Automated IT services run like clockwork at MiRO
Modern gas stations are increasingly becoming mini-shopping centers. These roadside and highway retail hubs are characterized by a wide range of services and products, as well as a high degree of automation in their delivery. The IT staff at MiRO, Germany’s largest oil refinery, now aim to impress their users with this same level of service quality.
Marko Rudloff had been working as an IT administrator for data center operations for just nine months when his supervisor at the time unexpectedly called him into her office. The head of IT at MiRO wanted to know from him, the newcomer, where he saw room for improvement in the IT department.
“If I’d known what was in store for me, I probably would have kept my mouth shut,” jokes Rudloff, now a member of the Infrastructure Team in Information and Process Technology. But in reality, he’s glad about the change he helped initiate in 2013. After all, it significantly improved efficiency and collaboration between IT and the business units.
Existing tools with acceptance issues
Since 2015, MiRO’s 30-person IT/OT department has been divided into an infrastructure team and an applications team. Together, they support approximately 1,080 users. Here, IT works closely with its internal customers. Even the senior IT staff are happy to show up to meetings in their “blue overalls.” This makes it all the more surprising what Rudloff reported to his boss: Users perceive IT as hard to reach. And this despite the fact that MiRO used an incident management tool: “The Guard! Helpdesk” from Realtech.
However, only a few users were aware of the solution; within IT, there were few employees who had access to it. The help desk tool shared this fate with the request management solution, which is based on UMRA (User Management Resource Administrator) from Tools4ever. It had been used to implement the request and approval process for granting permissions, but it suffered from a lack of acceptance: MiRO had introduced it to bring the ITIL IT service management standard into the company. However, the attempt failed because the theoretical processes mapped in the solution had nothing to do with the actual processes. The IT director had listened attentively to Rudloff—and responded: She set the goal of creating a seamless and integrated solution with structured processes for incident management as well as for the request, approval, and provision of standardized services. The functions were to be accessible via a single point of contact. The requirements were efficiency in processes, transparency for internal IT customers, compliance, and process stability. They should be able to track at any time which virtual desk their trouble ticket or request was currently being processed on.
Keep it simple
And who should take charge of this project? Exactly! So the young administrator from the data center was appointed project manager. “As is customary in a refinery, we started out primarily looking for a suitable toolkit,” Rudloff admits, “but we quickly realized that wouldn’t be enough. Instead, we had to comb through the entire IT department’s existing work processes in order to subsequently develop target workflows based on them.”
Based on these processes, the requirements for the tool were quickly defined, and Matrix42 was selected. Its portfolio ranges from a service desk—including the incident management capabilities we needed—to asset management and a service catalog for mapping the request and approval process.
“Matrix42 isn’t unbeatable in any of these areas,” Rudloff admits, “but as a highly integrated end-to-end solution, it’s unrivaled. A unified data foundation and architecture, along with a comprehensive role model and the elimination of interface issues, far outweigh the advantages of a best-of-breed approach.”
For the implementation of the tools, Matrix42 recommended its Platinum Partner, Consulting4IT, based in Waldbronn near Karlsruhe. The system integrator with process experience—as Consulting4IT describes itself—advised MiRO not to try to do too much at once: Instead of going over the ITIL playbook line by line, it made more sense to focus on individual modules and implement them in a practical way, so that processes could continue to be managed pragmatically.
Incident management was just the beginning
Naturally, incident management was the top priority at the outset. There had been no IT hotline up to that point. If something wasn’t working as it should, the affected user would simply dial the number of the first IT staff member listed in the phone directory. The introduction of a central hotline and a service desk as a standard process also brought tactical advantages. For example, according to Ralf Scholer, Head of Infrastructure and thus Rudloff’s direct supervisor, it would not have been possible to outsource first-level support without a structured process.
The nine-member team of service experts now feeds its insights regarding the categorization of issues and proven solutions into a knowledge base. End users also have access to this database—though only limited access.A specialized permissions and roles framework ensures that each user sees exactly what is relevant to them and nothing else. For example, users can find short tutorials there, such as “Why isn’t the printer printing?” Today, the entire service management team uses Matrix42 for documentation and organization.
Automated tracking of new hires, transfers, and departures
Prior to the project, MiRO also lacked a comprehensive inventory of user equipment. This has changed fundamentally thanks to the simultaneous implementation of Matrix42 Asset Management. Thanks to Matrix42’s holistic approach, IT staff can now access the relevant information directly within the service desk module. The Empirum Inventory scanner automates the collection of configuration data on the client. This technical information is consolidated with organizational master data such as cost center, location, or organizational unit. The first major subproject was completed in September 2016. A medium-term goal is also to automate certain processes so that they are no longer initiated manually but directly from within an application. This has already been successfully implemented in the HR department. The core processes here are employee onboarding, transfers, and offboarding—known among HR professionals as “Joiners – Movers – Leavers.”
Digitizing these core processes in Matrix42 has already yielded the first tangible improvements in efficiency. Today, the workflow for setting up a new workstation is triggered as soon as HR staff create a user in SAP HR; The user account, email account, and home drive, as well as logins for the Oracle and SAP systems, are created “fully automatically within one business day,” Rudloff notes with pride. A similar process is initiated when an employee changes departments or leaves the company.
While these processes do include elements that are difficult to automate—such as issuing employee ID cards or keys—partial automation still represents progress, if only because IT and the relevant departments now know simultaneously who needs what and where. This minimizes the risk that a new employee will be unable to work during their first few days due to a lack of equipment or a software account.
Standard requirements from the catalog
Employees can now also order anything else they need without having to run from pillar to post. “Today’s users are accustomed to shopping portals like Amazon,” explains Benjamin Maier, Senior Consultant at Consulting4T: “They want a fast, seamless, and automated process from request to delivery.” To come as close as possible to this “shopping experience,” MiRO also introduced Matrix42’s “Service Catalog” as part of the ITSM project. Users access it via a self-service portal—the same one they use to report issues and submit requests.
The services offered in the catalog are subject to an approval process by the supervisor (Key questions: Does the user really need this? What are the costs involved?). If providing the service involves installing software, this will be fully automated in the future by the Matrix42 tool Empirum. With the rollout of Windows 10 planned for 2018, the “Enteo Netinstaller” currently in use is to be permanently replaced.
Change management is still in progress
Of course, the Service Catalog lists only standard services. “You can’t use it to order an additional tool for monitoring the process control system, for example,” notes Team Leader Scholer, “that falls under change management, since it’s a project requirement.”
Scholer’s infrastructure team would also like to use Matrix42 for such non-standard requirements. “We want a single point of contact for the customer,” confirms the team leader: “That means we’d rather use the same tool more than keep adding more and more tools.” Finally, the to-do list also includes implementing continuous license management in Matrix42. “That’s taking a bit longer because it involves not only IT but also procurement,” explains Rudloff, “and issues like cost accounting and financial reporting play a role in this context.” The coordination effort involved simply can’t be rushed through.
Proactive Service
Throughout the entire project, MiRO was supported by two Consulting4IT employees. They assisted the team with implementing the solution and advised them on designing the processes. Even today, a Matrix42 expert from Consulting4IT visits at least once a month to help with fine-tuning. “The project was an important step toward customer-oriented, proactive IT services. Today, our relationship with our users runs like clockwork—just as it should for a refinery,” Rudloff concludes with a wink.
About MiRo
With a processing capacity of nearly 15 million tons of crude oil per year, MiRO is the largest oil refinery in Germany. Every day, the products from the two plant sections in Karlsruhe fill approximately 1,600 tanker trucks—not counting shipments by ship, rail, and pipeline.