A global manufacturer seeks to improve production yield at polymer mixing process.The company’s polymer mixing process was producing output of inconsistent quality, with yields sometimes dipping as low as 50%.The scrapping of poor batches created huge costs and was crippling production capacity.Dynamic product specification in addition to variation in a range of production parameters causing the trouble.

Facing the fierce competitive market, the new system needed to improve customer satisfaction, ensure continuous system operation and curb costs.

Build Two Green and Efficient Data Centers in Four MonthsOver a period of just four months, the Bank of Tibet needed to complete hardware procurement and software testing for two data centers and have them ready to go live. The two data centers needed an active-active configuration to ensure data security and business continuity, and allow the Bank of Tibet to meet the requirements for green and efficient data centers.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is a global leader in the development and manufacture of aerospace and defense solutions. Owned by the Israeli government, IAI designs systems for naval vessels, civil and military aircraft, homeland defense, satellites and command centers. With a revenue of US$3.83 billion, IAI employs some 16,000 people and is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.Operating at the cutting edge of research means that every minute counts for IAI’s production teams. IAI’s core IT environment consists of VMware, Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server, and Oracle database. The existing and new applications produce a torrent of data, and managing the growth while maintaining storage performance caused a constant IT headache.

Lozier Corporation, a leading manufacturer of products for retailers, was facing significant challenges due to its outdated ERP system. The system, residing on an ageing mainframe, was unable to deliver reliable business management systems, consolidated data, and efficient processes. The company's business processes were sometimes inefficient due to these disparate systems. For instance, digital orders from customers had to be processed manually by Lozier's team, which was not only time-consuming but also increased the risk of inaccuracies and errors. The leadership team at Lozier recognized the need for a modern ERP system and industry best practices to drive operational excellence and ensure the company's continued success in the retail industry.

SPAR was first established in Austria in 1954, before expanding in the 1970s when the original founding families joined with other regional wholesalers to form SPAR Austria AG, a 100% privately owned Austrian company. SPAR has since grown into a food retail giant, generating €5.68 billion in food sales. The group also owns the Hervis sports fash-ion brand that sells a further €490 million and a shopping center business with revenues of €2.85 billion.From the introduction of the cash register to customer loyalty cards and business intelligence, SPAR has thrived during constant retail revolutions. But today’s tech-savvy consumers expect to be able to jump from mobile app to website and then visit a store to request home delivery. How could SPAR keep up with the enormous pace of change?

GRZ IT Center specializes in providing IT services for leading regional banks in Austria. Headquartered in Linz, the company employs more than 450 people to support 86 banks, which collectively operate 458 branches and serve more than a million customers.In the last few years, competition in the IT services market has intensified dramatically. In particular, global public cloud vendors are using their economies of scale to compete aggressively on price. With this trend set to continue, local providers such as GRZ IT Center face a choice: Find ways to cut costs and compete more effectively, or risk watching services being moved off into the public cloud.

The company, a global chain of shopping malls, was committed to delivering a superior in-person shopping experience. This included services like Wi-Fi on arrival, valet parking, personal shopping, and access to an exclusive lounge. To ensure a flawless experience, the company needed its IT systems to be extremely reliable as even a few minutes of downtime could impact sales and customer loyalty. Furthermore, to ensure that its malls always offered the right brands and products in the most appropriate formats, it was critical to track and analyze data on guests’ behavior as they moved through the mall and made their purchases in real-time.

Bartle Frere Bananas, a mid-sized, multi-generational farm in Far North Queensland, Australia, was on a mission to improve environmental outcomes and productivity for Australia’s horticulture sector. The farm, which supplies small markets and major grocery chains alike, was facing challenges related to extreme weather systems, flooding, and rising operational costs. The owner, Gavin Devaney, was committed to farming responsibly and sustainably, which meant balancing fertilization, irrigation, and productivity while being good stewards of the land. The farm wanted to gather data from across its operation and generate insights to inform best management practices, productivity, regulatory compliance, and sustainability. Devaney wanted to prove that his operations adhered to the farming industry’s best management practices and demonstrate that the bananas at Bartle Frere Bananas are carefully grown in a more innovative and sustainable way.

