Global SAP Observability, Zero Disruption: SEW-EURODRIVE’s Journey to Industry 4.0 Excellence

SEW-EURODRIVE, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of drive and automation technology, operates in a highly complex, Industry 4.0 production environment. With a high degree of vertical integration and business-critical SAP systems running globally, SEW needed a way to maintain operational stability while driving innovation.

They chose Avantra, the intelligent observability and automation platform purpose- built for SAP landscapes.

The Challenge: Controlling Complexity in a Smart Factory World

SEW-EURODRIVE’s IT operations faced mounting challenges:

• Managing over 130 SAP systems and 120+ third-party databases across a hybrid Windows and Linux environment
• Integrating IoT-driven manufacturing processes with ERP operations in real time
• Maintaining high availability for sales-critical processes and minimizing downtime
• Expanding monitoring to cloud-based SAP BTP services without losing visibility

Previous monitoring tools delivered inconsistent alerts and limited flexibility. The Basis team needed a reliable, customizable platform to unify monitoring, reduce noise, and keep critical systems running smoothly.

The Solution: SAP Observability and Automation in One Platform

With Avantra, SEW-EURODRIVE gained:

• Centralized, global monitoring — from headquarters in Germany to remote sites in France, China, USA, and Australia
• Custom checks — 650+ developed in-house, automatically rolled out and maintained
• Advanced notification management — 160 actions and 190 output channels to alert the right people instantly
• End-to-end coverage — from SAP ERP, CRM, MES, and Plant Connectivity to non-SAP systems and 40+ external tools
• Cloud readiness — monitoring SAP BTP services like SAP Cloud Integration with custom daily checks

Avantra’s ease of use encouraged adoption across IT and operational teams, with even non-technical staff able to troubleshoot issues in real time.

The Impact: Predictive, Proactive, and Always On

Avantra helped SEW-EURODRIVE shift from reactive firefighting to predictive, automated operations:

• <25 false alerts in 10 years — driving trust and adoption across the business
• Reduced downtime in assembly lines through proactive monitoring and early detection of issues
• Predictive maintenance enabled by IoT sensor data analysis, now offered to customers as the “Drive Radar” cloud service
• Smarter resource allocation — replacing round-the-clock IT shifts with targeted on-call coverage
• Scalable monitoring for growing SAP and non-SAP landscapes without additional overhead

From the control room’s wall of live dashboards to remote plants, Avantra delivers the real-time visibility SEW needs to keep production moving.

The Takeaway: From Monitoring to Manufacturing Innovation

What started as a search for a better monitoring tool became a platform for continuous improvement. Avantra’s blend of out-of-the-box checks, custom automation, and intelligent alerting empowered SEW-EURODRIVE’s teams to innovate while safeguarding the systems that power its smart factories.

At a Glance

Challenges

• Increasing complexity through Industry 4.0
• Integrating IoT with ERP and SAP BTP
• Reducing downtime in globally distributed plants
• Scaling monitoring without increasing overhead

Benefits with Avantra

• Real-time global SAP observability and alerting
• Predictive maintenance with IoT integration
• Centralized monitoring of 130+ SAP systems and 120+ third-party databases
• Reliable, low-noise alerting and proactive failure detection
• Rapid adoption across technical and operational teams