From digital transformation roadmap to global practice. Evonik drives digitization at global production sites with Testify.
After the pilot phase at two production sites, Testify was rolled out to more than 20 sites worldwide within a year, enabling it to support the planned digitization strategy in a timely and cost-efficient manner.
Über Evonik
Evonik is a global leader in specialty chemicals. Its credo: to make life better, day by day. Active in over 100 countries worldwide and with more than 33,000 employees, Evonik's goal is to create innovative, value-adding and sustainable solutions for customers.
- Customer Evonik
- Date März, 2021
- WEBSITE www.evonik.com
The digitization success story at Evonik.
The company is driving forward the digital transformation of its production, supply chain and asset lifecycle processes with a comprehensive and integrated digital agenda. In the course of creating dedicated digitization roadmaps with input from different areas of the company such as production, logistics, laboratory and engineering, a package of measures was put together to drive forward the digital transformation. This also involved the digitization of predominantly paper-based processes. A need for a software solution to document and control internal processes using digital checklists was quickly derived from this. And from that point on, Testify was put to use.
The initial situation at Evonik.
The recording and documentation of plant tours and safety inspections, for example, was mainly conducted in paper-based form at Evonik production sites. This was resource-intensive and resulted in the creation of information silos.
Predominantly paper-based processes.
Up to now, the documentation of processes has been predominantly on paper and stored in folders in order to comply with the legally prescribed retention period of up to 30 years.
Although paper documentation fulfills the documentation requirements imposed by several parties, data in paper form can only be processed into information with additional manual effort. The scanning, printing and filing processes also led to an increase in media disruptions. In addition, the storage of files generated costs and tied up resources. Although traceability and auditability were given, they could be improved through the use of digital solutions.
The potential of digital checklist software was quickly recognized in order to achieve process improvements while at the same time conserving resources.
Smart collaboration at
global production sites.
The potential for global deployment of Testify was already recognized during the proof of concept at two locations in Marl and Wesseling. For a scalable, global rollout, the technical conditions on the part of the IT infrastructure and interfaces had to be created. Therefore, an internal strategy for top-down implementation was defined.
Step by step to the
global deployment of Testify.
Fast rollout in over 20 areas.
The rollout of the Testify software was started with a proof of concept (PoC) in plants at two Evonik production sites, Marl and Wesseling, to record the plants' requirements and evaluate the software.
After the successful PoC phase and evaluation of the potential savings that could be achieved by using the software, the pilot phase was taken up in less than 6 months in 10 additional plants worldwide, which was also very highly successful.
Testify is now in use on over 20 sites in countries such as Belgium, China, USA, New Zealand and Germany.
Cross-divisional digitization
of analog processes.
After the introduction of Testify, it was possible, among other things, to document plant tours, safety inspections, and S-O-S tours (safety-order-cleanliness) in a wide variety of areas such as laboratories, production, technical facilities, logistics, and catering in a mobile and digital format.
Deviations can be recorded directly on the tablet via an intuitive web app and assigned to the responsible employee in order to resolve the deviation as quickly as possible.
A central office coordinates the use of Testify and thus the smart collaboration.
Thanks to the flexible software solution, the software was rolled out to 20 areas worldwide from a central location within a year. Evonik introduced a multi-stage implementation process to get the software up and running in the respective areas within less than two weeks.
The process usually starts with a kick-off meeting to record the requirements of the use case to be mapped. This is followed by training sessions for the key users, the setup of the software solution, and finally the training of the end users by the key users.
Andreas Lindner is digital Partner in the division technology & infrastructure and is responsible for the rollout of Testify at Evonik: Employees of a team around Lindner are contact persons for the introduction and implementation of use cases in the Testify software. They are responsible for the entire rollout, documenting the requirements, preparing the work areas, and training key users.
A well thought-out support concept also ensures support beyond the rollout. Internal communication channels are used to address support issues related to Testify, which are then processed in a time-efficient manner by contact persons in Germany and China.
"The tool makes the benefits of digitization visible in our field in a simple and very cost-efficient way, and we will roll out Testify in other operations as well!"
Enterprise functionalities
for international use.
MS Azure Cloud Hosting.
To comply with compliance guidelines, Testify is operated entirely in Evonik's IT environment via MS Azure Cloud Hosting. This allows the high data protection requirements to be met and enables data and processes to be managed internally.
Multi Language Setting.
The integrated Multi Language Setting allows a flexible translation of the checklists into the desired languages without changing the database. With the upload of a language file, new language versions can be added and used efficiently which makes Testify quickly scalable. Together, several language versions have been implemented for international use.
Digital Checklist Management.
Digital checklist management for mapping and executing cross-divisional workflows. With the checklist templates, process flows are created once and are reused in slightly adapted form at other Evonik sites.
Native & WebApp.
With the intuitive WebApp, discrepancies, anomalies and the like can be recorded on the smartphone or tablet in the form of issues in Testify and assigned to the responsible employee.
Integrated Test Equipment Management.
The creation of test objects can be transferred 1:1 and continuously synchronized thanks to the interfaces to Office products, SAP PM and Production Information System (PIMS). In addition, custom fields allow a very flexible mapping of test objects, which also facilitates the modeling of special cases without programming effort.
E-Mail Notifications.
The integrated e-mail notification simplifies communication within processes. As soon as deviations have been recorded and they belong to a certain category, the responsible employees are informed about them in real time.
Reporting in Realtime.
Even the basic reporting functions, such as the number of issues recorded and the number and status of the checks performed, are now the basis for decisions on process improvements.
Flexible REST-API.
The integrations to SAP PM and, the PIMS were essential for the seamless execution of processes. For example, pressure values from the plant can be transferred directly to PIMS. The interface to Office 365 was also efficiency-enhancing. With flexible REST API and webhooks, independent integration into various primary systems is possible. The export of test protocols as PDFs has proven to be a very helpful tool when documenting processes. The exports are then automatically stored in a folder. This increases the overview.
The result after the
implementation of Testify.
40h time savings
during inspections.
The time saved by using Testify to perform a checklist amounts to several minutes. If plant tours are carried out regularly, this can quickly save around 40 hours of non-productive time per plant and year. Since, in addition to plant tours, other tours and inspections are also carried out with Testify, the total potential is correspondingly higher. If interfaces are used, e.g. for the automated storage of protocols or for the transfer of data to the PIMS, the savings potential is significantly higher.
Captured data is available
digitally and in real time.
There are significantly fewer media discontinuities and information silos, since the open system architecture and the flexible toolbox system allow interfaces to third-party systems to be implemented quickly, so that any information about company processes can be accessed centrally via an interface. Data silos are eliminated as effectively as possible. The analyses can be used to derive measures for process improvement, which in turn can be used to optimize production processes.
Digital execution of internal audits.
The use of Testify has also paid off in the course of internal audits. The entire review is no longer conducted with a clipboard and paper checklist, but 100% digitally via smartphone or tablets. The results can be made available digitally to all participants immediately.
Using Testify has changed the general way we work. We work faster and more efficiently because we have a better overview and all data can be reused elsewhere without media breaks!
The outlook.
Testify has now become an established component of Evonik's digital transformation. Testify can be used in a wide range of applications along the supply chain and the plant life cycle - from logistics to production.
In the future, cross-company collaboration with suppliers and customers is to be further expanded together with Testify, for which specific projects are already underway. In addition, the consistent use of data recorded by Testify will be further promoted.
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