1. we know
they know
Newell Rubbermaid cleans up with SAP ERP
solutions based on IBM DB2
Overview
 The Challenge performance, reliability and  Key Solution Components
With several independent databases availability, Newell Rubbermaid Industry: Consumer Products
supporting SAP ERP and other deployed the new solution on IBM Applications: SAP® Business Suite
business solutions, Newell Power Systems servers. components including financial
Rubbermaid found it difficult to accounting, controlling, general
report across the different operating  The Benefits ledger, SAP Supplier Relationship
units. With separate regional For the first time, Newell Management, SAP Supply Chain
systems, the monthly, quarterly and Rubbermaid has a truly global view Management, SAP NetWeaver®
year-end group finances required of operations. The SAP applications Business Warehouse and SAP
complex integration processes, and allow rapid financial closing and NetWeaver Process Integration and
caused frequent re-work of data as deep analysis of business SAP Enterprise Portal.
figures were reconciled globally. performance by brand, region, sales Hardware: IBM ® Power Systems™
Opportunities to rationalize and much more. Specifically, the servers (models p550, p570, p590),
procurement, supply chains and IBM Systems solution for SAP IBM Systems solution for SAP
production were being missed, and NetWeaver Business Warehouse NetWeaver Business Warehouse
without global sales order Accelerator enables Newell Accelerator (including IBM
processing, it was hard to be certain Rubbermaid to process business BladeCenter® HS21 and IBM
of business forecasts. intelligence queries on average 30 System Storage® DS4700
to 50 times faster, and in some technologies)
 The Solution cases, as much as twice as fast as Software: IBM AIX® 5.3, IBM
Newell Rubbermaid chose to before, even without specific DB2® 9.5, IBM General Parallel File
standardize on SAP Business Suite, optimization of aggregated data. System™, SUSE Linux Enterprise
including the core SAP ERP DB2 deep compression has Server
applications and SAP NetWeaver reduced average storage volumes
Business Warehouse for worldwide by 58 percent, cutting total storage
operations. Supporting the concept costs by $300,000 in year one. The
of the integrated enterprise, Newell DB2 integrated data cockpit has
Rubbermaid replaced its legacy reduced administrative workload by
databases, Oracle and Adabas, with 25 percent, so just one database
IBM DB2 as its global standard for administrator can now manage the
all SAP applications. To ensure entire landscape.

2. “With the IBM Systems Newell Rubbermaid is a global, The executive team decided that the
solution for SAP consumer-centric company focused best way to address these challenges
on breakthrough product innovations was to introduce a single ERP solution
NetWeaver Business
for the home and family, office and and a single database standard,
Warehouse Accelerator, commercial marketplaces. With sales implemented as an integrated solution
we can process business of around $5.7 billion and at the corporate headquarters in
intelligence queries internationally recognized brands, Atlanta, GA. Newell Rubbermaid
many times, on average including Rubbermaid, Sharpie, selected a complete suite of SAP
Calphalon, Dymo and Waterman Pens, Business Suite components for
30 to 50 times faster,
the company is growing both business management, and SAP
and in some cases, as organically and through its ongoing NetWeaver Business Warehouse for
much as 100 percent acquisition program. business analysis and reporting, with
improvement even IBM DB2 as the global information
without specific With the purchase of other companies standard, all deployed on IBM Power
and a history of internal development, Systems servers.
optimization of
Newell Rubbermaid had acquired a
aggregated data.” mix of home-grown, Oracle and other Creighton Kelly, Director of IT for the
business applications. With databases SAP Infrastructure, remarks, “The SAP
Creighton Kelly
Director of IT for the SAP Infrastructure from many different vendors and IBM solutions have been the
Newell Rubbermaid supporting these systems, Newell catalyst in the push to drive up
Rubbermaid found it difficult to report efficiency. We are streamlining
across the different operating units. operations with SAP and IBM in a way
With separate regional systems, that was simply not possible before.”
monthly, quarterly and year-end group
finances required complex integration Customer focus with SAP Business Suite
processes, and caused frequent Newell Rubbermaid’s stated strategy
re-work of data as figures were is based on developing a consumer-
reconciled globally. Opportunities to centric culture within the company,
rationalize procurement, supply chains creating innovative, brand-focused
and production were being missed, business processes, combined with a
and without global sales order highly collaborative, team-oriented
processing, it was hard to be certain of organization of more than 23,500
business forecasts. people that can work as one, with
global business units accessing a
world-wide view of operations.
