Product category:
Process Control: SCADA, ERP, MES and networks
News Release from: BASF IT Services | Subject: SAP
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 20 June 2005
SAP implementation eliminates language
barriers
SAP dominates the language of users around the globe: BASF IT Services has implemented Unicode on the database of SAP R/3 for BASF Coatings in Muenster, over 17 countries
These days, companies throughout the world speak one language in particular and that is SAP On the other hand, SAP dominates the language of users around the globe, as long as they do not collide in one and the same system
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 1 Jun 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Now with the Unicode application, this is no longer a problem.
BASF IT Services has implemented Unicode on the database of SAP R/3 for BASF Coatings in Muenster.
The change was completed within one weekend.
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Right on time Monday morning, some 3,200 SAP users working in over 70 locations in 17 countries found a completely new system installed, which is able to reproduce all the written characters used throughout the world.
Each character is represented by a number: the computer allocates each character its own number.
Hundreds of these coding systems are in existence, however, none of them have sufficient characters to cope with all the languages known to us.
Unicode allocates each character with an individual number irrespective of the platform, programme or language.
This not only allows the application to expand the computer's supply of characters from a previous 256 to approx 100,000 symbols but in particular, it also maintains a trouble-free understanding between the different language components within a system.
Unicode is useful for sites in Eastern Europe In particular, BASF Coatings plants in Eastern Europe profit from the implementation of Unicode.
"Our continually expanding business activities in Russia can now be entered into the existing SAP system without any problem.
For the first time, we are able to represent the characters from different languages on a one to one basis," says Willi Saendker, Head of BASF Coatings Information Management.
With the Unicode standard, staff can maintain data simultaneously in all the different languages of the world.
For instance, this simplifies the central editing of safety data leaflets via SAP.
"We are one of the first to implement Unicode on such a complex R/3 system, with its eight modules and extensive interfaces.
This know-how is also available to customers outside of the BASF Group," says Wolfgang Erny, Managing Director of BASF IT Services and responsible for the Sales and Delivery Division.
The prerequisites for changing to Unicode had already been undertaken by BASF IT Services in the previous year.
Step by step, the technicians transferred the entire IT of BASF Coatings to SAP and thus developing a standard IT system, which interconnects the 70 European sites of BASF Coatings.
Today, all of BASF Coatings processes run via SAP - with the exception of a few functions, which are not covered by SAP, such as the monitoring of production machines.
Several dozen old applications were thus rendered obsolete.
Irrespective of which country or which unit staff are working in, they all work in the exact same SAP system.
Because the functions are identical throughout, one staff member, for instance, can steer Europe-wide an entire process - and thanks to Unicode, in every language known to this world.
BASF IT Services: Using IT to boost process efficiency BASF IT Services, a BASF Group company, is among the leading IT service providers for the process industry in Europe.
It has some 2,300 employees and recorded an annual turnover of Euro386 million in 2004.
The company key strengths are the provision of successful IT solutions for the process industry, managed infrastructure services and business process outsourcing.
This expertise is based on years of experience in providing solutions to the world's leading chemical company, BASF.
Today, BASF IT Services operates one of the world's largest networks and around 1,000 servers for some 50,000 users in more than 250 locations.
The company, which is represented throughout Europe, is committed to standardising and developing customer-orientated, tailor-made solutions.
BASF IT Services is certified under the international quality management standard ISO 9001:2000.
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