Product innovation and reducing time-to-market are the highest priorities for manufacturing companies. The agenda of SAP Manufacturing Industries Forum reflects these priorities. The workshops and customer case studies at SAP Manufacturing Industries Forum cover a number of topics related to R&D and Engineering, including

• Innovation and Lifecycle Management for connected products
• New Product Development in process industries (Consumer Products, Chemicals, Food, Life Sciences)
• Visualization for cross-functional engineering, planning and collaboration
• Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure for connected products

This is a great opportunity for R&D and Engineering stakeholders to learn, share, network and to take away new insights as well as practical knowledge that can applied readily.

SAP Manufacturing Industries Forum is one of the premier events in the country for business and technology leaders and practitioners from manufacturing organizations, including automotive, consumer products, high-tech, medical devices, life sciences, industrial machinery, building materials and chemical companies.

Registernow and get invited.

With digital business, the nature of products is changing. This requires manufacturers to adopt new thinking and new IT called "product innovation platforms" to define and design products and to manage product life cycles. So, what defines the nature of these platforms?

Most experts agree that innovation platforms and PLM IT Systems in general should

• provide powerful analytics tools
• facilitate visual decision making and open innovation
• include data from various sources (authoring tools, quality management, manufacturing, the supply chain and so on)

Especially the last point means that they should be open.

But what does openness exactly mean?

A couple of years ago, ProSTEP iViP has defined "The Code of PLM Openness (CPO)", which is a worldwide unique approach. It combines technological IT requirements with those from business. The aim of the CPO is to establish a common understanding on openness of IT systems in the context of PLM between IT customers, IT vendors and IT service providers. Thereby, the CPO goes far beyond the requirement to provide IT standards and related interfaces. It defines measurable criteria (‘shall’, ‘should’, ‘may’) for the following categories: interoperability, infrastructure, extensibility, interfaces, standards, architecture as well as partnership.

Source: ProSTEP iViP

SAP supports the Codex of PLM Openness (CPO) initiative. SAP has been a member of the CPO workgroup since the beginning and openness is a major part of SAP’s solution strategy. SAP appreciates ProSTEP iViP’s approach of moderating a common definition of "openness" in the PLM community,bringing both customers, vendors and implementation partners to the desk. SAP supports openness of IT systems in the sense the CPO defines:  
"Openness is a capability provided by an IT system, and it is characterized by interoperability, portability and extensibility. These capabilities are implemented using IT interfaces, standards and the IT architecture. The openness of an IT system cannot be seen separately from the partners to the contract, i.e. the IT vendors and the IT customers."   SAP respects its customers’ view on the necessity of openness, acknowledging their often diverse and inhomogeneous landscapes. SAP stands for open integration of systems in the respective customer environment, enabling their customers to support their businesses based on their needs in their specific industry.

SAP has just recently renewed its CPO statement, reinforcing its commitment to support PLM openness.

Please find the first CPO statement and the May 2015 update below.

• CPO Statement Version 1.0 as of 2012.
• CPO Statement update, May 2015: Read the updated version of the CPO statement

Accelerating Engineering Innovation Through the Enterprise

Due to popular demand, we are delighted to announce that the International SAP Conference for Product Lifecycle Management will be returning for its 5th annual event. The conference will be held on 1-2 October, 2015 in Darmstadt, Germany.

Specifically designed with discrete and process manufacturing industries in-mind, the conference will explore SAP’s solutions for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Portfolio and Project Management (PPM).

Co-located as part of our International SAP Conferences on Extended Supply Chain, this two day customer-centric event will enable you to explore how innovation from SAP can allow you to manage your products and portfolio’s more efficiently and affordably than ever before. Discover how major international organizations are gaining a 360 degree view of all product and portfolio related processes, gaining greater visibility and maintaining control.

Visit the conference web site for more information: http://goo.gl/YcER0d

Accelerating Engineering Innovation Through the Enterprise

The importance of customer centricity, personalized products, and speed in today’s consumer economy is well understood.