Türk Telekom, a leading telecommunications provider in Turkey, was faced with the challenge of modernizing its infrastructure to facilitate the delivery of agile cloud services for both internal and external customers. The company's goals were centered on digital transformation to enable the provision of agile cloud services. Getting the infrastructure right was key for business-critical systems that sit at the center of Türk Telekom’s digital architecture—including its core billing and charging applications and databases, its SAP applications, and its virtualization and cloud service platforms. The company's storage infrastructure included hardware from a variety of vendors, but when it decided to replace its legacy billing system with a more demanding new application, it was time to modernize the storage layer too.

The meat and livestock industry in Australia, which is integral to the lives of many and covers a vast schema of enterprises along the value-chain, was facing a significant challenge. The industry was becoming increasingly fragmented, with leaders often withholding information about their operations, leading to a lack of transparency and potentially ill-informed decisions. The rigidity of the industry meant that such decisions could have irreversible consequences. The industry was also facing competition from chicken and pork, which were outpacing beef in consumer consumption. Additionally, there were ongoing challenges related to on and off farm productivity performance and the decreasing price of livestock per head. The industry was also grappling with the need to promote and adopt animal welfare practices across all value chain silos. Given the global nature of the industry, the non-profit business needed a partner with a deep understanding of international market interaction and the ability to navigate across different silos within the meat and livestock industry. They also required guidance and assistance on developing a new Internet of things (IoT) digital strategy for making decisions across the value-chain.

JBS S.A., a Brazilian multinational and one of the world’s largest food companies, was facing a significant challenge in managing its growing data requirements. The company, which has a diversified product portfolio and is present in 15 countries with over 250,000 employees, refreshes its technology every five years. In 2020, the need for more data storage was felt across all business departments, including administration, sales, and marketing. The company was in need of a high-performance solution that would fit its budget and reduce its data center footprint while meeting its growing data requirements. Additionally, the solution needed to be compatible with Cisco, a key requirement for the company.

Allergan, a global pharmaceutical company, was facing challenges in managing its complex IT infrastructure. The company was struggling with the management of multiple applications and systems, which were not only costly but also inefficient. The lack of a unified platform was leading to operational inefficiencies and was hindering the company's ability to innovate and respond to market changes quickly. The company was also grappling with the challenge of modernizing its applications and transitioning to a cloud-based infrastructure. The transition was critical for Allergan to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving healthcare industry. However, the company lacked the necessary expertise and resources to manage the transition effectively.

Blechwarenfabrik Limburg GmbH, a leading manufacturer of tinplate packaging, was faced with the challenge of improving environmental sustainability and accelerating its manufacturing processes. The company, with 500 employees and locations in Germany, Denmark, and Poland, uses 22,000 tons of tinplate annually to produce 100 million canisters, cans, and bottles for chemical-technical liquids. Beyond sustainability, the company also aimed to streamline the processes and management of its subsidiaries by gaining new insights. The challenge was to enable standardized, integrated, real-time data analytics across all systems and departments to achieve these goals.

Hitachi Vantara had been providing on-demand storage services to automobile manufacturer BMW Group since 2012. The service was delivered by a 20-member operations and migrations team based in Munich, Germany, and supported all BMW Group production sites worldwide, including locations in Germany, China, and the U.S. However, the existing Hitachi storage platform was nearing its end of life, necessitating an upgrade to new hardware. The challenge was to carry out this upgrade without disrupting production continuity. The project was massive, impacting 12 sites in eight countries across four continents and involving 1,700 physical servers.

Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois (CFL), Luxembourg’s national rail company, was faced with the challenge of improving customer experience and increasing efficiency by leveraging the vast amount of data generated by their trains and infrastructure. As one of the country's largest employers, with over 3,000 employees, CFL served 14.5 million passengers and transported 2.3 million tonne-kilometers of freight in 2020. The company needed to balance the management of track, rolling stock, station buildings, and other infrastructure with the needs of its passengers and freight customers. To explore emerging technologies like robotics, multimedia, unified communications, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, CFL established a new department within its IT organization, known as Operational Technology. The challenge was to turn the large quantities of data generated by high-tech sensors and control systems into actionable insights with real business value.

