Turning Physical Products Into Digital Services
Process Automation of B2B IT Services
The functionality of telecommunications infrastructures is increasingly managed by software. In the past, installations or upgrades required at times multiple on-site visits. Today, customers expect IT Services Process Automation that delivers real-time deployment of new software and functions.
At a globally operating manufacturer and service provider for telecommunications infrastructure, software deployment has so far been analogous to hardware delivery. The result was a multitude of media breaks, manual work steps and an unclear definition of processes. These prohibited the IT Services Process Automation, especially for remote locations.
99 % FASTERB2B Software Delivery
100 % AUTOMATEDDeployment Process
100 % SCALABLEFor Future Projects
PRODUCT USED
eccenca Corporate Memory
With eccenca, we are able to fully meet the expectations of our business clients for an automated, timecritical software delivery. We reduced delivery time for our complex software-defined functions and capabilities from weeks to minutes.
Project leader for Automated Software Supply Chain
Challenge: Managing Complex Physical Infrastructures In Real-Time
Manage Hardware Lifecycles
Mobile telecommunication networks consist of thousands of base stations fitted with hundreds of different versions of antennas. The necessary ransparency for efficient asset management was not given. Maintenance and upgrades generally needed on-site visits to identify the status quo.
Manage Software Lifecycles
Antennas are mass-customized projects with highly specific software, license codes and intricate interdependencies. Due to this complexity, (re-)configuration and upgrades were handled manually. Additionally, media breaks between data on contracts, products, orders, prices and quantities led to delays and backlogs.
Automate Testing & Deployment
Infrastructure availability in the telecommunication industry is paramount. In reality manual delivery, highly customized configurations and media breaks led to lead-times ranging from several days to weeks. To establish IT Services Process Automation with automated testing and deployment the intelligent linking of physical and logical assets is key.
Solution: Building a Business Digital Twin
eccenca build a Business Digital Twin using Corporate Memory as the foundation for the cross-system integration. This digital twin digitalized and linked all software and physical products, underlying compliance rules (e.g. Global Trade Management check), as well as configuration parameters of the existing software production automation Artifactory. This made all data and rules of the delivery process fully explicit and allowed for full IT Services Process Automation. The integration of eccenca Corporate Memory into the IT architecture did not require any changes to the existing systems and minimal effort to set up the interface.
As soon as an entitlement is created or updated for a customer, Corporate Memory initiates a Global Trade Management check. After confirmation, the corresponding data is synchronized, the product licenses are assigned to the customer and the license keys are generated. These are uploaded to the Artifactory repository to replicate the respective software artifacts. An automated quality check verifies the correctness of the artifacts and license keys. In the event of errors, the entire process is repeated. After successful verification the artifacts and license keys are securely delivered to the customer. All processes run fully automated and in real-time.
The underlying processes were fully digitalized and automated. At the same time, we retain full flexibility to roll out and scale up the knowledge graph platform to other business units.
Project leader for Automated Software Supply Chain