Consumers increasingly expect products to be individualized to their unique specifications and to be delivered on demand. The extended supply chain – from design and manufacturing to logistics and operations – is similarly affected. With a wealth of variants to products and their delivery being introduced, the entire extended supply chain must be reworked to accommodate the demands of customer centricity, personalized solutions, and speed of response.

These challenges sound familiar to you? Then this year’s International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management (Darmstadt, Germany, October 1-2) is THE go-to event for you.

The conference program which is now available here, focuses on enabling business leaders to leverage innovation and technology to enable real-time decision making and end-to-end visibility. Explore how SAP can help you manage your products and portfolios more efficiently and affordably than ever before.

With shared keynotes and thought leadership, SAP solution updates, customer case studies, dedicated PLM and portfolio and project management (PPM) tracks, preconference workshops and live demonstrations,

you will get an in-depth update of what SAP has to offer for R&D and engineering experts, as well as product and portfolio managers.

The following organizations will share their experiences with the audience:

• Marenco Swisshelicopters
• Beiersdorf
• Mahle Behr
• Unilever
• Brose Fahrzeugteile
• British American Tobacco

…and many more.

You will also have the opportunity to hear about the newly released Connected Products strategy from SAP and learn how you can deliver connected products faster with PLM and R&D software.

I am also very excited to announce that this year’s event is co-located with the International SAP Conference on Supply Chain and the International SAP Conference on Manufacturing as part of the SAP Conference Series on Extended Supply Chain, creating world-class networking and learning opportunities. Registering for one event will give you access to all three.

Join us in Darmstadt and discover how you can connect your product strategy with your company policies, build compliance and Internet of Things specifications into your products, enhance project and portfolio management – and ultimately increase your revenues.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Visit the conference website for more information: www.tacook.com/sapplm

Dear partners,

SAP Solution Management for LoB R&D and Engineering is setting up a series of quarterly update calls for partners in the area of PLM, PPM and Product Safety and Stewardship. Within these calls we will cover partner relevant topics, such as news on upcoming solution launches, go to market campaigns or product updates.

The first call of this series is scheduled for 7th July 5.00-6.30pm CET, if you would like to get an invite, drop me a mail.  You can find my contact details in my profile.

Andrea

In a recent report on the state of the cloud enterprise software industry, Bessemer Ventures notes that the market cap for the top 10 public cloud companies more than septupled from less than $25b to more than $175b (note that 2 of the previous top 10 have since joined the SAP family, which has a market cap of $90b on its own). Clearly this is a growing market. However, it is not growing for all industries at the same rate.

Source: http://www.bvp.com/cloud/cloudreport

In conversations that I have with manufacturing companies around the world, there is still a reluctance to adopt cloud for what are seen as some of the most important and differentiating capabilities distinct to each company—specifically in this context their product designs and management thereof (through to manufacturing included). However, to be fair, until recently one of the major hindrances to adoption was the ability to manage CAD in the cloud. The industry has been, or perhaps I should qualify this and say that I have been blown away with some of the technological advancements in cloud CAD capabilities currently being peddled by OnShape. While really only viable for certain industries within the SME marketplace, Jon Hirschtick is once again setting out to change the CAD world.

Now, arguments abound that a company’s most important data are their customers’ and employees’ information—CRM and HR being some of the first lines of business to make a widespread move to the cloud. I am not here to judge what makes sense for any given company; rather, I am here to help companies adopt software strategies that map to their business strategies and risk profiles. The other part of my job is to help SAP make investments and create software offerings that map to the biggest market opportunities. It is through this lens that I would like to lay out how I see the cloud market for PLM advancing.

1.       Compliance: companies are really starting to look to the cloud for help with compliance needs. Much of the compliance market is dependent upon public regulatory requirements—though certainly not all. Perhaps companies think of this information as information that would be shared anyway. Or perhaps they see it as non-mission critical. Or it could be that the benefits simply outweigh the risks by freeing resources to focus on higher value add activities.

