Essbio deploys SAP Solman for upgrade support and SAP HANA migration

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Novis was selected this year by Essbio to develop two projects: “Upgrade + migration to SAP HANA®” and “SAP Solman 7.2® implementation”. The latter concluded a few weeks ago, with the client’s positive evaluation.

The Transportation Management and Project Management systems were included in the advanced functionalities implemented to control test plans for projects with SAP® solutions.

Essbio is the second largest water supply company in Chile. It provides drinking water production and distribution services, evacuation and decontamination of wastewaters, industrial liquid residues treatment, and technical assistance to rural potable water systems. Essbio also operates Nuevosur; both companies together have more than 1200 employees in the four regions where they operate: O’Higgins, Maule, Ñuble, and Biobío. They have the largest geographic area coverage in Chile, serving about 1.2 million customers. The IT Assistant Manager area contributes by developing solutions that enable the company to deliver a service of excellence, based on a deep knowledge of its customers, high levels of efficiency and innovation, and its commitment to social responsibility with the community and the environment.

SAP Solution Manager Implementation

Raúl Torrealba, Essbio’s IT area project manager, says: “We manage many modifications in the company’s computer systems, either due to changes in regulations, or in response to the businesses areas’ requests. We needed a tool with good visibility to closely control changes being put into production, ensuring minimum impact to businesses areas, despite the variability”.

The IT project manager says they had previously implemented another tool, but results were not as expected. This led them to evaluate SAP Solution Manager, which was finally selected as it proved to be a more robust alternative. “We expect the users to take control of changes, based on functional tests with their corresponding approvals and evidence of the tests carried out, in a 100% traceable manner. In this way, they become owners of their processes, as we accompany them from the IT area”, he assures.

The project began by the end of March 2020, amid the pandemic, and was done completely in remote mode. “Initially scheduled for three months, it finally took us four months; due to our increased workload assisting remote tasks we required additional time for testing.

We are currently working in a SAP HANA implementation project, also overseen by Novis, for which we defined as a prerequisite having Solman 7.2 implemented, as we will be using it in transportation management”, he explains.

As to the final evaluation, Raúl Torrealba concludes: “The project was well executed, it was a very good experience, even though we had no physical contact whatsoever as usual. Novis’ team was perfectly coordinated, we held weekly meetings, and they were very accurate in the proposed solution, as well as in the scheduled deadlines. We finished on time, without delaying the main project, which is the SAP HANA implementation”.

Carlos del Valle, Business Manager at Novis, highlights the project’s strengths: “We are very satisfied, as we were able to finish the SAP Solution Manager project on time, without delaying the migration to SAP HANA. Both Novis and Essbio’s teams developed great rapport to achieve this, even with the special conditions we face due to the pandemic. With this, we were able to dismantle the paradigm that projects must have face-to-face components. I am thankful to Raúl Torrealba, Carlos Ceballos, and the entire Essbio’s team, for having trusted us for this challenge. We expect to have the same performance in the current project and am convinced we will be successful. It is essential to Novis to be able to support Essbio in all their technological innovations, while being transparent to their business areas.

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Article by Gilda Valderrama, Novis Bulletin editor.