We accompany our customers on their journey to digitalization – from strategy planning to implementation and beyond.
A holistic consulting firm, we develop corporate and digital transformation strategies for our customers: conceiving, designing, and supporting change processes, the selection of IT systems, and IT implementation projects.
Our focus lies in the design and deployment of holistic, digitalized information architectures for use within companies. We also specialize in the overlaps and interplay between the major classes of business systems – CRM, PLM, ERP, MES/MOM, PIM, and CPQ. Related issues pertaining to methodologies – such as modularization, supply chain management, production design, and the planning of organizational structures – are also an important element of our portfolio. This is rounded off with our method of RIM Industrial Data Science, which also involves topical issues such as artificial intelligence and portfolio and process mining. The Steinbeis Transfer Center for Computer Applications in Engineering (STZ-RIM) is one of the leading Central European providers of know-how in the field of PLM, MES, and industrial data science.
Strategy consulting
Drawing on Strategy Cascading – our unique approach to strategy consulting – we accompany you through all stages of the strategy planning process. This starts with the formulation of your strategy and continues with a clear definition of objectives and the measures required to gauge success. Our strategy consulting empowers your company to determine and define prerequisite business capabilities in the most concrete terms possible. In doing so, we support you in determining the required areas of action, also enabling you to structure and formulate key tasks derived from those areas.
In addition, we work with you as you develop the guiding principles that will constitute North Stars for each respective area of action, thus defining the way forward for the process of transformation. We work with you to conceive and plan an individual transformation matrix and ensure any changes work in harmony with the culture of your organization.
This establishes key areas of action and the steps that will need to be implemented – all based on a timeline that will ensure each step follows a logical sequence, in ways that are still palatable to your company. In addition, we ensure that all implemented measures provide your company with concrete, measurable, and tangible benefit.
Process & methods consulting
We enjoy supporting you with advice on processes and methods. Having derived clearly defined areas of action on the basis of your strategy, you now know which areas to work on and the direction your company will travel in moving forward. The next step is thus to add clear contours to the key areas of action in ways that still allow for adjustment. It’s important to paint a picture of specific guiding principles or target outcomes for each area, also adding substance to each project to be implemented. Successful implementation will revolve around the possession of corresponding know-how as well as a command of the required methods and tools used for each respective process and specialist area.
This is where our consulting services come into play. In addition to the necessary know-how, we have the methods and tools that are required for the essential processes and specialist areas of companies, putting us in a unique position to support you with front-line implementation.
Our services are a bit like an all-inclusive package. In spearheading the process, not only do our experts train staff – who practically learn “on the job” – but as and when we will also offer support exactly where and when you need it most.
Our role in providing support can be that of a sparring partner, so we can organize methodology workshops with you on certain topics, we can conduct assessments of specific projects, and we can work up the required concepts for you – or what we call Alpha Edition solutions. We’re also in a position to help with technology scouting, or accompany and support you with introduction and deployment. By conducting our Health Checks, we produce a precise assessment of the current situation affecting your project, thus offering a clear picture of the status quo.
IT consulting
You may be wondering what the future holds for IT systems – or where IT departments will fit into or be organized within the company. The winds of change and, in particular, the dawning of a new era of cloud technology, will not pass by without affecting IT departments. This will have a dramatic impact on the tasks and responsibilities of corporate IT.
Only recently, many IT departments still felt their job was to look after business infrastructure and laptops, or make sure ERP remained up and running. IT departments that still position themselves along such lines will come under intense pressure in the future. There are a number of reasons for this. In the future, many IT applications will migrate to the cloud. As a result, there will no longer be a need for traditional IT tasks. In addition, IT security will increasingly gain in importance.
One of the core tasks of modern IT will thus be to manage and protect information generated by processes, especially given that this information constitutes a crucial asset of the business enterprise. This will give rise to another core task, which will be to ensure the right information is available at the right time in order to define and provide products and services – without the kind of continual semantic alteration that occurs when a large number of people become involved. For this to happen, it’s imperative to have end-to-end information architectures, and these should be embedded in a wide range of IT components and systems – PLM, ERP, MOM, MES, CPQ, etc.
We help you set up corporate IT in such a way that it is prepared for future tasks. To this end, we work with you to design a suitable organizational structure and develop modern IT processes that are geared to the challenges of the future. In addition, we help you enshrine processes and mechanisms within the organization so that it continues developing in the long term with the support of the company’s IT systems.
Industrial Data Science
Even if topics such as business intelligence, data warehouses, and big data have been established for many years in industrial practice, many decisions are still based on gut instinct. Often, the success of measures – which companies should continually revisit and refine – cannot even be gauged in quantifiable terms. Worse still, many of us in industrial practice are simply not in a position to draw on available data and validate the potential of the different areas of action such measures are based on. There’s a tendency in these situations to latch on to the latest management trends or buzzwords, and actions often stem from the hope that when measures are introduced, there will be a number of bull’s-eyes of their own accord.
As a result, if there’s a turn for the worse, often there’s no other option than to make harsh, blanket interventions across the whole organization, frequently resulting in crucial elements of the ecosystem – the company – being unnecessarily obliterated. In an era of data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI), some may be surprised to ascertain that this is the starting point, although actually, it should not be surprising. Some companies are still driven like the first steamships. The skipper turns the engine order telegraph, many decks below in the engine room the commands are shouted out, and then everyone goes about turning all the little levers. What follows is an anxious wait in the hope that the direction is right and somehow it will work out fine.
Now put yourself in this position: You’re at the helm, steering a jetplane – the company – with a joystick. The smallest movement gains an instant response and exact reaction. To prevent oversteering, you have fly-by-wire controls that help keep the company stable even if there’s a sudden and massive gust.
Does that still sound inconceivable in modern times? Based on the method we have developed – Industrial Data Science – we have set ourselves the goal of achieving just that and we know in the future it’s something that will be possible.
Continuing education at the RIM Academy
Our seminars and workshops are conducted by leading experts to furnish you with the required knowledge in key fields of know-how and thus not only take your company to the next level, but also enable you to develop in personal terms. All of the services we offer are updated and overhauled on a regular basis and we’re happy to provide you with an offer tailored exactly to your requirements.
Excerpt from our RIM Academy portfolio:
