Fraport AG
            

As the operator of Frankfurt Airport, Germany's largest airport, Fraport AG is one of the leading players in the international airport business. The company has activities at 29 airports all around the world and generated €3.7 billion in revenue in 2019.

Frankfurt airport is one of the world's most important air traffic hubs and one of the largest employers in the Rhine-Main Region. 450 companies work at or for the airport, and 81,000 people work there on site. Also, the pressure on Fraport AG is very high since, as a publicly traded company with majority state ownership, it needs to meet demanding requirements for transparency and quality as well as increasingly strict environmental regulations.

In an era of pandemics, climate crisis, energy shortages, and growing IT security threats, the company is focusing on transparency and crisis awareness to deliver enduring quality and demonstrate accountability to its stakeholders. To improve its operational excellence, the company is deploying ARIS Enterprise, Software AG’s business process management tool.

From process consulting to operational excellence

The main driver for choosing ARIS Enterprise was initially the Quality Management department, which wanted to earn the essential certification for ISO 9000. Furthermore, the company was facing a major SAP release change – the largest SAP-R/3 implementation throughout Germany, for which business blueprints were needed to cover all departments and SAP module boundaries. "From the new solution we anticipated digital process documentation and an electronic QM handbook on the one hand, and additional key synergies resulting from the release change on the other," explains Ulrich Bietz, Product Manager, Client Software, at Fraport. But it quickly grew to encompass more: Since ARIS was deployed, in addition to process mapping, the company has used other functionalities including workflows, simulation, dashboarding, and IT governance.

Use Case I – Process mapping

The company initially needed a database-supported tool that could methodically map and analyze all processes – and which was compatible with SAP. Compared to other products, ARIS’ individual configuration and integration functions quickly convinced the Fraport IT experts. After its deployment and targeted implementation, including communication with internal customers, the team highly valued the real-time overview of all processes and responsibilities in the workflow.

Use Case II – Simulation

In addition to process mapping, Fraport used the software for process simulation. As part of its strategic expansion project called Ausbau Süd, it needed to determine how much additional required equipment and personnel was required. With the help of ARIS’ simulation components, models of numerous affected handling processes were generated, such as apron control. These models were subsequently validated and calibrated in the individual departments, and then the required quantities were determined – including variables such as delays, employee sick leave, etc. "In the end, this gave us important input for actual resource planning associated with startup operations for Terminal 2," says Bietz.

Use Case III – Dashboarding

The use of process performance management (PPM) and dashboarding was another leap in quality for Fraport for generating important KPIs and improving operational efficiency. For instance, the company examined purchase-to-pay processes in PPM to be able to compare it with a wide variety of parameters and filters – and used dashboards to display the results in graphics. This approach enabled the entire process chain to be analyzed in great detail across process, departmental, and system limits on a daily basis.

Use Case IV – ARIS workflows

In addition, the company uses workflows to map process instructions. The dashboards enable users to see the status of each process at any time, including who needs additional instructions. The company has a total of 700 processes in the publication database. "It definitely holds enormous potential in any case, especially associated with process runtime speeds, some of which have been shortened from several days to a few minutes of pure processing time," notes Bietz.

Use Case IV – IT governance

Moreover, Fraport AG utilizes the IT inventory components to manage its IT systems – in the role of a governance function. Specifically in light of the growing threat from malware, IT governance is becoming increasingly important, if not essential, for a global company. Fraport’s IT governance department monitors all current system information through the IT inventory and maintains an overview of which products are running on which release and architecture, and who the contact partners are. Furthermore, they can see which processes are behind the different systems. If a system malfunctions, it is clear which processes are affected and which emergency procedures should be deployed. The IT inventory is currently running on its own platform, but will eventually be transitioned to the general process portal. Eliminating the affected servers reduces the complexity and operating costs.

The migration to the latest version of ARIS is currently underway. These efforts ensure that Fraport AG will continue to deploy the latest technology for business process management, now and in the future.