How Applied Materials Deploys Faster SAP® Projects and Boosts Quality with Worksoft Test Automation https://www.worksoft.com/events/how-applied-materials-deploys-faster-sap-projects-and-boosts-quality-with-test-automation

1. External Use
SAPinsider Webinar
How Applied Materials Deploys
Faster SAP® Projects and
Boosts Quality with Test
Automation
Heather Whitfield, Program Manager, SAP
Testing Center of Excellence (TCOE), Applied
Materials
Toby Cappello, Vice President, Services,
Worksoft

2. What Today’s Webinar Will Cover
How Applied Materials:
• Accelerates IT projects, gains efficiencies and increases quality
with automated business process validation
• Builds and executes automated testing for better coverage,
shorter test cycles and substantial cost savings over manual
approaches
• Expands its SAP Testing Center of Excellence (TCOE) and
structures an automation roadmap to expand its business
process coverage and success metrics
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3. What You Will Learn
How Automation Enables Applied Materials to:
• Achieve high levels of coverage for core end-to-end business
processes across SAP landscape
• Improve business process quality and lower technology risk by
catching defects before they enter production
• Eliminate thousands of hours of manual effort and reduce test
cycles by 40% or more
• Deploy more projects faster to support company growth
• Leverage reusable test scenarios to increase productivity and
business process quality
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4. Introduction to Applied Materials
 Applied Materials, Inc. is the global leader in precision materials
engineering solutions for the semiconductor, flat panel display
and solar photovoltaic (PV) industries. Our technologies help
make innovations like smartphones, flat screen TVs and solar
panels more affordable and accessible to consumers and
businesses around the world.
• Fiscal 2014 Revenue: $9.1 billion
• Headquarters: Santa Clara, California
• 81 locations in 18 countries
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5. Enterprise Application Landscape - SAP
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6. Business Needs and Drivers for Automation
 Manual testing accounted for 60% of project duration
 Manual testing took 6 to 8 weeks to complete and accounted for a
significant portion of the overall Test budget
 Needed to save time and find a more cost effective way to test core
business processes
 Needed to remove manual testing burdens and enable functional
analysts to do more projects per year and more strategic product work
 Needed a way to deploy more projects faster with reduced manual
effort to support company growth
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7. Business Needs and Drivers for Automation
Compelling Event:
 In 2014, an inadvertent date change put thousands of materials on a
block/hold and had to be manually changed
Outcome:
 Created corporate alignment and a renewed interest in automation
and Automated Business Process Validation
 Mandated that a regression test run before any planned changes
 Recognition that automation was essential for testing
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8. Organizational and Team Structure
 Renewed focus on Test leadership
 Test lead oversees a team of offshore automation developers
– Fully funded by IT
 The new team automates validation of 40 to 45 end-to-end business
processes per quarter
 The Worksoft Certify capture functionality enables the business to
document automation needs and send those “captures” to the
automation developers
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9. Establishing a Testing Center of Excellence
 New initiatives launched to refine Applied Materials’ overall testing and
quality practices through process, technology and people changes
 SAP TCOE: A centrally organized and funded team was established
– Designated Program Manager
– Team consists of test lead and offshore team of automation
developers
– Provides insight into processes and approaches to identify
inefficiencies
 SAP TCOE reports into the SAP COE, which reports into the VP of
Enterprise Process Solutions, who reports directly to the CIO
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10. Building a Roadmap for Automation
 The key to measuring success (business process coverage) was to build
the right foundation for automation
 Step 1 - Leveraged the key business functional analysts over a 6-week
period to define their Core Business Processes
 Step 2 – Designated and determined a list of end-to-end business
processes to serve as the roadmap for automation and a denominator
for calculating coverage
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11. Results
Levels of Automation and Business Process Coverage Achieved
 Achieved higher levels of coverage for core end-to-end business
processes across SAP modules
 Improved business process quality
 Resulted in a list of close to 500 end-to-end processes that were
designated and now serve as the roadmap for automation
 The company now has coverage across 196 of the 500 processes and is
continuing to work on increasing and improving coverage
 Business areas and projects now proactively seek out automation for
SAP and non-SAP applications
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12. Results
Business Benefits: Savings and Efficiencies, Shortened Timelines,
Quality Improvements
 Lowered technology risk by catching defects before they enter
production
– Defect Removal Efficiency (DRE) for last SAP technical upgrade project reached 86%
- a significant improvement from the previous upgrade
 Eliminated hundreds of hours of manual effort and reduced test cycles
by 40% or more
 Deployed more projects faster to support company growth
– Enabled new key SAP functionality
 Leveraged reusable test scenarios to increase productivity and business
process quality
– Reduction of Test prep time for projects
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13. Success Factors
Creating Culture Change
 Start with initial, small projects
 Hold numerous awareness sessions
 Share project results frequently
Best Practices for Automation Success
 Pursue executive support
 Seek visibility for you and your team
 Don’t take your foot off the gas; stay steady, move forward
 Publicize results with metrics and demonstrate the value your
team can bring
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14. Future Plans
 Applied Materials is expanding its Testing Center of Excellence (TCOE)
to include other non-SAP applications such as Collaboration,
Engineering and HR applications
 TCOE is engaging with IT PMO to insert QA governance into PM
framework to ensure projects follow consistent QA processes
 TCOE is structuring an automation roadmap to expand its business
process coverage and success metrics across applications
 The company is committed to expanding its use of automation
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15. www.worksoft.com
Modern Enterprise Application Landscape
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Today’s End-to-End Business Processes

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COMPLEXITY PACE OF CHANGE LOSS OF CONTROL
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With Technology Comes Technology Risk

18. The industry’s only platform for
automated business process discovery, analytics, and validation
Ensure they continue to work
even when enterprise apps change
Understand and analyze
your critical business processes
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www.worksoft.com 19
Worksoft: The Automation Technology Company

19. Q&A
For more information, contact
Heather Whitfield, Program Manager, SAP Testing Center of Excellence
(TCOE), Applied Materials
Heather_Whitfield@amat.com
Toby Cappello, Vice President, Services, Worksoft
tcappello@worksoft.com
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