Infraserv Höchst automates service orders, work order management and more to support more than 90 companies across 900 buildings and plants throughout Industriepark Höchst in central Germany, all while achieving tangible ROI in just months.
Challenges: Providing Mobile Capabilities Across Widely Different User Needs
As a service provider for more than 90 companies across 900 buildings in Industriepark Höchst—an innovative campus in the heart of Germany catering to chemical and pharmaceutical enterprises—Infraserv Höchst knows the importance of adopting modern mobile solutions to drive customer satisfaction.
Infraserv Höchst has always used technology as a differentiator to serve its customers better. Still, its customer base had widely different needs and worked with a diverse set of mobile form factors (including smartphones, tablets, visors, display boards, and more). A tailored mobile approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all method, would be critically important to support the Infraserv offerings. Additionally, any software it deployed needed to be easily adaptable to meet the unique needs of each user base, whether large or small.
The search for a new application development solution began in 2016. First, Ralph Urban and Francesco Puglisi from the Infraserv Höchst IT team looked to SAP’s mobile solution application development offerings (Standard SAP Fiori) but found it didn’t meet their specific needs and continued their search for the right rapid application development solution.
Solution: 73 Neptune Apps Serving 27 Screen Form Factors
With three defined use cases, the team tested a shortlist of vendors, reviewing the overall capabilities and how fast solutions could be built.
Neptune Software was the clear winner, not only for its capability and speed but also for its total cost-of-ownership (TCO) and the fact that it was operating-system and platform independent.
With its easy-to-use app designer and agile-based toolset, Neptune DXP makes it easy for developers to develop apps with scale and ease, shortening the app development life cycle and delivering value quickly to the enterprise.
The team began carefully, implementing one Neptune Software app in 2017, then quickly growing to six apps in 2018, 20 apps in 2019, and 40 in 2020. By March 2022, Infraserv Höchst was running 73 apps, a testament to the ease that Neptune DXP provides. Automation at the company extends the entire value creation chain and includes:
- Work order management
- Forms management
- Operational planning
- Radio-frequency identification (RFID) process monitoring
- Movement-of-goods monitoring
- Transport and logistics automation
- Malfunction reporting
- Mobile scanning
- Overall document management
- Implementation of diverse web applications
- Automating order management brings cost savings and efficiency gains
Where once, Infraserv Höchst had separate order management systems for different parts of the enterprise, today it has a central, common system that is used by all divisions. Neptune Software’s modular design also enables the team to customize the solution to address division-specific needs. Plus, with only one application to maintain, Infraserv Höchst can benefit from substantially lower maintenance costs.
Redesigning the order dispatch process and replacing its paper-based system while integrating the solution with the damage reporting app has helped Infraserv Höchst improve worker productivity and safety.
Automating key service order processes such as tools at hand, material consumption, completion processing and service order documentation with best practice processes and custom displays within the Neptune Software apps have also helped drive higher productivity.
Additionally, a new web-based service order planning and execution tool empowers service order planners to optimize resource allocation, improve capacity-based planning, and monitor work progress in real time.
With Neptune Software, Infraserv Höchst was also able to create a unified damage reporting system. Today, the damage is reported electronically and is instantly visible in the system, ready to be addressed by the available resources. Automated based on guidelines from the German maintenance market, the solution is being adopted across the organization’s various functions and shops to maximize efficiency.
Choosing a solution that could support numerous screen form factors has also paid off for Infraserv Höchst. Today it operates more than 27 different screen form factors, including a smart glasses-as-a-platform solution.
Results: ROI Achieved in 4-6 Months With Neptune Software
At Infraserv Höchst, stringent three-year return-on-investment (ROI) requirements put projects under close scrutiny. Fortunately, the majority of its Neptune Software projects have reached break-even within an impressive 4-6 months.
The most prominent drivers for higher ROI for Infraserv Höchst included:
- Choosing projects that offered high automation gains
- Cost-effective licensing (Neptune Software offers per-user licensing, creating an incentive to build more apps for the same user)
- The speed at which apps can be built with Neptune DXP
Moreover, as these automation goals are being met, the team is turning its focus to bringing the power of low-code/no-code to finance and HR. Additionally, integrating Neptune DXP with optical character recognition (OCR) will be important for productivity in the long term.
Today, work continues as Infraserv Höchst continues to use Neptune Software as the foundational platform to meet the user experience needs of its customers across the Industriepark Höchst. Some of these apps have been delivered already and include:
- Integration and productivity automation: With the goal of heightening app integration.
- Microsoft Office and SAP Fiori applications, the team aims to adopt a more corporate design look and feel through digitized forms.
- Demand chain automation: Customer portals, digital visitor management, and reception automation will be important ways to enhance the customer experience.
- Supply chain automation: The team seeks to expand the defect management solution to cover liquid storage, statutory accident management and notification while improving documentation management for operations.
- License optimization: A review of third-party licensed applications as a cost-saving exercise is on the horizon since these can be replaced with Neptune Software-based apps with no further license costs.
Overall, these solutions are helping Infraserv Höchst provide the modern, mobile user experience and business acceleration its customers need to drive success. Neptune Software is right there, helping make it all possible.
