Baosteel and Bechtle boost productivity with full range of services

Baosteel – Bechtle boosts productivity with full range of admin services.

Baosteel Tailored Blanks GmbH is more than just an automotive supplier. The company makes cars lighter with its laser-welded products. Since their first car component was developed and welded in 1983, the company has brought many innovative products to our streets. Baosteel is now the market leader in tailored products—custom components in steel or aluminium. The company demonstrates its passion for high-quality lightweight construction using best-quality materials in 17 production sites throughout Europe, Asia, and America. Inner door panels, B-pillars, and main girders have become lighter thanks to Baosteel.

Project details.

Services

Managed Services

Industry

Manufacturing

Manufacturer

Cisco

Company size

250 – 1,500 employees

Starting point.

Baosteel provides tailored component concepts to the vehicle body construction industry. The company strives to create a custom solution for every customer—locally, regionally, and globally. Baosteel’s excellent quality at attractive prices has made it the first point of contact in the automobile industry when it comes to innovative and tailored light-weight construction solutions. The company wanted their IT system to be as easy to manage as their products are light. They needed a globally holistic, smooth-running, IT infrastructure that would be always up-to-date, to allow collaboration between their production sites. Hardware, software and networks need to be available at all times, with problems being resolved quickly. The SAP applications used at the company need to perform reliably and be able to be used the same at all sites. It also needed suitable administration, automated monitoring, and quick response times in the event of failures.

Project objectives.

Baosteel wanted to outsource all of these services —WAN and SAP operation, server hosting and support for enterprise-wide hardware—to an external partner. This needed to be a full service partner to Baosteel Tailored Blanks, by their side in all IT projects, performing installations, keeping the internet and intranet running, and providing daily support to users. Projects like implementing a new communication solution would also be the responsibility of the new service provider, as well as constructing a new document management system for the company.

Process.

Baosteel put out a tender seeking the right IT partner possessing the necessary skills, the right hard-ware expertise, and appropriate customer service. They were looking for a service provider to handle all services for a flat fee so that they could keep costs calculable. Baosteel also wanted remote support, including SAP operation, all data centre services, WAN monitoring, and LAN operation. Bechtle had a fitting concept for outsourcing of all pool IT including providing all services.

Innovation takes top priority for our company. Our IT therefore needs to always be up-to-date and available. That's why we were looking for an admin service provider that could manage all of our services and quickly react in an emergency. In Bechtle, we’ve rung in a new era of administration. Bechtle has all of our IT services fully under control. This saves us hefty costs and boosts our IT department’s and our employees’ productivity.

Süleyman Kücük, Head of IT Infrastructure, Baosteel Tailored Blanks GmbH

Solution.

First, Bechtle examined the existing IT. Baosteel’s machines at their German sites were replaced and updated where necessary to bring them up to the cutting edge. Then was the turn of the networks and applications. Bechtle took over the existing WAN, reinstalled the hosting of all of Baosteel’s applications—including SAP—and moved this into the OEDIV (Oetker Daten- und Informationsverarbeitung KG, a provider of data centre services) data centre. Branches in China, Italy, and Sweden access SAP hosted in Germany via multi-protocol label switching (MLPS). Bechtle operates, performs maintenance of, and monitors the dependant WAN connections, offering high availability of the applications.

Bechtle renewed the network, storage, and all other components, making them homogenous and fully-monitored by Bechtle. Hardware and software faults can be detected thanks to round-the-clock monitoring with Bechtle’s tool and remotely resolved by Bechtle’s specialists. Bechtle also takes care of exchanging outdated and defect hardware for existing and new IT projects at Baosteel.

One of these projects is the new VoIP phone system from Cisco. When Baosteel wanted to renew their existing telecommunications solution, Bechtle connected a server-based communication from Cisco. Thanks to the Cisco Unified Communication architecture, the new solution is a modular system that has been put together by Bechtle as a direct response to Baosteel’s needs and is centrally controlled. Video conferences, audio conferences, collaborative working on a single desktop, messaging, and phone services—all made possible.

Business benefits.

With this complete administration package, Bechtle optimised Baosteel’s entire IT. Services are enhanced and costs always kept in budget since Baosteel only pays Bechtle a monthly full service administrator flat fee that covers all costs. This means that Baosteeel can always count on its IT, while not having to take care of anything and still being able to quickly and skilfully implement new projects.