High-performance solar systems for private homes and for trade, industry or local heating networks – for the supply of hot water, heating and process heat. The NEO Suite supports customer service and plant maintenance with the integrated features of NEO Schedule and NEO Mobile in conjunction with S/4 HANA Service. A standardized process on a fully integrated system.
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Stefan Westermayr
Consultant Service Processes, Axians NEO Solutions & Technology GmbH
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There are at least two sides to everything. The Ritter company is no exception. The best known of these is probably the chocolate side. Exactly: “Square. Practical. Good.” Another site that is also highly sought after by many is our topic here: Ritter Energie- und Umwelttechnik.
Founded in 1988 as a pioneer in the industry, Ritter Energie is now a market leader in solar heating technology. Over 300 employees develop and manufacture innovative, ecological heating technology at Ritter. In small and large format. For OEM customers in individual contract production, for specialist tradesmen as complete heating systems and for trade, industry or local authorities as planners and installers of large-scale solar systems.
For all its size and expertise, Ritter Energie sees itself as a “speedboat among tankers” for its customers. In other words, as an approachable partner who implements projects quickly and tailor-made – and provides comprehensive support afterwards. A demanding criterion for service, whether remote or on-site. But there’s also a suitable partnership with a tailor-made solution.
A lot under the sun: the Ritter factory customer service
Around one million kilometers with over 4,500 service calls – that’s the annual workload of Ritter Energie’s technicians and maintenance professionals. On the move everywhere on behalf of ecological energy supply, optimal support from the right digital tools certainly makes a difference.
The working basis before the integration of the NEO Suite features consisted of external software with a web service-based interface to SAP R3 ERP – and with corresponding difficulties: Only little information was transferred to SAP. This meant that two databases had to be maintained at the same time. Most of the service information was also not available company-wide and sales or controlling could not access it. In addition, there were problems with stock reconciliation in the external warehouses between the service software and SAP – and last but not least, a high administration effort for the SAP IT team at Ritter.
The new solution came with Axians NEO. Specifically, as a combined introduction of S/4 HANA including S4 Service and implementation of the Axians software NEO Schedule for deployment planning and NEO Mobile for the technicians distributed across the area – both modules from the NEO Suite for intelligent 360° service and maintenance management.
Integrated instead of complicated. Networked instead of bogged down.
Ritter Energie’s customer service department required a mobile field service management tool that also works offline. For this purpose, the entire organizational structure should be mappable – i.e. office and field service.
The motto for the complete solution was: one system, one master database. The whole thing for customers, systems, material, equipment etc.
...and comprehensive instead of cumbersome.
The core criterion here: fully integrated processes – from all material orders to service warehouse management and returns from service warehouses. Other key features of the solution include
- Mapping of the customer structure of craftsmen, the system locations and the management of the equipment
- Clear planning board with route display on the graphic map
- Entry of service tickets with service requests
Illustration of all relevant service types such as flat-rate costs, on a time and material basis, as well as small parts flat rates and spare parts.
- Service report with spell check, text modules, signature and simple integration of clients
- Material search with wildcard function
HANA meets NEO. And that twice over!
Experienced consultants from the CRM service and PM/CS were also helpful for implementation. This concerted expertise enabled the rapid introduction and development of processes in S/4 Service. The NEO Schedule Data Layers, among other things, then ensured the smoothest possible integration during deployment planning. The implementation on the NEO Suite also went smoothly – despite many new business objects on the interface for NEO Mobile.
All in all, Ritter has created a high-performance system landscape consisting of S/4HANA with integrated NEO Schedule and NEO Mobile at the same time.
NEO Schedule. Simple deployment planning. Smart Supervising.
Ritter Energie uses the NEO Schedule planning tool for all resources to manage efficient resource planning on an SAP basis. This enables dispatchers in customer service to plan orders, appointments and specific service assignments in an optimized manner, taking all aspects into account, track progress and react quickly in the event of planning deviations.
The solution supports all parties involved at every level and in every phase of an order. For example, by manually scheduling service technicians or maintenance teams using drag & drop.
NEO Mobile. The best partner in customer service.
NEO Mobile provides Ritter Energie’s customer service team with comprehensive digital assistance. Without any paperwork, without printing documents and without archiving receipts, all the necessary data can now be accessed on site. If desired, also supported by a selection of additional features such as context-sensitive voice control.
The end-to-end integration of NEO Mobile into the SAP system and digital order planning at Ritter accelerates and optimizes all processes in customer service. The automated recording of data on site also makes manual post-processing easier and avoids any media disruptions. And even incorrect entries are elegantly reduced by integrated validations.
Why AXIANS as a partner in this project? First of all, we experienced a professional presentation combined with a great deal of expertise, openness and honest commitment. In short: the chemistry was right. In addition, the concept was very much in line with our specifications. Day-to-day collaboration was then characterized by the structured recording of our requirements. Followed by precise implementation and consistently solution-oriented action on both sides. From the start with the basic decision process as to whether SAP CS or S/4 Service to the final ready-to-use solution for all platforms, whether Windows, Android or Apple. Conclusion: We deliberately opted for a sustainable and future-proof solution, even if it required a little more effort at the beginning. And since November 2023, we have been very productive with NEO Schedule and NEO Mobile.
SAP Inhouse Consultant Ritter Energie- und Umwelttechnik GmbH & Co KG
Ritter Energie: Sunny prospects for clean solutions.
In 1988, chocolate manufacturer Alfred T. Ritter founded Ritter Energie- und Umwelttechnik under the lasting impression of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. As early as 1992, the first “Solar” flat-plate collector was launched on the market as a pioneer in the industry. The first vacuum tube collector followed in 1996. Today, Ritter is one of the market leaders in this field – with an annual turnover of around €100 million and a portfolio that includes collector production as well as heating systems and large-scale solar installations. All collectors are manufactured by over 300 employees at the company headquarters in Dettenhausen. The solar thermal collectors from Ritter Energie in particular are now among the products with the highest heat yield on the world market and are in corresponding demand: Ritter has produced over 1.7 million m² of vacuum tube collectors to date. In total, more than 100,000 solar thermal systems from Ritter are currently in operation across Germany – including the largest in the country in Greifswald, at 18,700 m², with an output of around 8,000 MWh for the district heating network since 2022.
