provides, which suggests there’s a lack of knowledge possession within the enterprise.

What’s fascinating from the dialog with Glasneck is that the corporate chosen the UK and Eire, one among its 5 major markets, to deploy S/4Hana.

When requested why take this threat, Glasneck says: “I would not say it was a easy resolution. Our ambition was to design a world template, preserving the core clear. However if you happen to begin with a straightforward manufacturing facility, with say, two or three manufacturing strains, or a easy market, then you definitely will not get to the state the place you might have a world template, or a minimum of a considerably superior template which you’ll be able to then roll out then to the opposite markets and factories.”

Trying on the method the corporate has taken by way of getting its information prepared for S/Hana, he says: “We’re migrating information and this information must be validated by the enterprise and accredited. It’s at all times tough to persuade individuals within the enterprise that they personal the information and they should perceive it.” 

He says information was organised into three purposeful towers: international provide chain, finance and industrial. The individuals accountable for these information towers had been supplied with purposeful capabilities, which included information analysts  and folks from inside the enterprise.

“This enabled us to know and profile the legacy information,” says Glasneck, which helped with information cleaning workout routines in addition to information mapping and documentation.

Having a hand-picked crew from the enterprise who knew native enterprise processes and recognised the worth of optimising and standardising processes, mixed with system integrator consultants offering purposeful S4/Hana experience, had been key to the mission’s success. Glasneck says: “We had a robust governance construction. The processes are at all times owned by the enterprise and thru the governance with our enterprise design authorities and technical design authorities, we had been capable of current a design that was accredited by the enterprise.”