The client, headquartered in Spain, is a leading car manufacturer renowned for its innovative vehicle designs with a rich history of over 50 years and an international workforce of over 15,000 employees. The company’s commitment to quality and performance has earned it a loyal customer base and a strong presence in over 70 countries worldwide.
As the company expanded its global operations and introduced new advanced technologies and platforms into its way of working, the complexity of its SAP system increased exponentially which brought on several key challenges:
These challenges threatened the client’s agility, capacity for innovation, and ability to adapt to the dynamic automotive landscape. They needed a solution that could address these issues and unlock the full potential of their SAP system.
To overcome the challenges of their growing SAP system, our client partnered with NTT DATA to develop and implement an advanced solution that leveraged generative AI to automate the transcoding and updating of the existing code.
The solution wasn’t only an improvement on how the client implemented technical code updates but it also established a solid, standardized process to ensure quality and efficiency in future updates and migrations. This approach resulted in a more streamlined, efficient, and high-quality code update process, setting a new standard for internal productivity and operational excellence.
In fact, this innovative approach transformed their code update process, delivering significant efficiency gains, improved quality, and future-proofed the system for the S4/HANA Cloud migration. Some of the most important improvements are the following:
At the core of the solution lies a custom-developed application powered by generative AI. This intelligent tool automates key tasks of the code update process, including code remediation, it facilitates the conversion and migration of the code to newer SAP versions, and it has the capacity to suggest potential code improvements and optimizations based on best practices and historical data.
Beyond automation, the solution establishes a standardized methodology for managing the entire code update process which includes defined workflows, a centralized repository of all the code assets and updates, and access to automated testing tools. This standardized approach enhances overall process control, streamlines collaboration, and guarantees consistent high-quality results.
The solution is designed to be scalable and adaptable to different system configurations and update requirements. This allows the client to easily manage updates across varying environments, from smaller development setups to their large-scale production system.
Furthermore, the solution prepares the terrain for the upcoming S4/HANA Cloud migration. The generative AI is trained on the S4/HANA architecture, ensuring smooth code adaptation and compatibility when the migration takes place.
The implementation of NTT DATA’s AI-powered solution delivered a multitude of benefits to the client, transforming their SAP system management and futureproofing their technology stack. Among the main benefits are:
It automates crucial tasks like code remediation and migration, reduces costs and increased agility due its capability for faster updates.
It reduces human error in code updates, it standardizes workflows and it’s prepared the client’s code for a seamless transition to S4/HANA Cloud.
It frees developers from repetitive tasks so they can focus on higher-level activities, it improves resource allocation and it also captures and learnes from developer expertise, creating a centralized knowledge base and facilitating team-wide best practices sharing.
The solution accommodated the client’s expanding system and operations, its flexible design prepares the system for future software updates and evolving industry demands and it establishes a sustainable foundation for long-term efficient SAP system management.
Looking ahead, the project aims to adapt and prepare the SAP system for migration to S4/HANA Cloud. This entails separating the programming layers to maintain an orderly distinction between standard and customized code, a complex yet essential step to ensure the system’s future readiness and efficiency in the cloud era. Continual evolution and improvement of the generative AI technology will be pivotal in minimizing human intervention in the code review and update process, further enhancing efficiency and productivity.
NTT DATA’s selection for this project stems from their wide-ranging expertise and in-depth knowledge of the SAP technologies which is acknowledged by their long-standing partnership with SAP. Their capabilities in consultancy, digitization, automation, data management, and system integration set them apart, but it was their extensive knowledge of both the automotive sector and the technological one, together with the capabilities to escalate projects and the expert multidisciplinary teams that were assembled, that solidified NTT DATA as the best partner to manage this project.
SAP Performance & Analytics Manager in NTT DATA