Würth IT

“Stonebranch offers us everything we need to define and control complex job chains. We can track over two million job runs per month in a single SAP system. With the start of the SAP S/4HANA offensive, we also want to modernize our system landscape, which has grown over decades.”

-Angela Tischhöfer, Head of IT Operations, Würth IT

Key Outcomes

• Centralized creation, planning, and management of enterprise IT workloads
• Unified control of hybrid and cloud environments from a single platform
• Event-based job processing and file transfer for seamless data flows
• Visualization and modeling thanks to a no-code platform
• Central monitoring and error handling n Long-term stability backed by reliable consulting and support

Background

Würth IT GmbH, founded in 2014 and built upon IT operations active since the 1980s, is the global IT service provider for the Würth Group. With more than 1,000 employees across 13 locations, managing SAP systems, e-business applications, global services, and multiple data centers. 

Würth IT established centralized automation early in its digital evolution — they’ve automated SAP processes with Stonebranch for over than 20 years. As hybrid IT environments have grown more complex and enterprises increasingly require service orchestration across SAP and non-SAP systems, this early investment has enabled the Würth Group’s automation landscape to scale in step with its global expansion and rising system demands.

Automation at Enterprise Scale

Today, the Stonebranch SAP job scheduling solution orchestrates processes across 21 SAP production systems comprising approximately 30,000 background jobs and 70,000 job steps, resulting in around two million job runs per month across the Würth Group.

Coordinating these complex data flows, including cross-company scheduling, invoicing, billing, and financial closing processes, requires precise planning and continuous visibility.

Stonebranch’s diverse planning and control capabilities allow runtime plans to be created several years in advance without the need for continuous manual intervention. This significantly simplifies operational planning and enables a lean team of four full-time employees to maintain full oversight of the growing SAP landscape.

Seamless Automation and Central Monitoring

By integrating SAP and Stonebranch into the central monitoring environment, Würth IT receives near-real-time notifications when irregularities occur. Whether a job fails or does not start as planned, the system delivers continuous 24/7 monitoring and triggers automated, predefined alerts and escalation workflows to ensure rapid resolution.

Another advantage is the software’s ability to visualize complex dependencies and process sequences, including nested workflows. This structured modeling supports fully automated, global cross-company scheduling, as well as invoicing and billing across multiple time zones and SAP systems.

As a result, Würth IT ensures the fully automated execution of daily, monthly, and annual financial statements along with seamless intercompany billing.

The Results

High-Volume Automation with Built-In Governance

During parallel job executions, the load-balancing interface intelligently distributes workloads to help the IT team manage fluctuations in system demand and prevent overload. This ensures stable performance even under high processing volumes. Stonebranch’s “user job” feature enables human approvals in automated workflows by routing jobs to designated approvers at the appropriate time, based on their activity. A clearly defined authorization framework specifies which users may execute the approval, while the underlying interface architecture safeguards Würth IT’s overall system stability. 

The Stonebranch SAP job scheduler exceeded all the requirements for a new solution. For example, email notifications can be easily configured for job aborts or timeouts, with no additional development effort required. Connecting a test environment is straightforward, and the calendar-based scheduling offers extended planning options. 

The intuitive, familiar UI further adds to the tool’s advantages. As a result, the modern SAP automation solution has not only improved efficiency but also enhanced the flexibility and reliability of background processing. 

Long-Term Partnership and Proven Stability

The Stonebranch SAP job scheduling solution has supported Würth IT’s SAP automation landscape with consistent reliability. Over the years, Stonebranch has evolved alongside growing system complexity and changing requirements, while maintaining operational continuity. 

The software’s exceptional stability reflects its maturity and enterprise-grade quality. Each release is carefully tested to ensure reliable, smooth operation within Würth IT’s highly complex SAP environment — a key factor in sustaining enterprise-scale automation over the long term.