As businesses across all industries navigate the competitive landscape of today’s economy, they are realizing the vital importance of effective product data management. To truly outpace competitors, it’s essential to have a solution that seamlessly orchestrates the product definition throughout your organization.
Orchestration requires a new era of enterprise management, and the SAP Business Suite is leading the way with unparalleled applications to link your entire supply chain processes with the rest of your enterprise. Fueling your enterprise with unmatched data that is integrated real-time with operational and business data ensuring every decision is guided by accurate, and in-the-moment insights. Powered with embedded AI to deliver productivity and efficiency across your enterprise.
Let’s explore further how the SAP Business Suite is a comprehensive system of record for managing and all product data for an organization and how this approach allows for value realization across the supply chain.
Simplifying Product Data Management
SAP provides an ERP-driven product data management solution that leverages the integrated and innovative capabilities of SAP Business Suite. This integrated approach prioritizes collaboration, compliance, and sustainability, and transforms how industries handle product information in process and discrete industries.
The SAP strategy for our solutions is centered around customer choice. Within the product lifecycle management market category, we will have the following focus areas:
- Product Data Management as part of our Business Suite and
- Integration with external PLM and CAD systems
This strategy provides the ultimate flexibility for customers to choose how they want to unlock the potential that exists from performing product data management with the SAP Business Suite. We see three areas where SAP is uniquely positioned to simplify and streamline your end-to-end supply chain processes, including support for hybrid scenarios, regardless of your industry:
- Direct CAD Integration: for discrete industry customers needing direct CAD tool integration to manage design files and who want to create and manage product data and product structures through a seamless connection to the SAP Business Suite for execution.
- Product Data Management: for those customers in both process and discrete industries, who want a native cloud-based product data management platform to create and manage their product definitions with a seamless connection to the SAP Business Suite.
- PLM System Integration: Ideal for those customers with existing external PLM systems who want a bi-directional flow of product information into the SAP Business Suite to ensure smooth communication and coordination across different systems.
Let’s now dive a bit deeper into examples of these scenarios.
Collaborative Product Data Management for Discrete Industries
Customers in discrete industries have needs to not only manage and control product data that defines their products, but also to directly integrate their authoring tool systems (MCAD and ECAD). By providing a flexible approach to directly manage their design files coming from various authoring tools, customers can seamlessly create the product structures needed in the SAP Business Suite. Doing so facilitates the ability to collaborate on this data and to handover the product definition for planning, sourcing, manufacturing, and maintenance.
Our focus for these customers is to continue to enhance essential product data management capabilities within the SAP Business Suite and to extend these capabilities beyond the SAP Business Suite with differentiating capabilities, such as collaboration, product structure management and product handover and others. This natively integrated approach fosters not only the efficient sharing of product data across the value chain, but also supports the bi-directional change management process critical for all organizations.
Recipe Formulation and Specification Management for Process Industries
Customers in process industries have needs to manage and control the data that defines their products, but instead of this data being in the form of parts and bills of materials, they are dealing with formulated products where their product data is defined by specifications, recipes and formulations. Not only do they want to manage and control this information, but they also want to easily collaborate internally and externally on it and then easily handover the product definition into ERP system for execution.
For process industries, we are enhancing our capabilities to support these customers and how the create and manage the recipe formulation and specification management processes. All while maintaining full native integration with SAP Business Suite, where the SAP offering stands out due to its integration into compliance, sustainability, and network functionalities. This ensures meticulous product data management that adheres to industry regulations and sustainability targets and efficient sharing of product data across the value chain, but also supports the bi-directional change management process critical for all organizations.
Integration with Leading Third Party PLM and CAD Solutions
Lastly, there are customers who have taken a decision for an external PLM system like Siemens Teamcenter, Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE, PTC Windchill or Autodesk Vault to store product design data that also may be originating from an authoring tool. These customers also want to have their product design information seamlessly flow into the ERP environments to streamline supply chain process.
SAP supports these customers as well by providing a proven and standards-based integration solution that allows for them to have a single source of truth for product data within the SAP Business Suite, enabling not only the efficient sharing of product data across the value chain, but also the bi-directional change management process for the organizations. Additionally, these customers can leverage additional SAP capabilities to support potential hybrid scenarios such as supplier collaboration and visualization.
Customer Choice with SAP
Leveraging the SAP Business Suite as your product data management backbone ensures that all aspects of product data are efficiently managed and utilized. By offering tailored solutions for both discrete and process industries, SAP empowers businesses to streamline their product data management processes, ensuring a single source of product truth for the enterprise.
SAP Business Suite goes beyond traditional PLM systems by integrating seamlessly product data with essential business tools and processes, driving efficiency and coherence throughout the organization. Our solutions focus on their unique strengths as integrated components rather than standalone systems, ensuring a comprehensive approach to product data management. While our support for hybrid scenarios further enhances flexibility and collaboration across the value chain.
Embark on a transformative journey with SAP and experience the future of ERP-driven product data management. Let’s unify, innovate, and excel together.
