How HP Industrial Print revolutionized its data strategy with Databricks and enabled new business models

How HP Industrial Print revolutionized its data strategy with the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform

In the world of industrial production, speed, flexibility and precision are crucial for company success. It is precisely in this area of ​​tension that HP's “Industrial Print Software Solutions” (IPSS) business unit operates, which combines digital printing solutions and highly developed analytics in industrial workflows. But like many international companies, HP IPSS also faced a central challenge: the growing amounts of data from diverse customer interactions, partner networks and systems could hardly be used flexibly, securely and scalably with the existing infrastructure. HP found the answer to this challenge in the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform.

From data silo to intelligent data platform

The previous data architecture at HP Industrial Print was characterized by separate data flows and isolated processes. Orders, such as individual packaging or large-format graphics, were entered by customers via the central PrintOS Site Flow platform and distributed to the global network of HP Print Service Providers (PSPs). As orders moved through the onboarding, printing, packaging and shipping stations, the PSPs generated detailed operational data streams through barcode scanning and status reporting.

Despite the basic performance, the fragmented infrastructure led to crucial disadvantages:

• Data silos made collaboration between departments difficult.
• Manual exports and custom pipelines made sharing data with partners difficult.
• Opaque data flows and a lack of traceability prevented efficient governance and quick responses to changing business requirements.

The result: innovations were slowed down, new data-based services could only be developed with great effort and uniform data products for customers or partners were only possible with a lot of resources.

The transformation: Databricks as a strategic platform

By switching to the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, HP relied on a completely modernized data architecture. The new solution brings decisive advantages:

• Central data storage: Raw data is transferred directly from MongoDB to a structured bronze layer on Amazon S3 and further processed there through multi-stage quality and enrichment processes (Bronze, Silver, Gold).
• Powerful transformations: Data pipelines run performantly and scalably on the Databricks platform; Through automation and standardization, processes become more stable and faster.
• Transparent governance with Unity Catalog: Fine-grained access rights, transparent data origin and complete logging ensure compliance and traceability - a real milestone in data governance.
• Self-service analytics and dashboarding: Teams can flexibly create and deploy analytics and dashboards to departments or partners using Databricks SQL - even with AI support from Databricks Assistant.

New possibilities: efficiency, innovation and data monetization

The results of the modernization speak for themselves:

• 40% faster data pipelines – performance remains stable even with sharply increasing data volumes.
• Significantly accelerated onboarding of new partners; Instead of days-long manual processes, new print service providers are now integrated within five hours.
• Uniform data sharing mechanisms: Live data sets can be shared securely with external partners via Delta Sharing - regardless of their technical environment. There is no need for installation, replication or complex interfaces.
• New Business Models: With more granular visibility into data usage, HP Industrial Print can now offer consumption-based pricing models and monetize data-driven services at scale.

Cultural change: data as a strategic success factor

Technical progress not only led to efficiency gains - the collaboration between technical experts and departments also changed fundamentally. Data is now available to every relevant user securely, comprehensibly and flexibly - be it for ad hoc analyses, the development of new dashboards or for combining data from different company areas. In this way, innovations are accelerated and previously unused potential is tapped.

Conclusion: With Databricks to a scalable, monetizable data platform

The transformation at HP Industrial Print impressively shows how companies not only simplify their architecture and reduce operational costs with a modern data platform based on Databricks. Above all, you gain the ability to use data in a targeted and scalable manner for new products, data-driven business models and better partner and customer experiences.

The switch to an open, AI- and analytics-capable data platform offers enormous opportunities, especially for industrial customers and manufacturing companies: from faster innovation cycles to greater customer focus to the sustainable monetization of data products - investing in a modern data strategy pays off on all levels.

Ailio GmbH supports companies as an experienced partner in the conception, implementation and scaling of industrial AI, data engineering and data science solutions based on Azure and Databricks. Together we make your data the driving force for innovation and growth.