2.       CAD: product geometry is generally a touchy subject. While SAP does not have a CAD offering, we do enable 3D visualization and analytics with our Visual Enterprise solutions. Companies tend to be very reluctant to publish this information and it has challenging when trying to enable cross-supply chain collaboration. The technology exists, yet most companies say “not just yet.”

3.        Project Management: this area is one of the most ripe for transitioning to the cloud. Recent Gartner reports highlight this and looking at the number of companies playing in this space it is safe to say the outlook for this sector is cloudy. However, most companies tend to focus on IT project management and less so on R&D project management. Two likely reasons are the lesser sensitive data involved in these projects and their relative ease of management when compared to other use cases. Our tools give customers the choice of on premise on in the cloud for any use case they choose, be it R&D, IT, Commercial or Capital.

4.       Core Systems: here I include things like product innovation platforms and systems engineering. The former is mission critical and also dependent upon many currently deployed on premise solutions for most companies. The latter has so far proven too complex—some might even argue that it has yet to be solved anywhere, on premise or otherwise. The market feedback I receive is that most companies are just not interested in moving this part of their business to the cloud. In a recent conversation I had with an automotive supplier I asked if they thought they might consider something like this in the cloud in 3-5 years, the answer “note even in ten.” While I think it may happen before that, the comment is indicative of most customers’ sentiments.

5.       Networks: this is somewhat of an outlier as it is more of a technology than a solution area. However, this category is meant to highlight the solutions where cloud-enabled networks deliver so much business value that companies are willing to look beyond risks—perceived or otherwise. A great example of where there is the opportunity for high adoption include product compliance within the supply chain. Another use case for networks is as they relate to some collaboration scenarios, for example with crowd sourcing innovation ideas.

Cloud is also a very interesting question when people start to dig into what it actually means from a technology perspective, for example do you mean private cloud, public cloud, multi-tenant, single-tenant / multi-client, PaaS, SaaS—the list goes on. Working for SAP means that there are many, many different technologies and deployment options from which to choose. Our PLM portfolio actually takes advantage of all of the aforementioned technologies such that each offering can be tailored to each customer’s unique requirements. You can learn more about some of the things we are up tohere.

The need to have customer centricity, personalized products, and speed in today’s consumer economy is well understood. Ability to deliver Individualized products that are tailored to address specific needs of customers springs challenges for the product manufacturers.  The proliferation of product variants and the associated delivery challenges necessitates that the entire value chain orchestrates in networks. So how is SAP enabling the customers to address these challenges?

This year’s International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management, which will be co-located with the conferences on Manufacturing and Supply chain, focuses on the strategies and solutions that help customers to tackle these new challenges.

The conference will be held in Darmstadt, Germany from October 1-2.

Gain an understanding from the experts and leaders at SAP about strategies for success. Hear from the industry leaders about how they are deriving the value by adopting the SAP solutions for engineering and product development activities.

Listen to how a leading Swiss startup manufacturing Helicopters are leveraging SAP software to help grow their business. Understand how they derive the value by using 3D visualization and business analytics with 3D products with in their organization. Importantly how they are ensuring consistent product data in engineering, manufacturing, maintenance, and service.

Do not miss the opportunity to hear from a leading automotive supplier about how they successfully tackled the challenges and forged an integrated approach for product development.

Learn about experiences of a leading shipbuilding company about how they are leveraging the Product Lifecycle management (SAP PLM), Manufacturing Execution(MES) and Supply Chain management(SCM)  and to their the roadmap towards realizing their industrie 4.0 vision.

Bringing in the right product data with the CAD design data brings tremendous value to product development. Learn how the authoring tool integration strategy with SAP Engineering Control Center is helping to achieve this holistic product description. And how it addresses the complexities associated in managing the data coming in from different engineering disciplines, setting the stage to enable customers to adopt a systems engineering approach for product development. Learn about the new HANA based solution to manage product lifecycle costs and hear directly from customers who are helping to shape the solution.  Get an in-depth overview of how latest technological developments in HANA, user experience, analytics and mobility are shaping up  the SAP PLM solutions.       

