Company snapshot

HQ Sao Paulo, Brazil
Founded 1941
Industries Iron & Steel
Sectors Steel, mining, cement, logistics and energy

Introduction

Founded in 1941, Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN) was Brazil’s first integrated flat steel producer. CSN drove the country’s industrialization process with its steel, enabling Brazil’s first national industries. Today, CSN is one of the most productive steel makers globally, producing more than six million tons of raw steel for customers in Brazil and 71 other countries in the US, Europe and Asia.

To better support its back-end systems, CSN invested in SAP’s ERP solution as the company expanded. However, after several years as an SAP support customer, CSN chose Rimini Street to provide SAP software support services. Rimini Street focuses solely on support and offers comprehensive services, including support for software customizations.

Challenge

CSN could no longer use Solution Manager (Solman) ChaRM to manage SAP change due to choosing Rimini Street for support services.

The issue is, CSN had highly customized its ChaRM configuration over time. The steelmaker used ChaRM to manage both SAP changes and non-transportable changes, including database-related maintenance changes.

For CSN, the challenge was twofold. It had to find a solution to replace ChaRM, and it had to be implemented quickly as the deadline to stop using ChaRM was January 2020.

Solution

CSN went to market for a ChaRM replacement in April 2019. After a thorough procurement process, it selected Rev-Trac Platinum – the SAP DevOps Orchestration platform – to help deliver high-quality SAP change at the speed it’s required.

Marco Galhardi, SAP IT specialist at CSN, said the steelmaker conducted extensive research into alternative replacements for ChaRM. It found Rev-Trac the best solution to administer and document its SAP change management process.

CSN issued Revelation Software Concepts – the creators of Rev-Trac – with a Request for Proposal (RFP) in September 2019, leaving just over three months for purchase and implementation.

Learnings

With the deadline to turn off ChaRM looming, CSN established a team of experienced SAP technical experts to assist with the migration to Rev-Trac and ensure a smooth changeover.

This team worked remotely and then onsite with Rev-Trac consultant Chet Hodgins to implement the Rev-Trac solution in the desired timeframe. Working together, they analyzed the existing SAP change processes CSN had established in ChaRM and built a simplified and more automated approach in Rev-Trac.

Mr. Hodgins said every organization has a change management process, and no two processes were alike.

“In CSN’s case, we replicated some of the processes in ChaRM but at the same time eliminated non-essential steps to simplify and enhance the process. The entire organization is going to like it if you can accelerate the SAP change management process and make it more agile,” he said.

The implementation went to plan with Rev-Trac ready for testing by mid-December, a relatively short time given CSN’s complex SAP change management requirements and relatively high change volume – averaging approximately 500 SAP transports per month. Total consultation time for remote and on-site efforts was only two weeks, with Rev-Trac fully productive by the January 2020 deadline.

Mr. Galhardi said Rev-Trac was flexible, easily customizable and cost-effective. RSC helped us to tailor our workflows to fit with our objectives, allowing more flexibility than ChaRM.

“Using Rev-Trac, we simplified our change management processes and provided more independence to IT staff with regards to SAP transports. They can open Rev-Trac changes easily and monitor the progress of work.”

Unlock functionality with remote access

A standout feature of Rev-Trac is the capability to manage SAP change remotely. When Covid 19 changed how we work – with more flexible arrangements and an abrupt shift to working from home – CSN was ready.

CSN used the remote capabilities of the Rev-Trac Webcore before the Covid 19 pandemic. Users are 100% web-based and utilize the Web interface rather than the SAP GUI to talk to Rev-Trac.

Mr. Galhardi said: “With the increased amount of home office users connecting via several types of VPN, it is important to have a tool that works effectively and easily with our internal servers.”

Bottom Line

Rev-Trac Platinum is a very valuable solution for CSN. The technology is easy to configure and use, helps reduce the risk of SAP change with automated error checking for transport sequencing and dependencies, and allows users to remotely manage SAP change.

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