Varian Medical Systems: Maximizing the Speed of Mobile Apps with SAP Enterprise Support

Transcription

2 Varian Medical Systems Inc. Industry Life sciences Products and Services Medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions; software for managing cancer clinics and treatment centers Web Site SAP Solutions and Services Optimization service as a part of SAP Enterprise Support services With mobile apps, we ve learned that just 10 to 15 minutes of productivity saved is all you need to realize significant, rapid, bottom-line value, states Kalyan Krishnan, enterprise mobile architect at Varian Medical Systems Inc. But to achieve this kind of benefit, you need high-performing applications that consistently give users what they want in a few seconds. To fine-tune the performance of their mobile apps, Varian turned to SAP Enterprise Support services. 2 / SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

3 Saving lives with breakthrough technologies Varian Medical Systems has a mission: helping to save lives. We make medical devices and software for treating cancer and other conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy, says Krishnan. And our informatics software manages cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers, and oncology centers. Healthcare providers also depend on Varian to get them what they need, when they need it whether it s a new device or a tube to keep an X-ray imager up and running. The company is a leading supplier of tubes and digital detectors that go into X-ray imaging systems used by hospitals, clinics, research institutions, and industrial organizations and agencies. 6,000 employees In 32 countries 3 / SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

4 Getting the most from mobile app investments In 2012 Varian, a long-time SAP customer, put a mobile strategy and bring-your-own-device policy in place and deployed the technical foundation, including Sybase Unwired Platform. A few months later, we deployed our first mobile apps, explains Krishnan. These included a consignment-tracking app that allowed field employees to track shipments in real time and a time-tracking app so managers could efficiently approve time cards and vacation requests. But adoption for these apps, which had the largest user bases, quickly stalled. Response times were 30 seconds a far cry from the 5-second max response times employees expected. And while employees didn t actively complain, they stopped using the apps. This meant that management couldn t realize its expected return on investment and employees couldn t benefit from the convenience and higher productivity that mobile apps can offer. We needed an expert to help us quickly identify and address the root cause of our mobile app performance issues. Kalyan Krishnan, Enterprise Mobile Architect, Varian Medical Systems Inc. 4 / SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

5 Making the most of SAP Enterprise Support services To address the performance issues, Varian reached out to SAP Enterprise Support. Our lead SAP consultant, who had helped us deploy Sybase Unwired Platform, advised us that SAP Enterprise Support offered an optimization service that could identify and address underlying causes of performance issues, explains Krishnan. We had deployed and tested our mobile apps using internal resources. So we looked forward to learning from experts in this area and gaining knowledge that could help us prevent similar issues as we deploy new mobile apps in the future. We could take advantage of this service as part of our SAP Enterprise Support agreement at no additional charge. Kalyan Krishnan, Enterprise Mobile Architect, Varian Medical Systems Inc. 5 / SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

6 Accessing expert insight in just a few days SAP Enterprise Support quickly engaged with Varian s IT department and recommended that they take advantage of a remote expert-guided service delivered through the SAP Enterprise Support Advisory Council. SAP experts first helped Varian set up the SAP Solution Manager application management solution (which is critical to running the optimization service) and Wily Introscope to monitor and troubleshoot mobile apps and Sybase Unwired Platform. According to Naga Nallaiah, senior SAP NetWeaver administrator at Varian, We followed the standard SAP documentation and configuration and then called in SAP Enterprise Support to optimize and fine-tune the deployment. The IT department had deployed version 8 of Wily Introscope. The SAP team upgraded it to version 9 and then activated the data collection process. They helped us clarify exactly what data to collect, adds Nallaiah. Without their insight, we would have had huge gaps in our data and reporting. Using these tools, SAP experts gathered critical information about what was causing the performance issues and compiled it into a report, complete with recommendations on how to optimize performance. The data collection process only took a few hours. SAP sent a report with specific findings and performance improvement recommendations in less than a week. Findings revealed that there were multiple root causes of the performance issues. We didn t have enough CPUs or enough RAM on our servers, notes Nallaiah. Our Apache server was outdated and needed to be optimized. We needed to improve utilization of our back-end functional modules for example, by changing how tables are accessed and queries are made. 6 / SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

7 Realizing the benefits of expert assistance Varian s IT department quickly made the recommended changes and saw instantaneous performance improvements. And as a result, employees started using the apps again. Adoption increased and so did the return on investment. Similarly, thanks to performance improvements in the time-tracking mobile app, managers are saving approximately 15 minutes per week. This results in an annual time savings of 2,600 working hours, which is equivalent to US$182,000 per year. Before, it took employees 30 seconds to get a response back about consignment tracking and employee time approvals. Now it takes less than 5 seconds, states Krishnan. When you consider that, prior to implementing this mobile app, field staff had to make calls that took 10 minutes and tied up two employees to find out about the status of an order, this is a huge efficiency improvement. We ve estimated that this app is saving us about $560,000 per year in terms of person-hours. Equally important, field workers feel more supported by the business and are able to plan site visits more effectively because they know when shipments will arrive. At the same time, SAP Enterprise Support helped Varian s IT department establish best practices and tools for deploying and managing mobile apps. Now they are configuring their mobile landscape in SAP Solution Manager, using proactive monitoring tools and root cause analysis tools to diagnose issues and applying application lifecycle management to all mobile apps. 7 / SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

8 Varian Medical Systems Fast-tracking new mobile apps Since the successful adoption of its initial mobile apps, Varian s IT department has released four new ones. Krishnan believes all the rollouts of these apps were much smoother because the IT department used all of the knowledge, best practices, and tools gained through the optimization service of SAP Enterprise Support. Says Krishnan, We re moving ahead rapidly on new mobile initiatives. Now we know how to reduce the risk of performance and other issues, and we have SAP Enterprise Support to back us up when we need it. Studio SAP 28863enUS (14/07) 2014 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 8 / 8

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