There are plenty of more customer presentations and pre-conference deep dives. Do not miss the opportunity to network with your peers and exchange wisdom. You can register,  view the full brochure of the conference here

The international SAP conference on Product Lifecycle Management promises to be an exciting and action packed event!  Be there!

After SAP releasing Engineering Control Center 5.0 (ECTR), it completely changed the perception of the SAP and CAD integration. The enhanced user experience and configurable interface simplifies the way engineers work between CAD environment and SAP. Due to its seamless integration with diverse CAD tools it has now become the front face for a CAD and/or a DMS user.

It inherits some of the features from easy DMS and document browser like the folder structure and drag and drop which makes CAD engineer’s life much easy in their daily work. The seamless integration of ECTR with the Visual Enterprise (VE) doubles the benefits of an engineer. With the VE we are able to view, calibrate and generate the neutral format files which are used across an organization.

In this blog I would like to put together the ECTR capabilities and provide a brief overview of what it can do for a CAD/DMS user to help in improving the productivity.

Multi CAD system support

ECTR can integrate with diverse CAD systems. Currently it supports eight major CAD systems (SolidWorks, SolidEdge, NX, CATIA, CREO, AutoCAD, Inventor and MicroStation) and importantly it has consistent user interface (below toolbar) across all the eight tools.

Intuitive Interface for the CAD/DMS users.

As shown below it has multi view feature that helps to navigate, see the object details and more over visualize the originals right from the same window. Quick search and Queries provide a complete search capability for document and materials needed. With the help of Document structure view user would be able to see the document structure and word with assemblies.

Ability to drag and drop and transact, for instance you can assign a change number to a document, create object links between different objects just by drag and drop. It also inherits similar Folder structure from easy DMS and Document Browser and the public folder is shared with all the ECTR, easy DMS & Document Browser users.

Change numbers can be created/added supporting change management. Also it has an Inbox that helps in sending emails and receiving workflow notifications. Cloning feature helps in quickly creating a copy of existing document.

Objects Covered.

It covers several objects obviously including document, material, bill of material, change number and Classification data. You can also launch the new PLM Web UI (PLM 7.0) screens and SAP GUI right from the ECTR UI.

It also has links to create routing, check stock availability, create variant configuration etc., with the new service packs (add-ons) by launching SAP GUI.

Assemblies.

One of the important scenarios of CAD integration is to be able to work with Assemblies. ECTR can import the assembly files and create document assemblies and also create the corresponding materials to create engineering bill of material right from the ECTR.

Visual Enterprise.

It is a big add-on to ECTR, using Visual Enterprise you are able to view the neutral format of the CAD file generated by the Visual Enterprise Generator (VEG) and this can be available for all the departments as a light weight viewable file. Using the embedded VE 3D Viewer you can also perform the Document Red-Lining right form ECTR and the changes are available in all other PLM DMS tools. You can also perform calibrations like getting measurements. Using its color coding you can also see the status of a document right from the viewer.

With all the above features ECTR is anticipated to be a game changer in CAD integration for SAP. Since the release of ECTR 5.0 SAP continued to add new features and hopefully it would add more and more features that would improvise the CAD integration abilities.

Several months passed before I got around to connect our Nest smart thermostat to the WiFi network. It is only then I really understood the power of connectedness for products. What used to be a moderately better, albeit well designed, thermostat transformed into an intelligent and accessible home comfort assistant that understood our preferences and patterns. Yes, there is some risk to letting Nest know and control some of the most critical aspects of your home, but the value you get once Nest is connected is worth the risk.

Connectedness was always a desired feature even when I was designing engines and car interiors 20 years ago. As a product designer who wouldn't want to be able to understand how customers use the product, provide better customer support and continuously improve the product even when it is actively being used in the field. It just wasn't possible or easy or cost effective. With almost universal availability of WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G/4G/LTE it is less of a problem now. Many product categories including, toys, fashion, medical devices, industrial machinery, autos, kitchen equipment, washing machines, etc. are candidates for connected products. If fact, any product worth more than 25 dollars and lasts more than a month is worthy of consideration for connectedness.

