Liebherr-Werk Bischofshofen GmbH was founded in 1960 as the first Austrian factory of the Liebherr Group. Since then, the company has grown continuously with an annual turnover of around 800 million euros thanks to sustainable innovations, creative solutions and high quality standards. Today, Liebherr-Werk Bischofshofen GmbH with its 1000 employees on a plant area of 170,000 m2 is the Liebherr Group's competence center for wheel loaders.
The company develops, produces and sells wheel loaders for the entire western market as well as emerging markets (financial markets of the so-called "newly industrializing countries"). Production takes place both at the plant in Bischofshofen and at the sites in China and Brazil. The products are developed exclusively in Austria.
Data Center Group had already developed, built and implemented a modular server room to protect the IT for the Liebherr factory in Bischofshofen. This already had a redundant design and was equipped with all the usual security features. Due to the previous positive experience, a new data center was commissioned. DCG had already implemented a DC IT Safe Duo in Telfs, Austria, for the sister factory Liebherr Werk Telfs and subsequently delivered a DC IT Safe Office Edition for Liebherr in Puch, also in Austria, in March 2023.
The new data center in Bischofshofen had become necessary because the old building, which housed the company's IT infrastructure, was to be demolished. The new data center was to be located in a newly built logistics center. In addition, the company now has even higher requirements in terms of the security and availability of its IT infrastructure.
The choice fell on a micro data center - the DC IT Safe. Data Center Group took on the planning, project management, assembly and installation of the data center. Only a few months passed from commissioning to project completion. The project was implemented in August 2022. "This solution impresses with its simplicity. The components were easy to connect. In addition, the DC IT Safe has a small footprint and is still secure and highly available," says Wolfgang Kendler, Team Leader IT Infrastructure at Liebherr, explaining his choice.
The high availability of the IT in particular is essential for the plant, as functioning IT is the key to efficient and functioning logistics chains in the wheel loader production plant. Management and ERP systems would otherwise come to a standstill and the assembly control system would no longer function. Various IT services that need to be stable and run smoothly could no longer be carried out.
Wolfgang Kendler explains: "Should IT come to a stop, we would be massively restricted in our daily work. With a turnover of the mentioned 800 million euros, a failure would also have an enormous financial impact. A stable and reliable IT infrastructure is therefore essential. The data center is the main artery of the entire factory. And if it doesn't work, the factory doesn't work properly."
There are a number of advantages to implementing the project. For example, the factory saved a lot of space and was able to protect the IT infrastructure even better from physical hazards, such as fire, water, dust or other damage. In addition, the company can save a lot of electricity, as the DC IT Safe, like all DCG solutions, is highly energy-efficient.
Sustainable, highly available and compact: 3 keywords that ideally describe the project and lead to a positive summary: "The data center works perfectly. Everything is as it should be. The project goal has been achieved and we can rely on a good and stable infrastructure and concentrate on our business - wheel loaders for (almost) the whole world," summarizes Wolfgang Kendler.
© Liebherr
