Agricloud

By moving its laboratory systems to the Azure cloud, Agrichemical company has gained the ability to efficiently gather data and the flexibility to expand as needed.

‍Challenge

Agrichemical company needed to separate itself as an independent company, and thus, it had to transfer its existing production control system and enterprise resource planning systems from Dow's in-house platform to Agrichemical company's own in-house platform and Azure cloud-based platform. A critical part of this migration would be its quality systems, which required relocating its central laboratory information management system (LIMS) to the cloud, integrating an interconnected system of related systems, and undergoing a challenging migration - all while ensuring no disruptions to its daily operations.

‍What we did

Agrichemical company teamed up with Cloudseed to lay the groundwork for a self-sufficient and environmentally responsible organization by creating a unified LIMS application system on the Azure cloud platform.

To start, Cloudseed carried out investigations, implementing and evaluating the LIMS solution on both on-premise and cloud platforms. Upon successfully operating the core LIMS system on Agrichemical company's Azure cloud platform, the two firms initiated the migration of 10 associated laboratory systems. This project included roughly 30 plants across 11 different sites, each with varying structures.

Agrichemical company and Cloudseed tackled the task by implementing a phased migration on a site-by-site basis. The two companies ensured a smooth transition by bridging the gap between the old and new systems and carefully coordinating the integration of systems across different domains so that all systems would continue to function seamlessly during the migration process.

Throughout the process, Cloudseed maintained a close relationship with various stakeholders of Agrichemical company to ensure that the migration aligned with the business's needs. Additionally, Cloudseed trained Agrichemical company's system-support team to effectively manage the cloud-based system in the future. Key aspects of change management included:

Bringing together key players, including managers, local experts, and users of Agrichemical company's applications, through regular weekly check-ins and collaborative workshops.

Delivering education by conducting working sessions and hands-on training for Small and Medium Enterprises and Agrichemical company's user base.

Implementing a sense of ownership among Agrichemical company's team members so that they can effectively lead even after the project's completion.

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Results

Agrichemical company has successfully moved its laboratory systems to the cloud, reducing a significant amount of capital expenses for hardware infrastructure. The cloud platform improves the overall management of applications deployed in Azure.

By improving agility and scalability, Agrichemical company is able to support future business expansion. Additionally, the integration between applications in Azure is effortless and does not compromise security or performance. With a robust quality system in place that serves over 1,200 users and essential business operations, Agrichemical company is ready to embark on a new era of growth while maintaining its mission of assisting farmers globally.