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How we inspired VEGA Grieshaber with an Agile Software Twin

14.07.2021
Reading time: 3 min

When you think of the small town of Schiltach in the Black Forest, you rarely think of a world market leader. VEGA Grieshaber, however, is exactly the kind of company that has its headquarters there. The family-run company with sales of several hundred million euros has been setting standards in measurement technology for years.

The location in the Black Forest brings with it special challenges in terms of infrastructure. When IT has to guarantee production worth millions, as in this case, downtime is not an option. For VEGA, flexible and independent IT, both on the hardware and software side, is therefore incredibly important. VEGA’s proprietary ERP is at the center of attention, mapping virtually all business processes from manufacturing to HR. VEGA was aware, however, that in order to master the challenges of digitalization, this monolithic software must become much more flexible.

Making the future palatable: Cloud can be this beautiful

But how do you convince a successful company to rebuild its existing structure? You simply bring part of the future into the present and make it and its benefits tangible. Our plan was clear: build an “Agile Twin” of a component of this system with the latest technology and seamlessly integrate it into the existing system.

Before that, of course, we got to know the VEGA team. This much we can reveal: The Schwarzwäldler:innen are excellent hosts. We ended up being on site for a full six weeks to really get in sync with VEGA’s IT and their developers and work on the vision for the best possible solution.

Agile Development or: Constant dripping wears the stone

After that, the project continued in an agile project structure. Because the personal exchange on site was so enormously valuable for us, we presented our results to VEGA every two weeks and coordinated the further procedure. To maximize technological excellence and compatibility with VEGA’s systems and processes, there were additional fixed exchanges per month with VEGA’s development team for joint development.

These measures were elementary to the success of the project. Because before Corona, physical separation was a much bigger factor. Methods and expertise for home office, remote work & co. were much less widespread. So for such a complex project, we had to have very good stakeholder management and make the collaboration with VEGA as efficient as possible.

Tech Jenga: The Art of Improving and Replacing Software Unnoticed

We have already explained our technological approach: the “Agile Twin” of an existing VEGA system component. And we, fearless as we are, directly caught one of the fattest fish – the article base of more than 10,000 products. This is a huge database, which is of immense importance to VEGA’s sales department. Achieving significant improvements in performance and handling here would therefore directly result in major improvements for VEGA’s workflows.

It wasn’t easy, but we achieved the goal. We were able to rebuild the article master and integrate it seamlessly into VEGA’s ERP. The whole thing is now faster, leaner, more flexible. For example, it can be easily controlled via the browser. With this success, we have the green light to continue supporting VEGA in the transformation of its IT. An exciting project in which we have been able to learn a lot and have experienced a great deal of professional and human appreciation, and continue to do both.

A project to grow with – maybe with you?

We are pleased that we were able to convince and inspire such an exciting company with our technological expertise. Of course, this also makes us hungry for the next challenges. As a Digital Experience Company, we never stop pushing the boundaries of what is possible. For this purpose, we are still looking for technically experienced colleagues, especially in Leipzig and Heilbronn. If you can imagine working for us: Here you can find our job advertisements. If you can imagine us working for you: Just say hello.

If you want to learn more about the website optimization we did for VEGA Grieshaber, check it out here.

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