SAP and GEA Collaborate to Help Companies Improve Operational Excellence with the Internet of Things

SAP and GEA Collaborate to Help Companies Improve Operational Excellence with the Internet of Things : SAP announced an Industry 4.0 implementation project with GEA to address condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. Over the last months, SAP and GEA have been working together to bring machinery and engineering knowledge to the integrated, scalable and high-performance cloud offering based on the SAP HANA software.

“We at GEA aim at strengthening and further developing our outstanding market position through continuous innovation,” said Jürg Oleas, CEO of GEA. “This means that we offer state-of-the-art, highly innovative products that serve as technological pacesetters for the entire market. With this cooperation and the new SAP solution, we are enhancing the processes of our customers to a new level of efficiency.”

GEA, one of the world’s largest suppliers for the food processing industry and a wide range of process industries, intends to work with SAP on a project to optimize the performance of its separator and decanter machinery with the SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service solution, cloud edition. Based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform, the solution is intended to bring together technology, sensors and machine data with business processes, applications and practices. The anticipated outcome of the project aims to reduce structural complexity and increase operational excellence to help companies reduce cost and foster growth in existing and new markets.

GEA will use the SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, cloud edition to help its remote service technicians monitor the status of machines located at GEA customer sites and identify unusual trends or machine behavior in real time. Integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) services of SAP HANA Cloud Platform and the line recorder agent embedded (LRAE) adapter 1.0 from IFM Electronic GmbH, which is certified for integration with SAP’s cloud solutions will allow for machinery data to be collected. This data can then be enriched with business information from the SAP Business Suite software deployed at GEA.

With SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, cloud edition, GEA intends to offer new innovative services including modular service-level agreements, warranted availabilities and insurance to its customers. Planned innovations from SAP in the areas of vibration and predictive analysis will further complement the solution. The solution is expected to provide GEA the flexibility to add more machines and further product groups over time.

“As Industry 4.0 unfolds, there will be new business opportunities for manufacturers driven by software-leveraged sensor data,” said Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. “Organizations that start thinking now about how to incorporate innovation into manufacturing will have a distinct competitive advantage. Our cooperation with GEA intends to help the industry better cope with changing industry requirements so they can increase demand for products that match customer expectations precisely. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with GEA to help our customers enable real-time decisions, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty by connecting people, machines, products and services across the world.”