Introduction of a digital workplace at Endress+Hauser
About the customer
Endress+Hauser is a leading international supplier of measuring instruments, services and solutions for industrial process engineering.
The "People for Process Automation" offer complete solutions for flow, level, pressure, analysis, temperature, data acquisition and digital communication across all industries and guarantee reliable, safe, economical and environmentally friendly processes.
Headquartered in Reinach near Basel, the Group employs more than 14,000 people worldwide. Its own sales centers and a network of partners ensure competent support worldwide. Product Centers in twelve countries meet customer requirements quickly and flexibly.
The project
The solution focuses on the following areas:
- Collaboration in organizational units, working groups and project groups based on modern, intelligent and pre-structured collaboration spaces, so-called workspaces with document libraries, team notebooks and shared tasks
- A personal workspace dashboard with filter options
- An expert search and a profile editor for easy management and customization of personal information based on metadata
- A self-service portal - e.g. for requesting new workspaces, external access or customizing storage space
The initial situation was an inhomogeneous tool landscape for communication, information and collaboration. The aim was to provide a working environment for the future that would meet all internal requirements in the long term. Endress+Hauser had the desire and need for a modern, mobile and open platform for internal and external collaboration.
The joint solution was a digital workplace as a self-service collaboration tool for internal employees and external partners. A workspace dashboard was to provide an overview of the most important and personal spaces and documents.
Endress+Hauser: More information about the project
The second stage was heralded at the beginning of 2018: More than 100 employees from the Endress+Hauser Group's locations worldwide came together in January for a two-day kick-off in Weil am Rhein (Germany) to find out about the vision and objectives of this next stage and then to work out the initial details together.
Now innobit ag came into play as a partner for the new collaboration platform: In the kickoff workshop, the participants immersed themselves in the sub-areas of collaboration, corporate news, mobility, lifecycle management, governance and self-service together with innobit. They contributed the needs from their locations, and many decided to participate in the various working groups in the long term and actively contribute to the design of the new collaboration platform.
The strategic requirement was to use Microsoft cloud technologies. The existing systems, such as the "old" intranet, which was to be gradually replaced, and the Confluence Wiki, which was to be used in parallel with the new platform, also received a great deal of attention. In addition, interfaces were to be created, e.g. to the HR personnel master data, Salesforce.com or Planview. The implementation was based on Powell 365 - The Digital Workplace for Office 365 and SharePoint Online - and selective extensions as a future-oriented full cloud solution.
Within around 5 months, we iteratively implemented the solution together so that the Endress+Hauser change management team could start creating the training and information material in the summer. The new Endress+Hauser collaboration platform has been online since December 1, 2018. New workspaces are being created every day and employees are delighted with the new opportunities for international collaboration.
In the next step, we will create a new intranet, also based on Microsoft SharePoint Online, so that information, collaboration and communication can grow together.
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