Digital transformation addresses new workplace experiences

建立一个多世纪以前,家族company Viessmann, one of the world's leading providers of holistic energy and climate solutions, has been driving the cultural shift towards becoming a "Next Generation Family Business" for years. This is reflected everywhere in the company: With Viessmann, digital technology is enabling people all over the world to enjoy a comfortably air-conditioned, comfortable home. The heat generator connects to the Internet with the help of the Vitoconnect 100 system. In this way it can be controlled by the plant operator via an app or maintained online by a specialist tradesman.

同时，植物运营商可以节省能源，保护资源并保护我们的气候。该公司还通过启动数字服务将其贸易合作伙伴纳入了该战略，从而使他们能够在每个阶段与客户进行交流，从进行初始联系到计划和安装。

这一变化也会影响公司组织方式。它的加热系统的核心业务及其开发数字产品以及服务现在已捆绑在一起，将一个“气候解决方案”单元捆绑在一起。该集团在全球范围内拥有约12,100名员工，在初创企业中也工作，开发新的商业模式。

强大的网络为内部数字化提供了骨干

New strategies and business models won’t get you anywhere if they aren't accompanied by a shift in the corporate culture. “At Viessmann, our staff have a unique opportunity to help shape the way future generations will live,” says Co-CEO Max Viessmann. “When it comes to competing for the best brains in the business, the culture we have here at Viessmann is a factor that really sets us apart. Our company has a future-oriented corporate culture throughout the company, including its core business, creating space for creativity and innovation and the digitisation of products and processes.”

Wi-Fi used to be a supplementary solution for us, but today it has equal standing to LAN. However, our digitisation strategy means that it will soon become our most important network technology, and Aruba will play a key role in this transformation.Elmar Jordan，Head of User Services and Communication Networks, Viessmann

“But this digitization of our internal processes is only possible with a powerful network that our employees can access from anywhere on-campus,” says Elmar Jordan, Head of User Services and Communication Networks at Viessmann IT Service GmbH, which operates the central IT systems for the entire group. “This means that we are increasingly needing greater flexibility and mobility to ensure that we can provide a powerful and reliable Wi-Fi connection at every corner of our sites – from our office environments out into manufacturing.” In the company’s offices, fixed workstations are increasingly being replaced by a flexible desk concept, and Viessmann has also decided to focus more heavily on bringing IoT technologies into its manufacturing processes.

Mobile data collection devices have become standard in Viessmann’s production area and are used to log every step in the manufacturing chain. But the company plans to delve even more deeply into Industry 4.0 concepts in future. For example, Viessmann is currently looking at driverless transport and intelligent workpiece carrier systems that store product information and production data, which can then be passed on from one station to the next. Even production tools such as electronic torque wrenches could transmit their data wirelessly in future.

现有的Wi-Fi基础设施没有更多的扩展能力

For Viessmann, this meant that a new mobile-first architecture had to be built as the existing infrastructure, which had previously only been seen as an add-on to the physical network, was beginning to show its age. “The number of mobile devices in the offices and manufacturing has grown rapidly over recent years, so we needed a flexible management system that would enable us to control network access for the devices centrally,” remembers Jordan. “The existing Wi-Fi infrastructure had no capacity left for expansion, so we needed to replace it with a new solution.”

但是，乔丹与网络技术和电信团队的同事一起组成的项目被证明是简单的。毕竟，该集团在十二个国家 /地区拥有23家生产公司，在全球74个国家 /地区的销售公司和代表中有23家制作公司。

它入围三个锅ential vendors to work with, one of which was Aruba. Jordan and his colleagues travelled to the Aruba Demo Center in Bad Homburg where they got the chance to take a closer look at how voice-over-Wi-Fi telephony and mobile data capture devices for manufacturing behaved in an Aruba infrastructure using a variety of test scenarios. These tests yielded very promising results, so promising in fact, that a proof of concept with multiple mobility controllers and around 50 access points was installed in the new Technology Centre at Viessmann’s headquarters in Allendorf.

ClearPass und AirWave made all the difference

“On the technological side, having the option to use Aruba ClearPass for network access controls and AirWave for network management was a key part of our decision. With its integrated, context-based policy engine, ClearPass ensures that we have control over all of the devices on our Wi-Fi network at all times. It therefore provides precisely the support we need now and will need in the future. And we were impressed with how AirWave manages network administration right from the start,” says Jordan. “I would also like to highlight the excellent sales assistance and professional technical support we received throughout the entire evaluation phase. The whole team was incredibly dedicated, particularly in the critical area of voice-over-Wi-Fi telephony. And during the migration from the old infrastructure to the new, the support they provided was exemplary.”

如今，Alendorf总部的4,500名员工由两个Aruba Mobility Controllers和450 Aruba接入点提供服务。在该公司在法国福雷蒙特（Faulquemont）的生产地点，另外有1000名员工，还有另外两个Aruba移动控制器和135个Aruba访问点。世界各地的Viessmann站点都通过Aruba即时访问点（IAP）连接。总体而言，该公司将在其全球运营的180个站点中安装超过850个IAP，使总数达到约1,400个访问点。

Aruba Virtual Mobility Master software ensures services run uninterrupted during updates

The network administrators at Viessmann also appreciate the value of AirWave for monitoring purposes. “With AirWave, we now know what the connection quality from a client to an access point is like at all times, and how it has been in the past. This provides us with a wealth of information if we experience connection and performance problems,” explains Jordan.

Aruba开关提供更高的透明度

Viessmann is so satisfied with the new Wi-Fi infrastructure from Aruba that the two companies are already getting to work on their next joint project: replacing the access switches. “The old switches had come to the end of their lifecycle and we wanted to convert to 10 gigabit technology in order to provide more bandwidth for all kinds of applications.” Again, the company looked at a number of different providers for the project, with Aruba amongst those submitting an offer.

But a long telephone call with an Aruba customer that had been using the Aruba switches for a long time helped us make the decision. “We could clear up all of the concerns the administrators had,” recalls Jordan, “both in terms of network stability and of service requests and administration.” Around 900 Aruba-2930F Campus Access switches will now be installed at Viessmann sites around the world over the next two to three years. “This all-Aruba solution offers a key advantage for our administrators in that it provides us with a standardised view of the clients on the access points and on the switch ports. This increases transparency in the mobile network considerably,” explains Jordan.

Wi-Fi network enables mobile working across the entire campus

Elmar Jordan believes that the mobile-first architecture will become increasingly important for Viessmann over time. “Wi-Fi used to be a supplementary solution for us, today it has equal standing to LAN. However, our digitisation strategy means that it will soon become our most important network technology, and Aruba will play a key role in this transformation,” he explains. “We are currently in talks with Aruba about how we can get 80% of our devices onto the Wi-Fi network. We want to make it possible for our staff to work wherever they want to on our campus, including outdoors and in the canteen.