In only four weeks, a joint project team of Paul Hartmann AG and SAP collaborated in a research project to develop a dashboard which plans and predicts medical demand and supply in the future. Based on SAP Business Technology Platform Paul Hartmann AG will use data intelligence and analytics solutions to predict relevant medical demand requirements – in times of COVID-19 and beyond.
In April 2020, Paul Hartmann AG and SAP joined forces to explore, how the medical demand and supply processes can be improved in the future. Based on the long-term relationship between the healthcare provider and SAP, they aimed at improving the processes for medical supplies such as disinfection liquid, face masks and other medical material all over the world.
Both companies formed an interdisciplinary team of industry and technology experts to work on developing an intelligent solution based on SAP Analytics Cloud. Along SAP’s Human-Centered Approach to Innovation, they conducted systematic user research and gathered information such as order details, customer location data, and external data like digital maps. That way they found out, which data was available and helped come to informed decisions. This was a valuable “lessons learned” information from a crisis that affected the global economy and hit all of us by surprise.
Internal dashboard “Medical Supplies Demand Analysis”
In only four weeks, the joint project team of Hartmann and SAP developed and implemented a first pilot dashboard solution to plan and predict medical demand and supply – in times of COVID-19 and beyond. The pilot solution built upon SAP Analytics Cloud did not only use internal business and historical data but also included up-to-date external data such as number of intense care beds on a regional basis and daily updated case information of institutions such as the Robert-Koch-Institute. A machine learning (ML) algorithm was then applied to predict and extrapolate future demand of certain medical material.
The dashboard can support the decision-making process for Hartmann’s internal regional sales managers and for the customer engagement teams in the future. The implementation project is currently ongoing.
Looking back, Marcus Dorfmeyer, Project Lead from SAP AppHaus within SAP Customer Innovation, emphasizes: “It is incredible what you can achieve if the right people and the right mindset come together to solve a problem – under time pressure. It is amazing to see, how SAP Business Technology Platform can help solving society-relevant challenges by combining operational and historical customer data with external sources of information.”
It is incredible what you can achieve if the right people and the right mindset come together to solve a problem - under time pressure. It is amazing to see, how SAP Business Technology Platform can help solving society-relevant challenges by combining operational and historical customer data with external sources of information.
– Marcus Dorfmeyer, Project Lead from SAP AppHaus within SAP Customer Innovation
Using SAP’s analytical and predictive technology potential was certainly a big step towards the Intelligent Enterprise, for this Hartmann research project but also as a showcase for other use cases. As Alexandra Fibitz, project lead at Paul Hartmann AG, states: “We started this project together with SAP from scratch, with a mere vision of supporting the fight against the Corona Virus. It is amazing to see the effort and engagement the project team has invested and how much we have reached in this limited time frame. The digital transformation is pushing the usage of new technologies – and especially in challenging times like the ones we are currently facing – we can see, how our machine learning algorithm can help us in the future ‘go further for health’.”
We started this project together with SAP from scratch, with a mere vision of supporting the fight against the Corona Virus. It is amazing to see the effort and engagement the project team has invested and how much we have reached in this limited time frame. The digital transformation is pushing the usage of new technologies – and especially in challenging times like the ones we are currently facing – we can see, how our machine learning algorithm can help us in the future ‘go further for health’.
– Alexandra Fibitz, project lead at Paul Hartmann AG