The senior management team
identified key areas where the
company could maximize the benefits
of a single world-view of operations,
namely sales order processing,
finance, and supply chain. To generate
a global sales order report, for
example, data had first to be
assembled from each system, cleaned
and standardized, and then analyzed.
In total, across three principal
instances of SAP business software in
Europe, North America and Asia
Pacific and other line-of-business
solutions, Newell Rubbermaid was
managing more than 130TB of data.

3. Newell Rubbermaid settled on SAP ad hoc query performance, which was “By using DB2 Deep
Business Suite as offering the most essential for speed of global reaction. Compression, Newell
comprehensive range of solutions,
Rubbermaid has
combined with proven business “In centralizing our business systems,
analysis tools in SAP NetWeaver it was important to optimize the IT
achieved average
Business Warehouse. Components infrastructure and resources and database compression
deployed include finance, controlling, ensure availability. DB2 offered the ratios of 58 percent…
materials management, SAP Supply ability to scale upwards without Additionally, database
Chain Management, SAP Supplier creating complexity, justifying the
administration workload
Relationship Management, and SAP strategy and helping to meet the
NetWeaver Process Integration, and intensive global reporting and analysis
has been reduced by
SAP Enterprise Portal. All the North workload.” around 25 percent, with
American Newell Rubbermaid offices the integrated DBA
access the same core instances, and In total, Newell Rubbermaid has 64 Cockpit making a
most of the local applications have DB2 instances running in the
significant contribution
been phased out. environment, managed by one
database administrator. DB2 covers all
to our cost-saving
Additionally, for fast business analysis areas, such as production, objectives.”
and understanding, Newell development, test and quality
Creighton Kelly
Rubbermaid has implemented SAP assurance databases, as well as for
Director of IT for the SAP Infrastructure
NetWeaver Business Warehouse and SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Newell Rubbermaid
the IBM Systems solution for SAP and the related SAP BW Accelerator
NetWeaver Business Warehouse component, and for select other
Accelerator. non-SAP applications.
“By implementing SAP Warehouse “By using DB2 Deep Compression
Management and SAP Supply Chain during the migration from Adabas,
Management, management of our Oracle and other data sources, Newell
physical inventory has improved Rubbermaid has achieved average
significantly,” says Creighton Kelly. database compression ratios of 58
“Inventories have decreased an percent, and average savings per SAP
average of 30 percent, Inventory Days NetWeaver Business Warehouse
on Hand has decreased 15 percent, instance of some 1.2TB,” says
and Inventory Turns have increased by Creighton Kelly. “In production
23 percent across those businesses systems, Newell Rubbermaid has
live on SAP solutions.” realized close to 80 percent reduction
in size for the largest tables.
Centralized success with IBM DB2
Critical to project success was the “Additionally, database administration
choice of IBM DB2 as the standard workload has been reduced by around TECHNICAL LANDSCAPE
database. 25 percent, with the integrated DBA Servers: IBM Power Systems p550,
Cockpit making a significant p570, p590, with P5 1.9GHz and P6
“Our objectives were to optimize contribution to our cost-saving 1.6GHz processors
performance, minimize our operational objectives.” Software: IBM AIX 5.3, IBM DB2
risks and reduce costs,” says Creighton version 9.5 with 64 DB2 instances.
