Company
Founded in Japan, The Kaneka Group has also been operating in Malaysia for 20 years. With six companies and manufacturing facilities, it boasts the largest plant operations in Asia outside of Japan.
Industry
Chemical Manufacturing
Business Need
Reinvent IT systems to streamline operations and improve productivity.
Solution
- Nutanix Enterprise Cloud
- Acropolis Software, including AHV virtualization
- Prism management infrastructure
Benefits
- Increased productivity by 35%
- Reduced IT support required for maintenance by 91%
- Decreased number of physical servers by 15
- Achieved 83% savings in power consumption
- Reduced total cost of operation by an estimated RM 1.5 million ($379K USD) over 5 years
CHALLENGES
Rising commoditization in the chemical manufacturing industry has led to an accelerating demand for innovation in products, processes, and business models. Faced with an increasingly competitive climate, many corporations in the industry have been forced to look hard at reinventing their legacy infrastructures to cope with the rapid change, while facing pressures to keep operating costs low in the process. The Kaneka Malaysia Group was no exception.
However, getting buy-in from the parent organization for an entire IT overhaul would be no easy feat – Kaneka needed proof before committing time and resources to such a project. To address this, Kaneka worked with Nutanix’s IT partner Virtuosity Solutions to conduct an IT Technology Assessment study, including interviews with top management and systems engineers on the group’s operations and IT stress points.
The study revealed that Kaneka had a legacy 3-tier IT infrastructure comprised of inefficient and disparate systems that were expensive to maintain and difficult to scale up as IT requirements expanded. It also showed that Kaneka was not adequately protected against potential hardware or software crashes, system intrusions, or datacenter outages – a weakness that could severely impact the availability of Kaneka’s critical operations. Additionally, the disparate IT systems were not standardized in deployment and operations, curtailing manpower efficiency and inhibiting business growth.
It was clear that new technologies were needed in order to re-engineer Kaneka’s IT operation. “Our IT Assessment study allowed us to realize the value of IT infrastructure’s role in driving overall productivity, and that helped us to make the decision to overhaul our systems with Nutanix as one of the core technologies,” said Ehtesham Ihsan, Acting Head of IT Department, Kaneka.
SOLUTION
Kaneka Malaysia Group opted for the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS software to provide a hyperconverged and simplified infrastructure solution for streamlined management operations. Thirty-four of Kaneka’s servers were migrated to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform, with Nutanix AHV providing virtual capabilities for running various applications, and Nutanix Prism supporting powerful central management.
Business-critical applications that were running on the existing piece-meal legacy systems were virtualized, including the company’s SAP applications (SRM and PI), Microsoft SharePoint, human resources management system (HRMS), and several other proprietary mission-critical systems for plant operations. This migration ensured better enterprise resource planning and operations.
“The change was immediately apparent – it was as if cogs that had stopped turning years ago were springing to life, and Nutanix was there to provide support for this transformation whenever required,” said Ihsan. The entire implementation took only four months to complete, as opposed to the typical six to eight months with the legacy infrastructure, without causing disruptions to day-to-day business operations.
RESULTS
Since the deployment of the Nutanix systems in June 2017, Kaneka is now enjoying an overall 35% increase in productivity. By using the Nutanix Prism centralized management solution, Kaneka has reported a 91% reduction in IT support required and has saved 477 man-hours, as less manpower was needed for maintenance.
In addition, the Nutanix solution has resulted in a decreased datacenter footprint of 300 square feet as the number of physical servers was reduced by 15. The more efficient system has also led to an 83% reduction in power consumption. “The physical change came with surprising benefits. The original room housing our servers was no longer fit for purpose, so being able to move to a smaller, safer haven enabled us to reduce the amount of hardware and cooling required,” commented Ihsan.
Ultimately, Kaneka’s overall cost of operations was reduced significantly by an estimated RM 1.5 million ($379K USD) over five years by moving to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS software.
Our IT assessment study allowed us to realize the value of our digital Infrastructure’s role in driving overall productivity, and that helped us to make the decision to overhaul our systems with Nutanix as one of the core technologies.
Ehtesham Ihsan Acting Head of IT Department, Kaneka