There are many worthy reasons for designing connected products. At the top is the ability to continuously improve products even when they are being used actively in the field. You do that almost on a monthly basis with iOS and Android (may be not so much) updates to your phone. The example of Tesla changing ground clearance to improve safety with an over-the-air software update is an amazing example and possibility of connected products.

The second reason would be to develop a sticky customer relationship. A non-connected product generally tends toward a transactional relationship with the customer. A connected product moves the customer towards a long-term relationship (at least through the life of the product and usually beyond) by sharing data and getting more value out of the data with the help of cloud services. For example, users of Fitbit usually get limited information from the fitness band itself. However, a connected Fitbit usually shares information with Fitbit's cloud services so that the customer can get richer and insightful analysis. This sharing of information and the additional insight are the sources of sticky customer relationship that can last beyond a single product purchase.

Product designers can also obtain extremely valuable usage, performance and fault data from a connected product. Companies can use this information to improve products, understand what is important for customers and design even better products. In addition, actual usage and status information can be used to guide customers toward more optimal maintenance and service protocols to reduce total lifecycle cost.

Clearly, the case to develop connected products is compelling for product designers and companies. However, designers and companies should approach connected products with a fundamentally different design and lifecycle management strategy. The normal approach is one of designing and creating a product (even if it is made up of mechanical, electrical and software components) as a rigid object that is designed, manufactured, sold and forgotten. This approach is at odds with the key tenets of connected products.

Connected products require a product design and lifecycle management viewpoint that assumes that products are malleable and can be improved even when they are being actively used, can be reached with customers' permission and that cloud services are an extension of the product itself. The design strategy then will modularize and parametrize (and add APIs) key capabilities, performance and components of the product so that they can modified/improved with software updates.

Additionally, the company needs to develop customer service and relationship management processes that can directly access the product via the network as well as have the capacity to leverage product's historical performance and fault data, adjust maintenance and service recommendation processes that take into consideration actual use of the product and current status, predict likelihood of failure and take appropriate action, adjust supply chain and replenishment processes to use actual consumption of materials (ink, for example, in a printer), etc. In short, connected products force companies to rethink and reimagine how they design products and how they operate as a business to serve the customer.

The importance of customer centricity, personalized products, and speed in today’s consumer economy is well understood. Consumers increasingly expect products to be individualized to their unique specifications and to be delivered on demand. The extended supply chain — from design and manufacturing to logistics and operations — is similarly affected. With a wealth of variants to products and their delivery being introduced, the entire extended supply chain must be reworked to accommodate the demands of customer centricity, personalized solutions, and speed of response.

At the International SAP Conferences on Extended Supply Chain 2015,  the focus is on enabling business leaders to leverage innovation and technology to enable real-time decision making and end-to-end visibility. You will see in dozens of case studies how to put your customers at the center of your business and differentiate yourselves through the responsiveness of your supply chain. Hear firsthand from industry leaders including Mondelez, Whirlpool, Unilever, Philips, Colgate-Palmolive, RWE, Beiersdorf, Caterpillar, Ferrero,  ÖBB, Schindler Elevator, Marenco Swisshelicopters, and more on how they are consolidating their IT footprint, striving for new levels of operational efficiency, fulfilling customer demand, and meeting profitability goals.

The International SAP Conference on Extended Supply chain is actually an event series of conferences for:

• Environment, Health and Safety Management (June 24-25, Amsterdam)
• Supply Chain (October 1-2, Darmstadt, Germany)
• Product Lifecycle Management (October 1-2, Darmstadt, Germany)
• Manufacturing (October 1-2, Darmstadt, Germany)
• Asset Management (October 5-6, Duesseldorf, Germany)

The International SAP Conferences on Supply Chain, Product Lifecycle Management, and Manufacturing are co-located together in Darmstadt, creating world-class networking and learning opportunities for the attendees. Registering for one event will give you access to all three.