CGI, a global business and technology consulting company, faced a significant challenge in simplifying data migration when onboarding clients to their proprietary wealth management platform, Wealth360. The platform was designed to automate and simplify portfolio management, fund accounting, and fund allocation. However, the Data Migration and Conversion team had to develop new code for every data source, which could include up to 200-plus data files in various formats. This made the process time-consuming and complex. The team envisioned creating an automated ETL (extract, transform, load) data migration process that was based on a single, flexible, and reusable script.

CPFL, a major power distributor in Brazil, is responsible for supplying electricity to 9.1 million consumers across 12 of the 27 Federation Units and four of the five regions of Brazil. The company's operations are not limited to preventing or repairing household outages but also extend to supporting industries, local businesses, and vital societal subdivisions such as education, transportation, and health. To manage this vast network, CPFL relies on a system that manages the map of its complete power grid. This system is regularly updated and maintained through a process known as a compression routine, which organizes and compresses the database to optimize space for data storage. However, CPFL faced a challenge as the compression routine was taking days, or sometimes weeks, to complete. This delay affected new installations, customer service, and the efficiency and safety of company electricians who relied on information from the System Operation Center while working in the field. The slow process compromised overall sustainability, development, and growth potential, leading CPFL to seek a third-party vendor with experience in the energy sector.

Disney Parks & Resorts are renowned for their fun, dynamic, and state-of-the-art experiences. However, delivering these seamless operations is a significant challenge, especially considering the complexity of Disney’s attractions. For instance, the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ride system requires real-time analysis and management of between 30,000 and 40,000 data points generated by Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors. Disney devotes extraordinary care to ensuring the availability and operating capacity of its attractions when guests are on site. This means maintenance must be planned and executed with precision to keep ride systems running flawlessly. The challenge lies in turning the massive amount of data generated into actionable insights for predictive maintenance.

Migdal, a leading Israeli finance group, was facing the challenge of supporting thousands of users accessing their most critical business environment while providing microsecond-level response times. With over 2.4 million private and corporate customers, Migdal offers insurance, pensions, savings funds, and investments. The company was experiencing pressure on its storage and backup environment due to increasing online touchpoints and data volumes. The risk of downtime and the need for a first-class user experience led Migdal to seek improvements in infrastructure performance, scalability, and manageability. The company aimed to find a solution that would minimize application response times and ensure rapid recovery in case of a disaster.

Peking University Third Hospital, a comprehensive tertiary hospital established in 1958, was facing challenges with its legacy IT infrastructure. The hospital, which integrates healthcare, education, scientific research, preventative healthcare, rehabilitation, and health management, was struggling to meet the increasing demand for services due to its growth, new scientific research, and the global pandemic. The ageing IT assets led to performance degradation and reliability issues, increasing the workload for the IT teams. The hospital's disaster recovery capabilities were also insufficient to support business continuity. The hospital needed a better data infrastructure to respond quickly to patients and consistently deliver a good experience.

The NHS National Breast Screening Programme, managed by Public Health England (PHE), screens 2.5 million women annually, saving approximately 1,300 lives each year. The programme relies heavily on the National Breast Screening System (NBSS), a critical IT system that supports all administrative activities, from appointment handling to patient evaluation. With 78 instances on local hospital networks and a user base of around 4,000 NHS staff, the NBSS must be highly available, secure, and regularly updated. However, the NBSS was built in the early 2000s on a legacy platform, which posed challenges in supporting the evolution of the programme and new technologies. Furthermore, the existing support contract was no longer adequate, and PHE needed a new partner to manage the system without losing the knowledge and skills held by team members.

Animex Foods, one of the largest meat producers in Poland, faced a significant challenge in maintaining its processing plants' reliability to maximize productivity. The company, with over 11,000 employees and twelve plants, had a robust digital process and advanced data analytics supporting its business operations. However, as the company grew, it reached a point where it needed to add storage capacity. Its existing storage infrastructure could not be expanded, and the storage arrays had become too slow to support the fast-paced business effectively. The company needed a solution that could ensure continuous business operations, increase plant reliability, and maximize production output.

