JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. partners with SUSE to improve operating efficiency and create future innovation capability - Image Relay
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JK Tyre and Industries Ltd.
partners with SUSE to improve
operating efficiency and create
JK Tyre and future innovation capability
Industries Ltd.
Industry and Location
Manufacturing | India
Product(s) and Service(s)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications
Success
Story
At-a-Glance
JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. was looking to
refresh its IT infrastructure and needed a
solution that could support core SAP ap-
plications while taking minimal downtime
to implement. The company migrated
from its legacy Unix system to SUSE®
Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applica-
tions with a VMware virtualization layer.
JK Tyre boosted its system availability to
100 percent, and is now preparing for the
next stage of its SAP adoption of new age
technologies.
consistent efficiency of its manufactur-
ing plants, and in 2017 it earned a Golden
Introducing JK Tyre and Peacock Environment Award for its work on
sustainable rubber production.
Industries Ltd.
JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. is widely recog-
Founded in 1974 and headquartered in New nized as being among India’s most trusted
Delhi, India, JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. is the and prestigious companies, as well as be-
undisputed market leader in truck and bus ing ‘India’s only Tyre Superbrand’, recently
radial tires in India, with 138 selling locations recognized as a Consumer Superbrand for
and a 4,000+ strong dealer network served the sixth time in a row. It is the preferred
by nine plants in India and three plants in manufacturing partner of several leading
Mexico. With state-of-the-art modern pro- automobile companies, including Volkswa-
duction facilities in all of its manufacturing gen, General Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Nissan,
plants, the company produces around 32 Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Volvo-Eicher
million tires per year. Commercial Vehicles, and Daimler AG.
The company is widely recognized for its pi- Challenge
oneering work in the manufacturing sector.
It was the first Indian tire company to man- Making tracks
ufacture radial tires for the entire range of In a high-pressure, competitive industry
automobiles, including buses, trucks, light like automobile parts manufacturing, com-
commercial vehicles, passenger cars, multi panies must make use of every possible
utility vehicles, and farm & OTR (Off The measure to keep costs low and efficiency
Road) vehicles. The company was award- high. This is no different for JK Tyre and In-
ed the 2010 Total Productive Maintenance dustries Ltd., which strongly defends its title
(TPM) Excellence Award by the Japan In- as a global market leader in truck and bus
stitute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM) for the radial tire production.
2 JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. SUSE.com
“Although the project took place over four months, the actual
downtime for the migration process was minimal—we only had
to take systems offline for 36 hours, which really minimized the
impact on our business operations.”
Deepak Gupta
General Manager—Information Technology
JK Tyre and Industries Ltd.
To produce and distribute tires and rubber and are critical to the smooth functioning
auto parts to a wide range of customers all of the business. To keep JK Tyre working,
around the world, JK Tyre requires efficient we need the right database and the right
manufacturing processes and low-fric- operating system infrastructure to support
tion methods of coordinating with Original these applications.”
Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), as well
as dealers and distribution networks. In the JK Tyre had previously been running its
race to stay ahead of its competitors, the SAP applications on an Oracle database,
company has long relied on a variety of SAP but the company realized that, within the
ERP applications to support rapid, reliable next few years, this database could poten-
business processes and streamline its sup- tially not be supported by SAP. With this in
ply chain management. mind, and due to ageing hardware, JK Tyre
decided to make the move to SAP HANA,
Many of these core applications rely on SAP opening the door to further efficiency im-
HANA, which enables the business to provide provements and technology upgrades.
smart, business-focused services—includ-
ing an external data portal which dealers “As we were already on the lookout for a
can access to feed in their order predictions. hardware change, and support for Oracle
was running out, it seemed like the perfect
Deepak Gupta, General Manager—Informa time to move to SAP HANA” said Deepak
tion Technology for JK Tyre and Industries Gupta. “As a proprietary software of SAP,
Ltd., explained: “We have relied on a wide SAP HANA allows us to make even greater
variety of SAP applications including con- use of SAP applications.”