Our events for the Extended Supply Chain are packed with opportunities for you to learn from a diverse range of SAP customers, business leaders, and SAP experts and partners. All of this will be delivered in an environment built for interaction, including preconference workshops, a networking evening event, live demos, microforums, and much more.

The following event programmes are already available for download:

• Supply Chain
• Manufacturing
  
• Product Lifecycle Management
• Asset Management (October 5-6, Duesseldorf, Germany)

I look forward to meeting you in Darmstadt!

Atsushi Isoyama & Andreas Scherney  (UNIDO) presented their case study at the International SAP Conference for Project and Portfolio Management 2014.

Their case study focused on these points:

     - Who are we?

     - Operating projects in the UN environment

     - PPM system set-up at UNIDO

     - Managing and implementing projects with SAP PPM

     - PPM integration with other SAP ERP modules

The presentation is available for download for a limited time via this link >>

SAP Project and Portfolio Management topics will be included in the International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management this year.

The event will take place in Darmstadt, Germany on 1-2 October, 2015.

For more information please visit the event website.

Any manufacturing (Discrete or process) company which has heterogeneous setup, has a strong need to provide its resources a channelized access to its data. i.e., making it accessible to the right people at the right time. For instance, documents that are in one division may not be required not to be edited by others due to various reasons. Marketing and Sales departments need read-only access to the data. Also suppliers and vendors only need access to specific data.

Hear from Marenco Group at the International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management (5-6 October, Darmstadt, Germany):

Business challenges from the point of view of a helicopter company

• Why a startup company chose SAP software to help grow the business
• Using augmented reality, 3D visualization, and business analytics with 3D products
• Ensuring consistent product data in engineering, manufacturing, maintenance, and service
• Current situation and business outlook
• Demonstration of innovative software applications

See the full conference agenda >> http://goo.gl/oEwgry

CIDEON presentation from the 2014 International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management is now available for download. Their story covers:

• CIDEON – efficient engineering
• CIDEON Software and Services Portfolio
• Solution Approach for Mechatronic Engineering with SAP PLM
• EPLAN Integration based on SAP Engineering Control Center
• and more!

Download now >> http://goo.gl/6pCGW9

This year's SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management is taking place in Darmstadt, Germany on 1-2 October. Specifically designed with discrete and process manufacturing industries in-mind, this year’s conference will explore SAP’s solutions for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Portfolio and Project Management (PPM). Download the brochure and register here >> http://goo.gl/gP3w8m

SAP Product Lifecycle Costing is a solution to calculate costs and other dimensions for new products or quotations in an early stage of the product lifecycle, to quickly identify cost drivers along the lifecycle and to easily simulate and compare alternatives.

Discrete Industry companies today are highly focused on providing innovative, customer-driven products at the most competitive prices. Being able to quickly assess costs is not only a critical success factor; it’s an essential differentiator. So what does it entail to achieve such an objective?

The costing process is a collective endeavor where different functional groups within a company input their aspect of costing a product and simulate different scenarios for making it profitable. There is a strong need to be able to do this from the very beginning where a part number might not yet exist and details are nothing more than a plan in the engineer’s mind.  The cost factors need to be calculated for such a skeletal BOM while it is still taking shape and then must be continually adjusted and enhanced as the product matures all the way to its end of lifecycle.

At an early stage of product development or customer quotations, cost saving potentials can easily be realized.  Risk along the lifecycle can be identified and mitigated more effectively at the nascent stages of making a Product. The multiple sources of cost planning have to be accommodated in a single platform to propagate a ‘single version of costing truth’ within the company.  The master data related to the product structure typically comes from the CAD/PLM system(s), the logistics valuation of the product including the routings and the line design comes from the manufacturing planners, the activity rates and the overhead costs have to be provided by the controller and finally the purchasing group incorporates the purchase contracts among other factors.  All these inputs including external input(s) from a partner/supplier need to be incorporated in order to cost a product accurately and adjust to the desired profitability margins.  This is the method of bottom up and top down costing analysis that is typically done in Discrete manufacturing world today. With ‘SAP Product Lifecycle Costing’ SAP is bringing all this under one roof for more visibility in the process of maturity of the product.