Coop Group, a leading retail, wholesale, and food production company based in Basel, Switzerland, faced a significant challenge in managing its complex, fast-paced supply chain. The company, which operates almost 2,500 retail stores and generates annual revenues of CHF 30.2 billion (US$32.7 billion), needed to ensure high-quality fresh food was always available on store shelves and online. Efficiently handling the logistics around its 14 distribution centers was central to the retailer’s success. To ensure that customers could get essentials such as fruit, vegetables, and bread fresh every day, Coop relied heavily on data analytics and sophisticated forecasting. However, with growing data volumes, the company recognized the need to expand its data storage infrastructure to ensure timely logistics processes and smooth food deliveries.

Garanti BBVA, Turkey’s second-largest private bank, operates in a highly regulated market where service reliability and availability are paramount. The bank has a three-data-center storage strategy to ensure resilience against disasters and continuous uptime. However, managing this architecture was complex and time-consuming. Storage administrators had to maintain and execute intricate scripts for routine tasks like provisioning new storage volumes and updating replication configurations. This process diverted the storage team's attention from more strategic projects. The challenge was to reduce these complex, time-consuming storage management tasks to allow Garanti’s IT team to focus on more strategic work.

Karolinska Institutet, a leading medical university, was tasked with accelerating research into chronic diseases and the impact of the human microbiome on reproductive health. This research was compute- and memory-intensive, requiring flexible compute capacity to process large batches of samples that arrive unpredictably. In 2020, the Centre for Translational Microbiome Research (CTMR) at the university was also tasked by the Swedish government to set up a new National Pandemic Centre (NPC) to strengthen Sweden’s COVID-19 response. The NPC was responsible for analyzing approximately 45,000 PCR-based COVID-19 tests per week, making it one of the largest lab facilities in Sweden for SARS-CoV-2 analyses. However, the CTMR was running IT services and analytics jobs on two physical servers, in a static configuration with no virtualization or capacity to scale, which posed a significant challenge.

Sestra Systems, a company that developed TapWise, a dispensing-as-a-service solution, faced a significant challenge in providing seamless service to customers in disconnected environments. The company's solution turns beverage taps into IoT-connected devices, improving customer service, preventing loss through spillage, and ensuring compliance with ABC regulations. The taps also collect a vast quantity of data and store it in the cloud, providing customers with visibility of who poured which drinks, when, and why. However, with a diverse customer base ranging from small hotels to large stadiums, distributors, and even cruise ships, Sestra Systems needed to ensure TapWise was highly available, even with limited access to the cloud. As the company scaled, it also needed to maintain connected control for an increasing number of diverse environments.

The not-for-profit healthcare system aimed to build an in-room concierge system to reduce the burden of logistical questions on medical staff, improve patient satisfaction and survey response rates, and test the effectiveness of a voice user interface (VUI) in enhancing patient and caregiver interaction. The system was required to handle requests for care, provide general hospital information, and initiate a brief satisfaction survey to alert the medical center to any negative experiences in real time. It also needed to facilitate state-sponsored surveys at the end of the stay, crucial for maintaining reputation and operating certificates. The challenge was to balance technical proficiency with the integrity of protected health information (PHI), ensuring the system complied with HIPAA and applicable state regulations.

USU, one of Europe’s largest vendors of IT and knowledge management software, was looking to enhance its software solutions by improving their built-in analytics capabilities. The company aimed to provide more flexible reports and visualizations that would support on-demand ad hoc analysis and forecasting of process performance. They wanted to empower their customers’ business users by enabling them to build these reports and visualizations without needing the help of technical experts. The key challenge was to find a comprehensive data integration, data analysis, and front-end data visualization solution from a single vendor that would be easy to integrate into its software portfolio.

Badan POM, the Indonesian Food and Drug Authority, was facing significant challenges with its legacy system. The authority, which regulates the country's registration and distribution of drugs, food, cosmetics, and health supplements, had large data storage requirements. The legacy system was causing slow system performance, leading to longer lead times needed to process license applications. This inefficiency was not only affecting the authority's operations but also its customer service. Additionally, the lack of adequate data protection was putting the authority's data and business at risk. The challenge was to improve the slow application performance and increase data protection.