Leading process technology manufacturer & supplier GEA optimises Workday with Smart Test
Project Requirements
- Improve Workday testing efficiency with limited resources
- Mitigate against security risks to protect data integrity
- Support and advice to optimise Workday
Project Results
- Smart Test's powerful automated Workday testing
- Extended Workday footprint with Talent & Performance and Advanced Compensation
- Continued Workday support through Kainos AMS
About GEA
GEA is one of the largest technology suppliers for food processing and a wide range of other industries. With over 18,000 employees, in over 400 locations across 65 countries, the global group specialises in machinery, plants as well as process technology and components.
Global HR solution with Workday
Without a comprehensive HR system in place GEA was struggling to manage HR
processes and reporting. When the company structure changed in 2016 to
encompass a more global HR function, it made the decision to move to an ERP
solution that could better meet its needs.
André Stafflage, HR Business Analyst explains, “We didn’t have a global HR management system in place, and what we had was limited and mainly used for reporting purposes and resource planning, but it didn’t accurately reflect the business and there was also a lack of transparency which meant we couldn’t see our end to end HR processes. At that point our global organisation also changed, with a new HR management team in place, it became increasingly apparent that we needed a global HR system to reflect our business and growth.”
Following a comprehensive selection process involving global teams from Procurement, HR and IT, GEA made the decision to purchase Workday Core HCM, Compensation, Benefits, Reporting and Absence.
Kicking off the project in September 2016, it went live globally in the Summer of 2017. “Workday’s user experience and design capabilities came out on top and the decision was unanimous across the steering group”, says Andre.
Resource constraints hamper testing during implementation
With limited internal resources during their initial Workday deployment, GEA deployed Smart Test to ensure rigorous testing of their Workday configuration. As the only automated testing tool for Workday, GEA was confident that Smart Test could share its Workday testing load.
Andre explains, “We selected Smart Test because it focuses solely on Workday, and we wanted to ensure that we were testing our system thoroughly. We were struggling with internal resources and having enough Workday experts to test the system properly to ensure that our implementation was successful. With Workday, change is constant and to ensure the quality of our business processes and everything that comes out of Workday, we needed to ensure that everything was tested properly.”
“Implementing Smart Test with Kainos was a very positive and seamless experience. We worked closely with the Kainos team to configure the initial test cases, and then handed over the responsibility of running those tests regularly to Smart Test. Immediately we noticed the difference; the testing just worked. Smart Test removed all the hassle of running all our Workday tests and updating the scripts when changes were made to our BPs,” he adds.
Testing success leads to Kainos partnership for Workday support
Following successful go-live, aided by Smart Test, GEA wanted continuous Workday support and once again turned to Kainos. The Kainos Application Management Service (AMS) team now supports GEA with any Workday issues or problems and ensures continued success.
“We had some issues during our initial Workday deployment, particularly around data quality and business process configuration. Alongside our deployment partner, Kainos played a pivotal role in supporting our Workday go-live, so we made the decision to use Kainos for AMS. The team at Kainos already had great knowledge of our configuration and tenant, so the transition was very straightforward. With Smart Test the Kainos team has direct access to our tenant, meaning if it highlights any issues the AMS team are quickly able to solve the issue or work with us to resolve the problem. This is a huge benefit and a massive time saver for us.”
GEA also enjoy the benefits of regular update and incident reports, providing added reassurance and peace of mind.
Andre describes, “Structurally our business has gone through a lot of change, so we were redesigning our HR business processes to reflect the global nature of our business. We done this in parallel with our Workday deployment. We didn’t have self-service in the past, so that’s been a big change too. The combination of Kainos AMS and Smart Test adds real value to our organisation.”
Optimising and maximising the power of Workday
In 2019 GEA worked with Kainos to reshape their initial Workday deployment and to get the HR team’s Workday vision back on track, adding Talent and Performance and Advanced Compensation to their stack. Later that year when facing large organisational changes through a new group structure, it again turned to Kainos to successfully implement the changes needed to Workday.