In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, air filtration is playing an important role in creating healthy environments, including making workplaces and some public spaces safer.
gettyBy Michael Kure, SAP Customer Marketing
Since the age of nine, I was determined never to take the air that I breathe for granted. This lasting impression hit me after watching Godzilla versus the Smog Monster on TV one rainy afternoon. American Air Filter Company (AAF), on the other hand, had been doing that since 1921, and they didn’t need some giant rubber monster to get them started.
Creating healthy environments to limit the spread of COVID-19
Operating in more than 22 countries, AAF is the world’s largest manufacturer of air filtration solutions and has been delivering clear air to clients for 100 years. Its air filtration solutions protect people, processes, and systems by removing and controlling airborne particulates.
That may sound a wee bit dull to the lay person, but in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, air filtration is playing an important role in creating healthy environments, including making workplaces and some public spaces safer.
Naturally, AAF’s customers rely on them to deliver new orders and service existing systems in a timely and efficient manner – now more than ever before, as you might imagine.
But is AAF actually making good on that?
Obstacles of monstrous proportion
To meet increasing demand for its equipment that limits the spread of COVID-19, AAF needed to speed up production across its European operations. But this wasn’t happening. Unfortunately for AAF, an obstacle as imposing as Godzilla stood in the way. (Or King Kong. You choose!)
AAF suffered from a complex IT infrastructure involving multiple, disparate ERP systems. Individual systems were adapted for the specific needs of local markets across several countries – hampering the company’s ability to respond to customer requirements quickly.
Not only that, all of this was costly to run, requiring significant IT resources for system administration, and for the time-consuming creation of reports to support management decision-making.
The bottom line: The absence of standardization between processes and procedures across Europe was negatively impacting speed and efficiency behind its customer service.
Escape from inefficiency
With the help of SAP Preferred Success and SAP Value Assurance services, AAF deployed SAP cloud-based solutions to standardize processes and support transformation – working towards becoming an intelligent enterprise.
Once implemented, AAF reaped the following benefits:
- Increased transparency with a consolidated view of European operations and easy access to real-time information
- Heightened customer experience by providing reliable and timely deliveries, and responding to changing requirements with agility
- Reduced total cost of ownership through the harmonization of over a dozen ERP systems onto a single cloud-based operations management solution based on SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Achieving healthy air goals through process standardization
With synchronized processes and a single source of truth, AAF now benefits from a more transparent and streamlined operation across all business areas. In fact, a 15% time savings on all core tasks is anticipated. Its new simplified IT infrastructure costs less to maintain and enables them to take advantage of intelligent technologies to innovate its offerings.
All of this was achieved to keep customers happy, and their customers’ customers safe from airborne contaminants during the current global health crisis and beyond.
“Cloud solutions from SAP are enabling us to harmonize processes across our European operations,” said Frank Kess, Vice President Finance and IT, AAF Europe. “This is helping us work more efficiently and productively, while better serving our customers.”
If you’re interested in learning more, and I hope that you are, check out AAF’s SAP Innovation Awards 2021 pitch deck.
