Cloud Automation Enables Streamlined and Secure Global Logistics Services
Linfox is Asia Pacific’s largest privately-owned logistics company, operating with a team of over 24,000 workers across Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. Delivering food, resources and medicine from road to rail, Linfox has an extensive operations network of warehouses and distribution centers that provide the safest and most efficient logistics services in Asia Pacific. The company’s values, systems and technology have supported its success since 1956 and continue to drive its goals and initiatives today. Wherever Linfox operates around the world, the company’s vision is to become the most trusted logistics partner around.
The company continues to support this vision and set the pace with its “Leading the Way 2025” initiative, a five-year business strategy designed to grow the Linfox business towards 2025 and beyond. The strategic drivers for this initiative are safety, customer focus, growth, efficiency, and sustainability.
Linfox: The Challenge
To support its “Leading the Way 2025” initiative, Linfox had to combat the supply chain volatility that was exacerbated by the pandemic. The company planned to do so with new operational structures. These operational structures would not only support Linfox’s logistics operation, but also the companies it supports in the design, creation and management of warehouses and logistic routes as well. With the successful implementation of its new operational structures, Linfox aimed to increase its speed to market, realize shorter lead times, onboard customers fasters, and maximise the utilisation of its warehouses.
Linfox runs its operations on SAP. As a result, the company needed to configure the new operational structures with its existing SAP systems – specifically utilising SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM). Linfox’s SAP EWM application allows it to operate and maintain the complexities of its logistics operations while functioning in a hybrid environment that uses both on-premises and Cloud technologies.
“Lemongrass’ LCP platform and automation has allowed our team to quickly and safely deploy and operationalize new SAP EWM systems and increase the speed at which we can serve our customers.”
To safely maintain its streamlined, fully operational and complex network of logistics systems, Linfox knew it needed to enhance its SAP EWM capabilities as quickly as possible. The company also knew that the cost of continuing to support additional warehouses and supply chains would begin to mount if it could not find a way to optimize its existing ecosystem and begin to automate mission-critical workflows. Along with these challenges, Linfox saw that finding an SAP on Cloud solution expert with the tenure, technology and expertise with complex SAP logistics and supply chain systems was a tall order, however, an absolute must for the company to achieve its goals.
The Solution
Linfox was introduced to Lemongrass very early in its journey to Cloud. Lemongrass was asked by AWS to perform a proof of concept for automating the deployment of SAP EWM. After realizing Lemongrass’s history of success with other local and global organizations, as well as being provided with a demonstration of how its proprietary automation technology could help them create a safe, low-cost and automated solution to support its logistics requirements, Linfox knew it had not only found a trusted and tenured SAP on Cloud solutions expert, but also a service provider that could create custom solutions to meet its needs. Lemongrass was able to demonstrate what Linfox valued most: a solution that would be faster, more cost effective, and more secure.
Because of the unique capabilities found within Lemongrass’s proprietary Lemongrass Cloud Platform (LCP), Lemongrass was able to orchestrate Linfox’s requirements to repeatedly deploy standardized SAP EWM systems for each warehouse and supply chain in its growing network. Dubbed “System Copy Automation”, this unique tool allows Linfox to create a dedicated system for new warehouses and supply chains in less than one business day, instead of the 1 week that it had taken previously to do so. The System Copy Automation capability for Linfox was developed in two phases, whereby each phase automated further steps – helping the company reduce costs, heighten security and increase its overall speed-to-market.
Linfox selected Lemongrass to operate its SAP on AWS applications using Operate managed services supported by LCP. With support from Lemongrass, Linfox leveraged DevOps and FinOps capabilities for SAP, allowing the company to innovate without friction. For ongoing support, Lemongrass’s client service team, service delivery manager and technical architect provide Linfox with regular updates on AWS innovations, recommendations for cost savings and system optimizations. And thanks to the custom tool Lemongrass created for Linfox, the automation of tagging SAP on AWS workloads via System Copy Automation allows the company to track and optimize the cost of workloads and identify actual costs incurred by specific projects.
Key Takeaways
After Lemongrass’s successful implementation, Linfox realized the following benefits:
- Reduced time needed to deploy new SAP EWM systems from 1 week to 1 day, through the automation of 50% of manual steps
- 50% savings in deployment costs through the standardized and automated approach to SAP EWM system deployments and parallel system deployments for non-production systems
- 60% savings in operating costs through uptime scheduling of development and test systems
- Faster, repeatable, and consistent outcomes for new SAP EWM system deployments using LCP automation.
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