A major German manufacturer of semi-trailers, trailers and truck bodies is the European market leader in this segment. In the 2018/2019 financial year, the family-owned company generated sales of 2.29 billion euros with 6,500 employees.
The company's production facilities are located primarily in Germany. There are also manufacturing facilities in Spain, Lithuania, Russia and China. The company exports its products throughout Europe as well as to the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. A Europe-wide sales network with partners and branches and around 1,200 workshops across the continent are also part of the company.
SAP in the company
In 2004, the company introduced SAP R/3 at several locations. In the following five years, the system was introduced at additional locations throughout Europe. t4t was on board from the beginning and empowered more than 1,100 employees to use SAP in their daily work. For this, we developed 45 different task-related seminars in five different business areas. A total of around 600 training days took place, during which the seminars were held in several shifts around the clock. At peak times, more than 30 SAP trainers were on duty at the same time.
After completing the initial training, t4t offered workplace support during the introduction of the system. In three shifts, our trainers were on duty at all of the company's workstations, ensuring that employees received the support they needed.
Contents of the SAP training project
The project was a very large undertaking that included the following work packages:
- Analysis of training needs (for more than 3,000 employees)
- Project management and project administration training
- Development of training concepts (curricula)
- Creation of training documents in German, English and Spanish (business process-oriented and task-related)
- Course planning (content, duration, participants)
- Conduct end-user training in German, English and Spanish (for more than 1,100 employees)
- Planning and implementation of management seminars
- Conducting ad-hoc workshops (on specific topics)
- Provision of a "sandbox" supervision (exercise operation)
- Operation of a user helpdesk
- Provision of aftercare following the start of the programme
- Positioning of the training system, including administration
The introduction was a complete success across all locations. The subsequent consolidation phase was optimized. The company has been working productively with SAP ever since.