With Cloud Temple, we've found a partner who's right for us and capable of supporting our growth. What's more, we no longer have to deal with maintenance issues, which means we can save time and resources to deliver ever greater added value to our customers and partners.
About La Palette Rouge
LPR-La Palette Rouge is the European specialist in pallet rental and management for manufacturers in the fast-moving consumer goods sector and for retailers.
LPR is a division of Euro Pool Group (EPG), a logistics services provider and European leader in the standard reusable and recoverable packaging sector. Its main aim is to offer FMCG (Fast-moving Consumer Goods) and mass retail manufacturers a simple, sustainable service capable of meeting the challenges of optimising their logistics processes, while at the same time playing a part in the ecological transition of the supply chain (i.e. 2O% less CO2 emissions by 2025).
With 325 employees, more than 107 million pallet movements a year, 28,000 collection points (partners and distributors) and 129 service centres responsible for sorting and repairing pallets throughout Europe, LPR offers an outsourced 100% service capable of guaranteeing the most demanding customers the receipt of pallets that meet their expectations, while respecting defined volumes and deadlines.
At the same time, an eService called "MyLPR", based on a web interface accessible 24/7, enables each customer to manage their invoices and orders, and to have a global view of all their pallet movements and invoicing.
Patrick Sigwalt explains: "When I arrived in 2000 to transform the group's information system and bring it into line with its European ambitions, my first choice was to build a hybrid system based on SAP solutions, around ten web applications (customer portal, service providers, carriers, etc.), as well as an application accessible on mobile terminals such as iPads dedicated to the delegates in charge of field visits. "
The issues
Patrick Sigwalt explains: "After 5 years of depreciation on our hardware, we had to decide on a strategy for renewing all our platforms, which at the time were hosted in 'on premise' mode. We opted for an OPEX-based approach, and the choice of the cloud was an obvious one.
The first step was to issue a call for tenders, with the help of a consultancy firm, which selected ten or so suppliers before settling on just two in early 2020: Cloud Temple for infrastructure and application outsourcing for Web and BI applications, and Codilog for SAP application outsourcing. The contract was signed in June 2020 with the Neurones group, with Cloud Temple and Codilog both subsidiaries of the group.
The solution
The solution then consisted of migrating the SAP software package, including a unicode conversion of the database, the web applications with the aim of containerising them and, finally, migrating the ETL, Oracle Data Integrator, to SAP Data Services.
Patrick Sigwalt continues: "We divided the project into different batches and proceeded in stages. The first test involved the development environment in Azure. Then came the integration environments, before deploying the production environments. "
The complete changeover was carried out in February 2021, without any incident and on a like-for-like basis, using a 'big bang' approach over just one weekend.
At the same time, Cloud Temple undertook to ensure the high availability of the information system by building a backup environment on a second Azure region, enabling a recovery plan in the event of a disaster. This architecture was built as part of an ongoing FinOps approach.
Patrick Sigwalt comments: "Few companies that have deployed SAP applications have opted for a Public Cloud hosted environment. However, after validating the compatibility of all our IT systems with the new environment on offer, we quickly saw the operational benefits and gains associated with this type of infrastructure. On the advice of Cloud Temple, we then proceeded to size the whole of our new system. "
The benefits
"Today, with Cloud Temple, we have found a partner on our scale and capable of supporting us as we grow. What's more, we no longer have to deal with maintenance issues, which means we can save time and resources to deliver ever greater added value to our customers and partners," concludes Patrick Sigwalt.
These technological choices should give LPR greater flexibility in adapting its information system to the growth in its activities. What's more, the flexibility of the infrastructure and the ability to right-size the resources required on a pay-as-you-go basis are a real advantage in terms of both economics and budget... benefits that are the first step in bringing the IS into line with a genuine CSR and Green IT approach undertaken by the company.