Ansell

The Customer 

Ansell is a world leader in providing superior health and safety protection solutions that enhance human well-being. Because the world’s need for better protection never stops, the company is constantly researching, developing and investing to manufacture and distribute cutting-edge product innovation, marketed under well-known brands that customers trust. 

Operating in two main business segments, industrial and healthcare, Ansell is a market leader that continues to grow, employing 14,000 people worldwide. With operations in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, EMEA and Asia Pacific, customers in more than 100 countries trust Ansell and its protection solutions. 

The Challenge

Because the world’s need for better health protection never stops, especially during a global pandemic, Ansell’s seven manufacturing plants, located in India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, China and Sri Lanka, run 24 hours a day. However, the plants’ legacy on-premise ERP system lacked interoperability, process standardisation and cloud functionality, all of which were critical to meeting increasing production demands. To unify plant operations and break down the silos hindering growth and data access, Ansell engaged Hitachi Solutions to migrate its manufacturing ERP to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 cloud. 

As the plants went live on Dynamics 365, though, Ansell’s IT department began noticing a troubling trend. While data was now centralised and available, there were lengthy delays in updates to Microsoft Power BI, slowing access to reporting and hindering the ability to scale. 

Our manufacturing plants work 24 hours a day, and there are three shifts. Business users’ minimum ask is to see output reports at the end of every shift. The data delays were hindering our ability to provide timely reporting.

The Solution

Ansell requested advisory services, training and hands-on help re-architecting its data and business intelligence platform with Microsoft Synapse technology and analytics capabilities. Because of Hitachi Solutions’ work on the Dynamics 365 migration, its strong relationship with Microsoft and its global data and analytics practice, Ansell decided to trust the team with this important modernisation project. 

The work began with a proof of concept to develop a custom integration for exporting data from Microsoft Dynamics 365 to Data Lake. This new capability automated, streamlined and accelerated the existing data export process, reducing Ansell’s integration time from hours to minutes. Within weeks, the team could access data and analytics from Dynamics 365 in near real-time through Power BI dashboards, and valuable knowledge was transferred to Ansell’s own developers. 

The proof of concept was a success, and we were happy with the results. Hitachi Solutions helped us develop our skill and knowledge around Synapse, which made us decide to go ahead and use it to modernise our data platform.

To bring the proof of concept into production, migrate to Synapse and operationalise the new architecture, the teams then ran an in-depth mentoring and guidance engagement, including workshops, training, embedded resources, build automation and DevOps support. Once complete, Ansell augmented its team with two full-time Hitachi Solutions resources to keep designing, developing and improving the solution. 

Why Hitachi Solutions

Ansell chose Hitachi Solutions on the strength of the existing Dynamics 365 migration relationship, a strong partnership with Microsoft, and a global data and analytics practice. Just as important was the way the team worked: extending Ansell’s own capabilities, transferring knowledge, and remaining available whenever advice or hands-on help was needed. 

Working with Hitachi Solutions was a very positive experience. We forged a strong relationship, and they really extended our capabilities as a team. Hitachi Solutions was always there when we needed them, open to us asking advice and questions, and even helping us develop and implement if we had an issue.

The Benefits 

The biggest benefit for Ansell is time. The company can now access its Dynamics 365 plant data in near real-time, so everyone who needs it has visibility into the performance of each shift, and transferring and loading data is far more efficient, making the process faster and the data cleaner. 

Teamwork was key to the success of this project. Together, we were able to achieve results in a very short amount of time. What normally should have taken eight or nine months, we did in less than four months.

• Modernised data architecture and business intelligence, with near real-time monitoring of manufacturing capacity and inventory 
• Automated, streamlined processes and integrations that minimise errors and maximise productivity 
• Unified reporting that promotes standardisation and global connectivity 
• Scalability to meet future growth as major plants are onboarded to Dynamics 365 

What’s Next? 

With a modern, scalable data platform now in place across its plants, Ansell is positioned to meet future growth as further major sites are onboarded to Dynamics 365, continuing to build on the skills and technology developed during the project. 

We can’t thank Hitachi Solutions enough for their help on this project. Because of the training and expertise they shared with us, our people have a much better understanding of Synapse and modern data platforms.