ventional modules, New Dimension Mod-
ules and new age SAP Technologies like SAP Wear and tear
Cloud Platform for our business applica- The legacy IT infrastructure that JK Tyre
tions for the last ten years. used to support its SAP applications was
approaching end-of-life, and could poten-
“These applications have been indispens- tially have slowed down key business oper-
able in enabling JK Tyre to gain increased ations. To harmonize its planned software
efficiencies and new planning capabilities, upgrade, the company was looking for a
3 JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. SUSE.comcomplete hardware and software refresh crucial SAP systems, and remain available
that would provide a safe home for its SAP 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After
database and keep its crucial SAP applica- considering all these factors, the SUSE solu-
tions running smoothly. tion just seemed like the natural choice.”
JK Tyre opted for a cluster of HPE servers as Solution
the hardware basis of its new systems, but it
needed a stable, reliable operating system A tightly integrated solution
to tie everything together. Following an in-depth evaluation of the
potential operating systems, JK Tyre se-
With 98 percent of its business applications lected SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP
running on SAP ERP, JK Tyre required an IT Applications, running on HPE hardware.
provider whose infrastructure was tightly Deepak Gupta remarked: “Throughout our
integrated with the SAP architecture, for a research, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server al
rapid and simple migration of its systems. ways came out on top. SUSE Linux Enter
As many of its critical applications were prise Server for SAP Applications has the
SAP-dependent, the company also needed tight integration with SAP systems that we
to maximize uptime both during the imple- need to support our vital business appli-
mentation and for long-term operations. cations, and SUSE had the competency we
needed to reduce migration downtime for
To continue to support these essential func- minimal impact on production.
tions, the company wanted an infrastruc-
ture provider that could minimize downtime “On top of that, the strong partnership be-
and provide tight integration with its exist- tween SUSE and SAP means it is possible
ing SAP applications. for us to make maintenance requests to
SAP via a window in the SUSE interface. Be-
JK Tyre’s previous system ran on HP-UX, an ing able to access support for our SAP ap-
HPE operating system—so it would have plications through a single pane of glass
been easy to simply opt for another HPE represents valuable streamlining, and it’s
solution. But to ensure it was taking ad- a mark of how well-integrated SUSE is with
vantage of the best possible operating SAP. That level of trust signalled to us that
system, JK Tyre assessed a variety of dif- we were making the right choice by invest-
ferent providers, including Red Hat, HPE, IBM ing in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP
and SUSE. Applications.”
Deepak Gupta explained: “Our SAP applica-
tions run through the entire supply chain,
“SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications has
and every department is in some way de- the tight integration with SAP systems that we need
pendent on them; from procurement, to to support our vital business applications, and SUSE
had the competency we needed to reduce migration
manufacturing, to collections, to sales. We downtime for minimal impact on production.”
needed a solution we could rely on to run our
Sharad Agarwal
mission critical enterprise applications with-
Head—Information Technology
out any downtime, and we wanted some- JK Tyre and Industries Ltd.
thing that would integrate tightly with these
4 JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. SUSE.comOver the course of the four-month imple- Deepak Gupta elaborated: “Since moving
mentation period, JK Tyre and its business to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Ap-
partners carried out the migration of its plications, we estimate that user produc-
systems and data from the previous Unix tivity has gone up by between 20 and 30
system onto SUSE Linux Enterprise Server percent. SUSE has delivered the reliability
for SAP Applications, as well as introducing we were looking for—in fact, uptime has
a VMware virtualization layer to protect its risen from 98 percent to 100 percent. While
applications. the low total cost of ownership for SUSE
Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications
“Although the project took place over four meant it made up a very small fraction of
months, the actual downtime for the migra- our investment spend, it has had an enor-
tion process was minimal—we only had to mous impact on the business.”
