Arevipharma GmbH

The phrase "where tradition meets modernity" applies to few companies as well as it does to the medium-sized pharmaceutical company Arevipharma GmbH, based in Radebeul, Saxony. Arevipharma has been producing pharmaceutical ingredients for over 140 years. Every year, approximately 200 tons of ingredients between 500 grams and 80 tons leave the factory – destined for customers in 65 countries on five continents. The company researches, develops, and produces its own APIs, but also offers contract manufacturing from pilot projects to mass production. Arevipharma can draw on its extensive experience in optimizing processes and production methods. A true global player, then, with a great deal of responsibility. For this reason, Arevipharma places particular emphasis on a secure and stable IT environment.

"It all started with a simple question from our managing director: How many PCs do we actually have in the company?" replies Matthias Gruhl, Head of IT at Arevipharma GmbH, when asked how the company came to implement the Docusnap inventory and documentation software. "For smaller companies in an office environment, the answer is quick and easy to find. In an IT landscape that has grown over time with multiple locations, you are suddenly faced with a challenge. How many PCs have been purchased? How many of them have already been scrapped? Which PCs are not currently in use and have therefore not been online for a long time? No matter which tool or which list was used for the inventory, you always got a different number." Matthias Gruhl‘s team quickly realized that manually maintaining IT inventory lists is too error-prone and, above all, too time-consuming. Even the Microsoft on-board tools could not solve the problem. An evaluation of the ADS computer accounts also only yielded a much too small number of systems. The reason: a number of control PCs were not integrated into the domain structure because they are responsible for special control tasks.

"We then tested several software solutions. The bottom line: none of these solutions satisfied us. There were always disadvantages that we couldn‘t accept or that required a very long implementation process," Matthias Gruhl continues. Discouraged and annoyed by the topic, he posted the question in a well-known IT forum: "Is there a software that displays my entire IT landscape?" After many answers along the lines of "There‘s no such thing!", the answer finally came. The answer was simply "Docusnap". "Docusnap can be fully tested free of charge for 30 days with a limited license. The installation is relatively simple and self-explanatory. I was done in a few minutes. The first scan immediately provided the long-awaited insight into the current IT infrastructure. I had no previous knowledge of ­Docusnap and no idea what I could or should set. Nevertheless, Docusnap provided such granular data about my IT landscape that no list, no matter how detailed, could provide. I was impressed that I even got the serial numbers of the connected monitors displayed. And that was just my first steps with Docusnap. I was completely convinced by the first test. ­Docusnap simply combines performance, price and usability." This is how Matthias Gruhl describes his first contact with ­Docusnap. It quickly became clear that ­Docusnap could and would provide the previously missing overview of the IT network.

Easy implementation

The initial installation was also completed quickly. "Click, click... done! Docusnap is one of the few tools that can be installed with little effort," says Matthias Gruhl in summary. Even individual customization requests could then be implemented very quickly and easily. "We had some special requirements that were not available in Docusnap by default. After we described our concerns to the Docusnap support team, these changes were configured live in our Docusnap via remote session." The rest of the IT team was also quickly convinced of the advantages of Docusnap. The automation of otherwise very laborious manual work steps has relieved the employees and at the same time provided a significantly better database. In this way, Docusnap was immediately accepted as the new inventory solution.