SAP Extended PLM Application Targets Change, Innovation

August 17, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS

Based on SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP), new releases of SAP PLM will leverage enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), according to SAP.

SAP said the product is a flexible, service-enabled application that will help companies collaborate with their business networks of suppliers, customers and partners across disparate IT systems to bring innovative offerings quickly and efficiently to market.

The application will evolve through enhancements to core PLM capabilities that will begin this year with the first in a series of quickly deployable composite applications.

With this road map, SAP said customers can drive PLM beyond the engineering department and into all relevant business areas throughout the company and beyond, enabling them to tap into the full business potential of PLM.

"PLM has evolved from a technology used mainly by engineers to one that enterprise heads know they need to adopt across their manufacturing operations to remain competitive," said Marc Halpern, research director, Gartner Inc.

"A growing number of manufacturers are adopting PLM to help them to drive business through greater product and process innovation and improved execution, driving new products to market successfully in an environment of shortening product life cycles and small windows of high margin," Halpern said.

Enhancements to the core capabilities of SAP PLM will begin at the end of this year with new processes for portfolio planning that will reduce time to market for new products. Capabilities such as idea and portfolio management as well as resource and project management will improve the steering of the complete innovation process, SAP said.

In 2008, SAP will focus on further simplifying the PLM user interface with an intelligent role-based offering of information. Users will be able to adopt the solution with less training and fewer manual activities for higher efficiency and productivity, according to the company.

Additionally, a set of new and extended capabilities will facilitate worldwide collaboration amongst all stakeholders and help organizations strategically align their talent networks, SAP said.

SAP indicated that a PLM enhancement package in 2009 will enable customers to drive business acceleration through improved integration of relevant processes into product development.

New capabilities will allow the management of product-specific information such as ideas, design, requirements, variant configuration and maintenance structure in one integrated system and will optimize data consistency as well as process flow from the design and engineering departments to manufacturing, sales and service.

Another PLM enhancement package, planned for 2010, will allow the assimilation of real-world information, SAP said. This enhancement will enable the design, simulation and tracking of digital design and manufacturing processes, supported through the integration with digital manufacturing tools.

According to SAP, worldwide product information can then be linked via radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, bar codes or sensors with data from the product development process to enable more visibility, accountability and accuracy in areas such as regulatory compliance and manufacturing.

"At SAP, we believe that the true vision and greatest value of PLM lies in its ability to drive the entire business of products - from the very first idea through to design, manufacturing and product services," said Harald Stuckert, senior vice president and general manager of PLM, SCM and manufacturing at SAP AG.

Source: SAP.