take systems offline for 36 hours, which re-
ally minimized the impact on our business Employees throughout JK Tyre are also en-
operations,” said Deepak Gupta. “We were joying the new operating system’s ease
also impressed by how smoothly the SUSE of use. “The user experience for our staff is
operating system integrated with our VM- great, and this has made it even easier to
ware environment. The stability and broad carry out and monitor all of our crucial busi-
compatibility of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ness processes,” added Deepak Gupta. “The
for SAP Applications means that we can be updates are slick, and it is very easy to patch
confident about future expansions and up- and tweak systems. This positive user ex-
dates to our IT infrastructure, so long as we perience has had a knock-on effect, mak-
have the SUSE solution as a base.” ing interactions with our business partners
much smoother, and bringing better prod-
Results ucts to our end-customers more quickly.”
Frictionless efficiency Supporting innovation
With its migration to SUSE Linux Enterprise JK Tyre also enjoys technical support from
Server for SAP Applications complete, JK SUSE itself, whenever the need should arise.
Tyre is now home to one of the largest en- Sharad Agarwal, Head—Information Tech-
terprise computer systems in the automo- nology at JK Tyre and Industries, remarked:
bile parts industry, with 27 terabytes of RAM, “Our relationship with the SUSE team has
arranged into a three-tier landscape to op- been great, and we know we can rely on
timize resources. their top-class IT support. However, their
product is so reliable, we have not needed
The move to running its SAP applications any support from them as yet—we haven’t
on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has giv- experienced a single bug, problem or out-
en JK Tyre an impressive boost to its ef age since deploying the SUSE solution! With
ficiency and productivity, enabling the this kind of reliability, SUSE Linux Enterprise
company to focus on staying ahead of the Server for SAP Applications just works qui-
competition. etly in the background without us having to
worry about a thing.
5 JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. SUSE.com“What we do notice, however, is the supe- SAP S/4HANA, to prepare the company for
rior function of SAP HANA, which SUSE has even more advanced technology. For in-
enabled us to enjoy. The superior compres- stance, by using machine learning pro-
sion, speed and agility of the database is grams throughout the business, we will be
already improving business efficiency. Pro- able to further boost our productivity, and
cess cycle times have dropped from three improve the level of service for our business
minutes down to just one, while reports partners and customers. We are also look-
that used to take 10 minutes are complet- ing into the possibility of predictive main-
ed in just sixty seconds. This significantly tenance for our machines on the factory
improves the experience for the end user, floor, to address weak points before they
helping our staff and partners to be more become a problem, and reduce the risk of
productive.” expensive production delays.”
Moving to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for Deepak Gupta concluded: “With SUSE Linux
SAP Applications has opened the door for Enterprise Server for SAP Applications sup-
JK Tyre to explore a new world of advanced porting our growing network, and the SUSE
SAP functionality. The company is currently IT team on hand to support us, we are ready
evaluating a move onto SAP S/4HANA as a to continue innovating and delivering in-
next step, and is investigating the possibil- creased value to our customers around the
ity of leveraging AI, Machine Learning and world.”
Internet of Things (IoT) technology for new
technological capabilities. Benefits
Deepak Gupta elaborated: “At JK Tyre, we + Boosts productivity by up to 30%
take pride in being a leading organization + Ensures 100% availability
that stays ahead of the curve. We are cur- + Supports core SAP applications for con-
rently working on moving our systems onto tinued innovation
Find out how SUSE can help you
become an innovation hero!
• Sales-Inquiries-APAC@suse.com
• Sales-Inquiries-EMEA@suse.com
• Sales-Inquiries-LATAM@suse.com
• Sales-Inquiries-NA@suse.com
6 JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. SUSE.comSUSE For more information, contact SUSE at:
Maxfeldstrasse +1 800 796 3700 (U.S./Canada)
90409 Nuremberg +49 (0)911-740 53-0 (Worldwide)
www.suse.com
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