voestalpine: New data platform and self-service analytics

The project at a glance

• voestalpine Group was facing a range of technical and organisational challenges related to an increasingly strong orientation towards a data-driven organisation.

• Within a few months, the team came up with a data platform based on Microsoft Azure that could be used as a foundation for the implementation of company-specific use cases and thus enables a focused technological expertise development.

• voestalpine can now benefit from a single source of truth for data and combines the world of structured data, e.g. BW, with Big Data, e.g. Data Lake. The central availability and traceability of data allows faster and more efficient solutions to be generated to support processes and decisions flexibly, scalably and securely with a cloud solution.

Technical and organisational challenges with data analysis

voestalpine – a leading global steel and technology group with around 500 group companies and locations in 50 countries on all five continents – faced a range of technical and organisational challenges relating to data analysis and data exchange. The essential know-how had to be built up. Zühlke was working with voestalpine on a project to set up a data platform to determine whether a solution to these challenges can be realised through the use of Microsoft Azure Synapse, Azure Data Lake or Microsoft Purview, and what the investment of this solution will be for the group.

 

Valuable use cases in a few months

Based on specific use cases of voestalpine Steel Division, the team identified the technical possibilities of Azure Data Services with regards to architecture, data flow, the processing of data from various sources, and data evaluation. A development team made up of employees from voestalpine and Zühlke worked closely together to develop end-to-end data pipelines, integrating technologies such as Oracle DB, SAP BW/HANA, and Power BI.

Zühlke supported voestalpine with agile coaching and with the configuration, integration, conception, and introduction of the data platform.

 

Cloud solution for more flexibility, security, and (cost) efficiency

The project team implemented the data platform, demonstrated the advantages of using Microsoft Azure Services in connection with Synapse Analytics and Purview, and provided data-based recommendations for the IT roadmap. The multi-disciplinary expertise of Zühlke in the areas of engineering, data analytics, and agile project management, paired with the sector-specific knowledge of voestalpine provided sufficient proof of the feasibility of the solution in a short period of time.

Through the use of Microsoft Azure, voestalpine Group is now increasingly able to benefit from a single source of truth for data (data lakehouse, data fabric) and an integrative architecture solution for various applications. A comparison between Microsoft Azure Service and in-house solutions also showed that the cloud solution offers greater flexibility, scalability, security, and ensures a shorter time-to-market, higher efficiency, and lower operating costs. As such, voestalpine will now benefit from the company’s IT roadmap over the long term.