Which corporation wouldn’t want to try out a myriad of options in their product BOM during development and compare real time the alternative(s) that are viable and fall within the established target costs?  To achieve this would involve trying out multiple permutations/combinations for product structure, routings and other factors and simulating the best possible end result.  However, to be able to process such ‘what-if’ simulations on huge quantities of data and cost algorithms in real time the conventional databases would prove inadequate.  SAP Product Lifecycle Costing is designed to utilize the design and horsepower of SAP’s HANA database to enable real time simulations.  This setup would make it possible for manufacturing companies to parse and run myriad of cost simulations and get the result in a very fast and time efficient manner thus weeding out the unprofitable scenarios.

The business processes that need to be supported during ‘quotation lifecycle’ of a product are also planned to be part of the solution offering.  The cost estimates that are managed within this platform could be saved/base lined at various lifecycle gates of the product to keep track of how the product changed in terms of costs and what engineering changes prompted those changes.  Reduction of ‘quote cycle time’ would be primarily achieved as this platform would contain all the necessary data, links and templates to cost a product.

After a survey of the current tool of choice for our customers in relation to the costing business process, it was decided that the user interface would have to be ‘Excel like’.  This user interface would be very intuitive to the end users and would cause very little disruption in how they are used to working to accomplish this task. Role based individualized, simple and secure access to product cost structure versions and related collaborative tasks are also being incorporated to accommodate various responsibilities within the organization.

Hear Beiersdorf Shared Services sharing their knowledge on innovation management on 2 October in Darmstadt at the International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management:

• Motivation and co-innovation project in detail
• Innovation initiative
• SAP Innovation Management implementation project:

          o    Fostering ideas and developing innovations with unprecedented efficiency

          o    From project implementation through to first business results

More detailed information can be found here http://goo.gl/nPyWih

Join SAP Product Lifecycle Management group on LinkedIn >>

lToday, discrete manufacturing companies can't operate successfully without managing potential material compliance risk throughout their extended supply chain. Driven by both customers and regulatory demands, compliant bill of material obligations grow in complexity and scope everyday. Manufacturers must ensure the global compliance of components or substances included in products based on where those products are being sold. Failure to do so, places a discrete manufacturer's brand at risk, and results in lost market opportunity. Consumers and businesses alike are demanding responsible innovation.

Innovators and product development teams moving forward, will require enhanced external collaboration and input from numerous stakeholders, including information sources outside their departments and their companies. Innovating successfully in the digital economy requires an “always on,” integrated approach for capturing and leveraging customer and market intelligence, everywhere. Product designers and developers must be able to capture and connect this intelligence from initial product design throughout the product's use and services life-cycle. Collaborating with external stakeholders in “real time” brings on added challenges for protecting a company’s intellectual property and further drives the need to make the exchange of complex information-simple.

As product portfolios, regulations, and supply chains become more complex, discrete manufacturing companies managing their innovation objectives, using independent solutions outside their core business systems, will be increasingly disrupted by competitive innovation while incurring higher operating costs.

Visibility and management over potential bill of material changes needs to extend throughout procurement and supplier management, and if not addressed properly, can impact a product’s “manufacturability” and potential market access. Management systems must reflect and align changes between supplier component material modifications and engineering change orders with required production changes, or companies will experience increased risk for product defects, compliance violations, recalls, and production delays.

Trying to effectively manage these interdependent processes using independent systems increases operating costs and business complexity. Using separate systems with separate databases leads to data redundancy issues and further reduces a company's ability to further optimize operating efficiency while controlling operating risk. Companies can't innovate responsibly at speed, without effectively managing risk while optimizing process inter-dependencies present throughout a products idea creation, production, delivery, use, and recovery life-cycle.

