abat in St. Ingbert, Saarland, is part of the abat Group, which has more than 800 employees and additional national and international locations. The company stands for digital high availability solutions in the complex manufacturing industry for production control, production planning and quality management. In addition, the portfolio includes xReality, artificial intelligence, app and software development, and cloud services, among others. A strong asset of abat’s IT experts is the transformation of legacy systems. The goal: to open the door for tomorrow today.
Hybrid Cloud Manufacturing by abat: Creating new ways for your path to the future
Despite all the challenges, countless companies have continued to grow over decades. Closely linked to this growth is the constant evolution of the IT infrastructure. Consisting of monolithic applications and expensive physical hardware structures, many of today’s companies face cost-intensive and time-consuming maintenance and software enhancements. In addition, the knowledge of these aging legacy systems dwindles. Challenges such as competent employees leaving their companies or the unwillingness of subsequent generations in learning outdated technologies as well as the unavoidable need to reach for a service provider with the necessary know-how push the cost spiral even higher. Eventually the integration of new functionalities in a constantly changing market environment is difficult or even impossible with the existing technology.
Facing the high cost pressure, migrating to a new system seems to have no alternative from an outside view. Therefore fundamental changes within existing systems are considered utopian even by IT specialists due to the immense economic risks consisting in increasing error rates or unpredictable failure scenarios. So how can systems of yesterday, which have grown over the years and are often unclear and yet elementary, become ready for the challenges of tomorrow?
Scalable, secure, reliable: abat makes existing legacy systems fit for future
Hybrid cloud manufacturing is a key solution. This term refers to the expansion and optimization of existing legacy systems with modern container technology and innovative cloud solutions. When supporting its customers, the IT specialist abat relies on the broad spectrum consisting of established solutions and new fields of development from the very beginning. The interaction between business-critical existing software and modern programming is anything but trivial. With over 200 employees at the St. Ingbert office, the abat group provides everything needed to support and further develop complex system landscapes in companies. Many years of experience in manufacturing execution systems on the one hand and comprehensive process knowledge in manufacturing industry on the other hand make abat a professional partner in system support. The investment in research and development together with institutions such as Saarland University ensures, that the abat experts are ready for developing and implementing holistic solutions for hybrid cloud manufacturing challenges.
Starting with a detailed analysis of status quo by the IT specialists from abat, a design of the optimal future system landscape is created together with the customer. Following the customer centered design phase, existing systems are integrated into the new architecture, process modules are added or system parts are replaced. During the process, the experts identify possibilities to migrate software parts to the cloud makes sense and point out, where potential extensions using container technology should be used. The resulting transition plan as well as an individual concept for maintenance and support complete the abat hybrid manufacturing portfolio. Support before, during and after the project phase is guaranteed at all times by the abat Group’s Application Maintenance Team.