Kelly. “We identified that IBM DB2 Global operations on IBM Power Systems SAP Business Suite components
would offer us greater performance The Newell Rubbermaid SAP Business including SAP NetWeaver Business
with our SAP applications, particularly Suite solutions handle some 15 million Warehouse 7.0 and IBM Systems
when using its advanced compression sub-second dialog steps each month, solution for SAP NetWeaver Business
technology, which would result in covering every aspect of the business Warehouse Accelerator
quicker business insights for our 4,500 from sales entry through payment and Users: 4,500 total
users. Particularly, we predicted better supplier re-order processes. It was

4. therefore essential to choose reliable Cost saving and performance
IT infrastructure, capable of dealing With the complete SAP and IBM
with the workload, and one which solution in place, Creighton Kelly is
would scale to deal with growth as the able to consider results achieved and
Newell Rubbermaid business likely future developments.
acquisition program continues to roll
onwards. With the comprehensive set of SAP
solutions based on IBM DB2 and
Newell Rubbermaid selected servers Power Systems technology, Newell
from the IBM Power Systems family, Rubbermaid has, literally, a truly world-
featuring a range of IBM POWER wide view of operations. Based on
processors, running the IBM AIX accurate data, the SAP applications
IBM Deutschland GmbH
operating system. The servers are allow rapid financial closing and deep
D-70548 Stuttgart
joined in clusters using Veritas enquiry into the exact business ibm.com/solutions/sap
software to ensure high levels of position globally, by brand, region, IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks
of International Business Machines Corporation,
availability, helping to achieve near- sales and much more.
registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A
continuous operations even during current list of other IBM trademarks is available
on the Web at “Copyright and trademark
planned system downtime. “We can see already that the latest
information” at http://www.ibm.com/legal/
version of DB2 offers yet more features copytrade.shtml
IBM Systems solution for SAP NetWeaver that will benefit Newell Rubbermaid, Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Xeon and the Intel Xeon
logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Business Warehouse Accelerator helping us cut storage requirements
Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United
The IBM Systems solution for SAP through advanced table space and States and other countries. UNIX is a registered
trademark of The Open Group in the United
NetWeaver Business Warehouse index-level compression, and
States and other countries. Linux is a trademark
Accelerator delivers very high query reducing administrator workload with of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other
countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows, Windows
response performance, even for the set-it-and-forget-it automation.
NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of
huge data volumes at Newell Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other
countries, or both.
Rubbermaid. The solution is built “DB2 has contributed to license cost
Other company, product or service names may
around IBM BladeCenter HS21 and savings of around 30 percent when
be trademarks, or service marks of others.
IBM System Storage DS4700 compared with competitive offerings.
This case study illustrates how one IBM
technologies, and leverages the high Ultimately, IBM continuously improves customer uses IBM and/or IBM Business Partner
technologies/services. Many factors have
performance of the IBM General DB2 with functionality designed to
contributed to the results and benefits
Parallel File System and SUSE Linux reduce the costs of operation and described. IBM does not guarantee comparable
results. All information contained herein was
Enterprise Server. enhance system performance,” says
provided by the featured customer and/or IBM
Creighton Kelly. Business Partner. IBM does not attest to its
accuracy. All customer examples cited represent
“With the IBM Systems solution for
how some customers have used IBM products
SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse “In our initial evaluation of IBM and the results they may have achieved. Actual
environmental costs and performance
Accelerator, we can process business software and hardware, one of the
characteristics will vary depending on individual
intelligence queries, on average 30 to selling points of IBM was the tight customer configurations and conditions.
50 times faster, and in some cases, as integration with SAP in both This publication is for general guidance only.
Photographs may show design models.
much as 100 percent improvement, development and support.
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2010. All rights reserved.
even without specific optimization of
aggregated data,” says Creighton “We now realize that this integration
Kelly. “The BladeCenter infrastructure allows us to get enhancements and
offers near-linear scalability, as we can performance gains specific to our SAP
add further blade servers to the environment. It is always difficult to
solution to ensure that system place a value on integration, but it
response keeps pace with user shows in the consistency, stability, and © Copyright 2010 SAP AG
SAP AG
demand.” performance of our environment.” Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16
D-69190 Walldorf
SAP, the SAP logo, SAP and all other SAP
products and services mentioned herein are
trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in
Germany and several other countries.
SPC03255-WWEN-00 (May 2010)