Logistics
Supply Chain
Shop-floor SAP on shared kiosks across seven factories and 150 depots, with palm-vein verification instead of a shared password.
- Customer
- Transnet SOC Ltd, South Africa
- employees in the group
- 55,500
“Users are authenticated biometrically before they can access SAP systems via shared access kiosks. We no longer have to worry about password fraud from these users at all.”
The customer
Transnet is the largest and most crucial part of the freight logistics chain that delivers goods to each and every South African. Every day Transnet delivers thousands of tons of goods around South Africa, through its pipelines and both to and from its ports. It moves that cargo on to ships for export while it unloads goods from overseas.
Transnet is fully owned by the South African government but operates as a corporate entity aimed at both supporting and contributing to the country’s freight logistics network. It aims at developing South African industry and reducing the cost of doing business, while operating efficiently and profitably.
The challenge
Transnet Engineering is a division of Transnet and has to supply the company. It owns 7 factories and 150 depots with 14,500 employees, and annually manages over 11,000 wagons, 150 locomotives, 500 coaches and 52,000 wheels in SAP Enterprise Asset Management.
The objective was securing SAP Plant Maintenance, Production Planning and shop-floor processes in diverse locations using shared devices:
- Securing access to scheduling, planning, bills of materials and maintenance
- Ensuring secure access to SAP data at shared kiosks via biometrics
- Improving efficiency, lowering downtime and maintenance costs
What made it difficult
- Enable users with limited computer literacy or SAP proficiency to interact with systems easily
- Minimise training requirements
- Accommodate multi-lingual needs
- Enforce biometric authentication of all SAP data access
- Lower maintenance costs by keeping plants and depots running more efficiently
The solution
Fujitsu PalmSecure and the bioLock security software were implemented within shared-use kiosks by authorised partner Linx-AS.
Palm-vein recognition suits an industrial environment: it reads the vein pattern beneath the skin, so it does not wear out with manual work, and it is contactless, which matters on a factory floor.