ONTRAS Gastransport GmbH is a transmission system operator overseeing 7,700 kilometers of pipelines. The company is responsible for transporting natural gas all over East Germany and prioritizes reliability for its customers.
As the company expanded, ONTRAS sought better visibility across its operations, especially those carried out by service providers. Manual communication interfaces led to information loss, hindering operational efficiency and service quality. To address these challenges, ONTRAS aimed to improve field operations with offline capabilities, ensuring better data integrity for uninterrupted operations and much faster response times.
After thorough research, the German utility company implemented smart forms within SAP Field Service Management to capture and monitor real-time data from its field operations. Convista supported ONTRAS throughout the implementation process, serving as the interface to SAP and customizing and enhancing SAP Field Service Management, including customizing the SAP Field Service Management, connector for SAP ERP, in order to meet the company’s specific requirements.
Faster process runtime with improved data visibility at ONTRAS
Working with a large external staff and a dispersed system led to a significant data gap.
Ines Kurmies, an SAP specialist at ONTRAS, explained: “Our internal staff extracted data from SAP, while external staff used a manual Excel logging process, which made it difficult to understand the status of orders.”
The external staff was receiving the orders through the SAP system, but it was not possible to track their work. Feedback was received within the SAP system only after completion, and the logs were uploaded to SAP, which meant the company lacked visibility into the steps in between.
ONTRAS needed a solution to maintain maintenance plans and functional locations within SAP while providing access to external service providers via an interface. The company sought comprehensive data integration and a single source of truth with real-time data monitoring.
With the full integration of logs and smart forms, ONTRAS can now guide technicians through tasks, capture data, and provide a structured way to document the inspection process in real-time. Integrating these disparate systems created a single source of truth, helping the company eliminate inefficiencies and data gaps, enabling faster process runtime.
“With the full integration of logs and smart forms, we achieved a much faster checklist revision,” Eva Scholl, a maintenance engineer at ONTRAS, shared. “Now we have an end-to-end digital process, so the process runtime in itself is one of the greatest benefits.”
Real-time data and comprehensive tracking are crucial for preventative maintenance, rapid response to issues, and compliance.
During a gas pipe fitting inspection, the company’s system creates an order dispatched to a service provider, the responsible specialist, who then assigns it to an assembler. The assembler inspects the fittings, logging their work using smart forms in SAP Field Service Management. This information is sent back to the responsible specialist, who reviews and completes the order. Finally, an audit report is generated as a PDF and transferred to SAP Plant Maintenance Rapid Mart, where the company can view and process the inspection results. Without this real-time data flow, a faulty fitting might go unnoticed, leading to a gas leak and potential safety hazard.
The company can see what order is dispatched when it is processed and what the status is.
“Now, field sales representatives have more information and experience less information loss because they directly see the order from us — exactly what we want to see,” Scholl added. “Previously, there was a manual communication interface, which inevitably led to information loss.”
Running safe, efficient, compliant operations in remote and challenging environments
For utility companies, inspecting and maintaining natural gas pipelines in remote rural areas is crucial. These locations often suffer from unreliable internet connectivity, leading to potential data gaps.
ONTRAS has significantly improved its field operations by implementing offline capabilities. Technicians can now conduct inspections, record findings, and complete digital checklists directly on their mobile devices on-site, even without internet access. Once back in an area with connectivity, all data automatically syncs to the central system, updating records and informing supervisors of completed work.
“With SAP Field Service Management, there is the app that can be connected to all applications,” Kurmies added. “We achieved the broadest coverage of our use cases for the first time, with many already covered by the standard product.”
As the company continues to grow, the German Association of Gas and Water Compartments regulations are a central component, implemented to guarantee the technical security of the installations and the security of supply.
With SAP Field Service Management, the company can now operate offline remotely without internet coverage and maintain the patching and checklist functions. This is especially important for technicians in remote areas lacking internet connectivity. Technicians must adhere to strict safety protocols and document every step. Offline checklists and patching functions ensure that no steps are missed, even in remote locations.
“This was the big challenge that we are also becoming more and more digital,” Kurmies further explained. “You also want to provide digital protocol templates and we simply reached our limits.”
Convista played a crucial role in guiding the company through the SAP implementation process, acting as the interface between SAP and the company while adjusting SAP Field Service Management to meet ONTRAS’ specific needs.
Heiko Winkler, IT manager at ONTRAS, highlighted the reliability and commitment of Convista as an implementation partner: “Convista is an exceptionally reliable and committed partner. Even in the second phase of the project, which was initially considered high-risk, their expertise and dedication ensured a successful implementation.”
Winkler noted the significant creativity applied to advising on the implementation, especially considering the initial uncertainty about its feasibility. Additionally, the company collaborated with Proaxia Consulting Group for the technical implementation of the SAP Field Service Management, connector for SAP ERP, and made several adjustments to the setup and error messages. The entire implementation took approximately a year and a half.
The company currently uses SAP ERP Central Component and is transitioning to SAP S/4HANA, having already implemented SAP Field Service Management. Winkler noted that they strategically rely on cloud products: “Our philosophy is not cloud only, but cloud first.”
ONTRAS aims to advance further with smart forms and continue to expand its SAP S/4HANA implementation in the near future.
News first published on news.sap.com
