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Gates Corporation Captures Critical Customer Insights with SAP Business Technology Platform

A driving force in the automotive and industrial spaces, Gates Corporation manufactures critical upstream products such as power transmission belts and fluid power products, which are used across industrial and automotive applications. The company operates in 30 countries with over 15,000 employees, generating $3.5 billion in revenue.

The Challenge

Customers and distributors use Gates’ crimping machines to attach couplings onto hoses using various specifications to meet individual business needs. Machine Operators relied on outdated manuals and paper catalogs to perform their job on a highly antiquated piece of industrial machinery that had never been connected to the internet. To service their customers more proactively, Gates' needed real-time insights such as parts used, machine location, and crimp frequency to fully capture critical data usage across a core part of their business. 

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The Approach

Together with Avvale, Gates developed a custom mobile application and a Bluetooth-enabled, custom printed circuit board that was attached to an industrial machine to analyze machine activity and provide mission critical and real-time data back to Gates, leveraging strategic components of SAP Business Technology Platform. SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Analytics Cloud, and SAP Fiori were just a few of the core technical components that enabled the end-to-end, cloud-based solution. 

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The Impact

Gates was first in their market to introduce an innovative product offering that disrupted traditional manufacturing processes while cultivating deeper collaboration with customers. Based on cloud connectivity and systems integration, Gates’ Intelligent Crimper has been lauded for its innovation, winning the 2020 Leadership in Engineering Achievement Program (LEAP) Award.

Operators rely on connected technologies and an intuitive touch-screen application to safely perform crimps in a more time-effective manner. All tutorials, preferences, specifications, and parts information are a touch or scroll away while maintaining a live connection to SAP. In addition, Gates has unparalleled insight on customer consumption and product usage in real-time, enabling future revenue streams via maintenance requests, replacement parts, and a deeper level of customer relationship.

By connecting machines, technologies, and business, Gates has increased their ability to gain insights, improve demand creation, and enabled an intelligent platform that can better serve their customers.

 

Image Credit: Gates Corporation

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