Holger Blumberg, Director of Information Management, Krones AG

“With Enterprise Architecture Management, we gained a complete overview of our IT architecture. This trans-parency helps us make good decisions for IT invest-ment, reduce risks, and fully tap the potential of IT.”

Holger Blumberg, Director of Information Management, Krones AG

Krones AG, a manufacturer for the fields of process, filling and packaging technology, and intralogistics, wanted to better align its IT with business processes. To support its complex IT evaluation project, it engaged a Microsoft Enterprise Architect. With a new overview of its IT architecture and data about how its IT relates to business processes, it can proactively minimize the risks inherent in expansion and invest wisely in technology.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published December 2012

Business Needs

If it weren’t for automated technology, beer would never make it into the bottle. Krones AG is a leading developer and manufacturer of complete lines in the fields of process, filling and packaging technology, and intralogistics. The machines are all built in Germany, with around 90 percent destined for export. Every day, millions of bottles, cans, and special-shaped containers are handled on lines from Krones. Its success is founded on consistent investments in research and development: more than 2,200 patents bear the Krones name.

In recent years, Krones has grown from purely a line manufacturer to an international engineering firm. Factory design and industrial logistics solutions for flow of materials and goods are an important part of its business. With global expansion, its IT infrastructure has become more complex. “This complexity increased our planning and operating needs enormously. When we made a change in one process, it meant we needed to make a change to another process,” says Holger Blumberg, Director of Information Management at Krones AG. “In the context of an increasing global focus, we had too little insight into the interactions and dependencies of the processes.”

Recognizing the need to better align its IT and business processes, Krones decided to establish an Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) practice. Its goal was to gather data about the IT system and create a transparent overview of the IT architecture. Krones also wanted to relate its processes to the IT tools that support them to better understand the interplay between IT and business processes.

To support the EAM project, Krones sought a strategic expert to do an analysis that would take into account the requirements for real-world projects.

Solution

In December 2010, Krones AG engaged Microsoft Services Enterprise Strategy to help align the IT environment to business strategies, in addition to optimizing architecture management capability.

As part of the offering, Microsoft provided an Enterprise Architect, who worked onsite for a year, supported by a network of Microsoft specialists that he could talk to about specific needs and requirements.

The Enterprise Architect used business and technical insight, experience, and corporate contacts to create a plan to maximize the business benefits of the company’s technology investments. His work was based on the Value Realization Framework, a process that includes evaluating, planning, and analyzing the value realization of IT building blocks, with the goal of creating a plan that supports the company’s business strategy. He also used relevant intellectual property from the Enterprise Strategy Library to focus on the realization of customer value and useful scoping of the EAM efforts.

Analysts at Krones worked with the Enterprise Architect to examine the requirements for real-world projects. The first step was to analyze the current EAM and the company’s exact requirements for IT management. A survey was created to assess IT information and management needs. “We wanted to gain a clear picture of the departments and identify where there was too much or too little IT,” says Blumberg.

After analyzing the survey and other available information, a model of the architecture emerged that would serve as the foundation for a central data plan. This model unifies current data so that it can be viewed in relation to other data. It provides a complete overview of relationships among applications, processes, interfaces, and technologies.

Using the architecture model, the Enterprise Architect then used special EAM tools to gather the information and place all core data in a central, consistently structured system. Krones is now able to see all information about interfaces and processes in one place.

Benefits

By engaging Microsoft Services Enterprise Strategy, Krones gained a context for defining initiatives, planning for development, and showing business value, making it easier to prioritize actions. “Now that we fully understand the dependencies among IT and business processes, making changes is much easier,” says Blumberg.

Provided Comprehensive View

The new EAM strategy covers core areas that are always affected by changes: processes, agents, technology, and data. “We will be able to use EAM to evaluate the structure for these areas and document it, making changes easy to complete,” says Blumberg. “Employees will quickly see which technology is needed for changed processes and when they need to take care of an interface or an update.”

Blumberg sees EAM as the ideal solution for future decisions about changing processes: “EAM shows the interaction and dependencies among all processes. Employees with permissions will have all the data about technology and related processes that they need at the click of a mouse,” says Blumberg. “With Enterprise Architecture Management, we gained a complete overview of our IT architecture. This transparency helps us make good decisions for IT investment, reduce risks, and fully tap the potential of IT.”

Krones will also be able to see time dependencies between projects and technologies in all locations. “With relevant EAM information, we can plan future projects so that they only start when new hardware or software is released. That means we’ll always have the latest technology,” says Blumberg.

Optimized IT Management Processes

Krones can now see redundancies in its software and eliminate excess. It can increase standardization to reduce administrative overhead and save money. The new transparency also simplifies negotiations with other departments. “We can clearly describe changes to departments and explain why a change is needed,” says Blumberg.

After establishing the initial EAM practice, Krones understands much better the relationships among business strategies, current requirements, and the internal technologies needed. “This success really is due to the on-site Enterprise Architect. He brings together technological expertise, an understanding of the business, and knowledge about the methodology,” says Blumberg. “Because he asked the right questions to get the most information, we can now use it to move our IT forward.”

EAM is an ongoing process because the IT landscape is constantly changing. “The value of EAM can’t be measured in Euros. But knowing which changes affect which processes fundamentally changes the way we work in IT. Now we can act proactively, because we can detect potential problems in advance and prevent them,” says Blumberg.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published December 2012