However, in order to move from independent complex systems to one unified and simple integrated innovation platform, companies must leverage common processes supported by a unified data model. I invite you to learn how SAP customers are starting to transform their product life-cycle management systems into highly, integrated innovation and delivery platforms, by accessing IDC’s white paper PLM Selection in SAP Environments.

The IDC Manufacturing Insights white paper looks at product life-cycle management (PLM) application strategies at companies that run SAP as their core ERP system. The paper offers a decision framework for determining the best approach to support an organization's product management needs and includes guidance on steps to take to put the strategy into action.

To learn more about SAP innovations and PLM solutions for discrete manufacturing, please access these complimentary resources.

Regards,

Harry E. Blunt

Director, North America High Tech Industry Marketing
SAP America, Inc.
3999 West Chester Pike 
Newtown Square, PA 19073
M: 302-740-8293

E: harry.blunt@sap.com

With only 2 weeks to go, we are pleased to reveal a sneak peek into our attendee list for the International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management which is co-located with the Manufacturing and Supply Chain conferences (1-2 October, Darmstadt, Germany).

View attendee list > http://goo.gl/V9Ib4i

With a fantastic line up of speakers and business-focused case studies, this event is designed with discrete and process manufacturing industries in-mind and would really benefit those companies looking to accelerate their engineering innovation through the enterprise.

Take this final opportunity to secure your seat > http://goo.gl/1W48DN

Here it is – the final week before the International SAP Conference on Product Lifecycle Management starts (1-2 October, Darmstadt, Germany).

This year’s conference will explore SAP’s solutions for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Portfolio and Project Management (PPM). So if you are interested in engineering innovation, managing your products and portfolio’s more efficiently and affordably or gaining greater visibility and maintaining control in your enterprise, then grab this last chance to register: http://goo.gl/JZLa7i

http://news.sap.com/sap-product-lifecycle-costing-powered-by-sap-hana-improved-profitability/

On Sept 23rd 2015 SAP has launched a new HANA based application, which enables customers to calculate cost and other dimensions in the early stage of their product lifecycle.

At the German launch event at the Apphaus in Heidelberg, Germany customers again underpinned the increasing market forces they have to cope with today. One reason why their is a tremendous interest in the new solution is the ongoing margin pressure which forces them to once again look into all aspects of their future product profitability. A lack of product visibility in the early stage of the product or in quotation processes typically resulted in profitability issues downstream when a particular product is ordered at a certain price. For some manufacturers variances between first cost estimate and cost in production results in tremendous profit losses later on.

In today's world of manufacturing companies product costing for new products is often done by using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets sent around through the whole company not integrated into the companies business processes nor viewed under the aspect of data security and accessibility. Nevertheless we are talking here about highly sensitive data when costing new products which often the future of the companies rely on.

SAP Product Lifecycle Costing is designed  as an end-to-end solution for early engineering, quotation and lifecycle costing. as such it provides a high performance real time calculation engine with a modern dedicated user interface. It offers Excel like configuration and costing spreadsheets and can be personalized easily.  The solution includes:

• flexible hierarchical costing structures, with native integration to SAP ERP (PLM) data structures or Excel or any other data source
• a high performance calculation engine -able to cope with large product structures and complex calculation requirements
• flexible pricing strategies to support make or buy scenarios.
• an open standard based API interface, a customer add-in frame work, a set of customer fields and formulas to adjust the app quickly
• what- if-scenarios and analytics to support smart design, production and supply chain or sourcing decisions.
• standard SAP business application security, locking and versioning

With this broad set of functions, companies are now able to accurately calculate against their target cost, mitigate risks, shorten quotation lifecycle, increase profitability and reduce their time - to - market.

SAP Product Lifecycle Costing is build together with 30 Co-Innovation customers who helped design and shape the solution in a true design thinking experience.

SAP´s approach is to support the design-to-profitability paradigm in the best way possible while giving the engineers the freedom to create new products by not hindering them with premature business process data needs, said Hans Thalbauer, SVP for the Extended Supply Chain, SAP.

More information below