//Leading Global ERP Solutions Provider
35s → 0.49s — core process response time
A core settlement process crawled past 35 seconds during month-end close. Deep SAP diagnostics and targeted optimization brought it under half a second — while compressing delivery from six months to three.
35s → 0.49s
response time (−98%)
×3
application throughput
6 → 3 mo
transformation delivery timeline
3 → 2
engineers required on the workstream
The challenge
During peak settlement windows, a business-critical process routinely exceeded 35 seconds, creating queues across dependent teams and threatening the S/4HANA transformation timeline.
Previous tuning attempts had targeted hardware. The real costs were hiding in the application stack: sequential database reads inside nested loops, absent buffering strategy, and RFC chatter between systems for data that could be fetched once.
What we did
- 01
Workload isolation
ST03N workload analysis ranked transactions by dialog response time, isolating the handful of contributors responsible for the bulk of user pain.
- 02
Combined-stack tracing
ST12 traces captured ABAP and SQL activity side by side on real peak-window executions, with SAT providing method-level profiling of the worst offenders.
- 03
Fixes ranked by impact-to-effort
Loop-based reads became set-based queries backed by proper indexes; master-data reads gained table buffering; independent RFC calls were parallelized.
- 04
Proof under production load
LoadRunner scenarios modeled real concurrency per business role, validating the gains before go-live and locking baselines for future regression checks.
DDAI Tech played a critical role in our SAP S/4HANA transformation program. Their performance engineering intervention increased application throughput by nearly three times and reduced response time for a core business process from over 35 seconds to under 0.5 seconds. The overall impact on speed, cost, and quality was exceptional.
Brent Hyder
Practice Head · Leading Global ERP Solutions Provider
Engagement snapshot
- 3-month engagement
- Performance Testing & Engineering
- Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
Bring us your slowest process
We will tell you honestly whether we can move your number — and by how much.