Liebherr is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of construction machinery. Development and production of its products and components is carried out at 28 locations spread across three continents. The site at Bischofshofen, Austria, for example, is responsible for manufacturing the company’s successful range of wheel loader construction vehicles.

The Bischofshofen facility, with its 750-strong workforce, is in operation around the clock, five days a week. To support this operation it is necessary to maximise the uptime of core business applications such as the Baan ERP system and various in-house manufacturing systems. Until recently, however, largely as a result of IT deficiencies, Liebherr found this objective difficult to achieve.

"We operate in a highly competitive market where we can’t afford to interrupt production for more than a couple of hours at a time," explained Peter Schachinger, IT manager at Liebherr-Werk Bischofshofen. "We are keenly aware that if we run into difficulties, there are plenty of other companies waiting to step into our shoes."

One of the major obstacles to achieving high availability was the outdated network infrastructure. Liebherr therefore decided to implement a resilient, fully redundant LAN and secure Wireless LAN based on ProCurve Networking’s Adaptive EDGE Architecture™.

According to Schachinger, ProCurve Networking by HP offered a highly cost-effective solution, boasting an excellent array of features. Liebherr was also highly impressed by the proposed network design developed by local ProCurve technical consultants. Alternative solutions from ProCurve’s key competitors were not only more expensive but would have been complicated to maintain.

The new network architecture is based around twelve 5300 Series switches and nineteen ProCurve 2600 Series switches, with a fully redundant core. ProCurve Manager Plus (PCM+) and ProCurve Identity Driven Manager (IDM) are used to enable automatic and dynamic network management, enabling improved access control and network usage, as well as greater reporting capabilities. Additionally a secure wireless solution was implemented with the ProCurve Integrated Access Manager 760 and ProCurve Access Points 420wl, to provide high level data security across the manufacturing area. ProCurve technical consultants collaborated with Liebherr to design the new architecture.

The phased implementation, which entailed renewing cabling as well as switches, took two years to complete. Key applications accessed across the network by its 650 users include a Microsoft Exchange mail system as well as Liebherr’s ERP and manufacturing systems.

According to Schachinger, application availability and performance are now much higher than before, with the redundant network core offering additional protection. Backbone bandwidth has increased by a factor of ten and users are experiencing improvements of a comparable magnitude.

With the aid of ProCurve software, network management is now extremely straightforward at Liebherr. In combination with the exceptional reliability of the hardware, this means that Liebherr has little cause to call on ProCurve’s support services. Finally, the ProCurve solution is future-proofed and capable of growing in line with Liebherr’s changing requirements.

"A well-designed, stable network infrastructure is vital to the success of our business. In an industry where everybody is fighting hard for market share, ProCurve Networking helps us to achieve optimal levels of productivity without having to worry about our network" concluded Schachinger.

• To maintain its competitive edge, Liebherr needs to maintain a 24x5 operation at its manufacturing facility in Bischofshofen, Austria.
• In the past, this proved difficult because the network architecture did not support high availability of core business applications.
• Liebherr therefore decided to implement a resilient, fully redundant LAN.

• Liebherr decided to base the new network on a ProCurve Networking Adaptive EDGE Architecture™.
• ProCurve technical consultants helped to design the new network architecture.
• A total of 12 ProCurve 5300 Series and 19 ProCurve 2600 Series Switches were installed. ProCurve Manager Plus (PCM+) and ProCurve Identity Driven Manager (IDM) is used to manage the network.
• A secure wireless solution based on ProCurve 760 Integrated Access Manager and 13 ProCurve 420wl Access Points.

• Application performance and availability are much higher than before.
• Network bandwidth has increased by a factor of ten.
• Network management is extremely straightforward.
• Liebherr now has a future-proofed network that can grow in line with its changing needs.

• Cost-effective solution
• Impressive technology features
• Competence of ProCurve’s technical consultants

When you are ready to explore the benefits a ProCurve Networking solution can offer you, call HP at 1-800-975-7682.

To learn more about ProCurve Networking's Adaptive EDGE Architecture™ solutions, visit our home page.

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