Case study: Virtual Global Warehousing across 5 continents

As part of its digital transformation strategy, one of the world’s leading providers of innovative wireless and broadcast infrastructure solutions, RFS, was faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge: the company operates 8 plants and 5 R&D centers on 5 continents in which specialized equipment and a variety of test systems for customer-specific products are used. This heterogeneity of facilities and systems meant that the product data was stored and processed in different data models at each location. This resulted in data silos that were very difficult to integrate with each other. In short: the products stored at the respective location with their highly individualized specifications were neither freely and globally searchable nor comparable for inventory or sales teams. Internally, this hurdle was solved using complex transaction processes, which not only led to costs but also to long customer lead times.

Traditional ERP approaches are doomed to failure

RFS‘ vision, however, was and is a digital, agile supply chain that connects suppliers and customers directly to RFS manufacturing through seamless data integration and e2e process digitalization. To achieve this, the regionally dominant data silos must be broken down and the product specifications integrated across all locations, without questioning the existing IT architecture with its various test systems. The core of the digital transformation is to understand a wide variety of data and at the same time achieve full data agility. RFS were aware that classic ERP approaches would fail here.

Mastering digital transformation with eccenca Corporate Memory

With the help of eccenca, a semantic data model was therefore integrated into the existing systems. The approach is used in the semantic data catalog solution eccenca Corporate Memory and provides a lingua franca for all RFS product data regardless of source, format or data model, organizing and linking the data entirely on metadata level. Thus, expensive ETL processes (extraction, transformation, loading) become unnecessary.

»With support of our semantic technology partner eccenca we gained an overarching understanding of our data enabling us to drive Industry 4.0 and Smart Supply Chain objectives effectively. To be frank, we never before had such a level of data transparency«, Karl Kirschenhofer, COO at RFS, summarizes.

Thomas Gaal, Director Digital Transformation at RFS, adds: »We’ve enabled data agility by creating a semantic data architecture embedded in our enterprise IT architecture. We are now able to give the customer a fully digital experience in certain processes, are reducing approx. 20 man-months of transactional effort in internal processes«.

With eccenca Corporate Memory, RFS has created a virtual global warehousing system that can be freely searched and managed worldwide despite the different proprietary test systems. RFS was thus able to significantly reduce delivery times and ensure an ROI of 250% in the first year.

About RFS

Radio Frequency Systems (RFS) is a global designer and manufacturer of cable, antenna and tower systems, plus active and passive RF conditioning modules, providing total-package solutions for wireless infrastructure. RFS serves OEMs, distributors, system integrators, operators and installers in the broadcast, wireless communications, land-mobile and microwave market sectors. As an ISO compliant organization with manufacturing and customer service facilities that span the globe, RFS offers cutting-edge engineering capabilities, superior field support and innovative product design. RFS is a leader in wireless infrastructure. www.rfsworld.com