Lufthansa Technik: Increasing automation in aircraft-part handling and transportation to meet growing requirements
Streamlining international material logistics for defective parts
Lufthansa Technik AG is a leading provider of aircraft maintenance, repair, overhaul, and modification services for commercial, VIP, and special-mission aircraft. As part of its digital road map, the company wanted to increase automation in the material logistics process for defective parts. The SAP Build Process Automation solution allowed it to reduce manual work while increasing transaction volume.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Cargo, transportation, and logistics – maintenance, repair, and overhaul | Hamburg, Germany | 22,290 employees | Lufthansa Industry Solutions |
increase in transaction volume with a similar headcount.
data-source types integrated with SAP Build Process Automation.
Project Development Warehousing, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Cargo, transportation, and logistics – maintenance, repair, and overhaul | Hamburg, Germany | 22,290 employees | Lufthansa Industry Solutions |
increase in transaction volume with a similar headcount.
data-source types integrated with SAP Build Process Automation.
Project Development Warehousing, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services
Streamlining international material logistics in maintenance, repair, and overhaul services
Lufthansa Technik AG is a leading provider of aircraft maintenance, repair, overhaul (MRO), and modification services for civil aircrafts, from commercial to VIP and special mission aircrafts. Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services is one of the leading logistics service providers for MRO and aviation companies. As the logistics expert within the Lufthansa Technik Group, it combines the expertise and skills of a global logistics company with an in-depth knowledge of the aviation sector. Its portfolio ranges from the storage and handling of aircraft parts to a wide set of transportation services, including special services such as ad hoc requests, engine transportations, and other oversized items.
Within MRO, the company transports and distributes components needing repair from different locations to repair shops worldwide. Determining when and where a part can be repaired is challenging. It’s subject to finding a location near the aircraft where the part can be repaired and the location or supplier of the part and navigating numerous customs regulations between the point of departure and the destination. It also involves identifying a logistics service and providing this service and customs with the necessary documentation for quick clearance.
Up to 10 different SAP and third-party applications were involved in the transportation process, including SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC), a custom transportation management app built with SAP technology and integrated with SAP ECC, an intranet site, and Web sites of transport providers, such as DHL and FedEx. There were manual process steps between the transactions in these different systems.
A team with highly specialized expertise was overseeing this material logistics task, which was done manually using Microsoft Excel, local IT equipment, and local software installation with multiple user languages. The company was faced with the challenge of hiring and training adequately qualified staff fast enough to scale up to meet the growing number of transactions it needed to handle. Not only was the process cumbersome, but the complex scenario also had challenging testing options.
Plus, new regulations from EU customs authorities, based on changes to the Import Control System 2 (ICS2) program for the import or transfer of materials, meant the company needed to provide more digitalized data to transport providers up front. With its business growing, Lufthansa Technik wished to reduce this manual work, address the changing regulations, and focus on the improvement and optimization of its process and system architecture. It looked to process automation as part of the solution.
SAP Architecture Board, Lufthansa Technik AG
Collecting and entering data from multiple types of data sources
With a long-term partnership dating back to 1998, Lufthansa Technik relies on SAP software to provide a central IT system in areas such as business administration, production, material supply, transport, purchasing, MRO, and HR. The company’s digital SAP solution road map, set out in 2020, defined its target architecture. The business is currently using different solutions in SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), including SAP Integration Suite and the SAP Analytics Cloud solution, and is in the process of moving from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA.
Lufthansa Technik’s international material logistics process involves managing data about the part (to be repaired), its destination, and shipping status as well as transport and customs documentation. Within this process, the company identified the step of collecting data from multiple sources and entering that data in its customized transportation management app as a lever to increase process throughput. To automate this step, it chose the SAP Build Process Automation solution. It was selected over other automation solutions available in-house, as it met all of the preconfiguration requirements to work with SAP and third-party applications. There’s good integration of the solution with four types of data sources, namely SAP ECC (with the SAP GUI interface), API interfaces, Web sites, and Microsoft Excel. This allows the solution to connect with the master list, portals, and transport providers, collect information from them, and update the transportation management app with this data.
Lufthansa Technik availed itself of guidance for the implementation from SAP Services and Support. The company was also advised by Lufthansa Industry Solutions, an IT service company and digitalization partner for customers of multiple branches, with a geographical focus on Germany and Central Europe. Discussions about further projects or products and services that could benefit from the SAP Build Process Automation solution are ongoing, with warehousing one of the processes currently being considered. The solution is part of SAP BTP, which is an important pillar of the company’s larger digital transformation project. The software helps ensure more-secure and reliable operations and future-proof the broader SAP software landscape across multiple companies in the Lufthansa Technik Group worldwide. Within application development, Lufthansa Industry Solutions is also exploring SAP Business Application Studio and low-code solutions such as the SAP Build Apps tool.
Project Development Warehousing, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services
Reducing time on manual tasks to meet growing transaction volume
SAP Build Process Automation was adopted within a short time frame due to the low-code, no-code capabilities. The solution allows Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services to automate data collection and entry tasks within the material logistics process across its SAP and third-party systems. This reduces the manual efforts by staff, the number of errors, and throughput times. The specialized team responsible for booking the transport of defective parts is freed up to focus its expertise where it’s required. This enables these employees to increase the volume of transactions they carry out – by over 40% – in line with business growth.
The overall benefits from deploying the solution are simplicity and improved efficiency of the material logistics process and smooth integration with the various IT systems. It meets the security and flexibility requirements for staff being able to change data in the material logistics process. Lufthansa Technik also now has a template for other projects where changes need to be made in complex and critical processes. There’s cross-enterprise collaboration and innovation due to the project’s organization and process implementation. And the company can take advantage of best practices from SAP.
Excellence Center SAP Innovations, Lufthansa Industry Solutions
Featured partner
Lufthansa Industry Solutions is one of two major IT service providers within the Lufthansa Technik Group and an SAP partner since 1997. It also supports customers across numerous sectors, including logistics, manufacturing, automotive, energy, and healthcare, to help digitalize and automate their business processes. Its 2,400 experts combine technical know-how with process and industry knowledge.