SAP and PLM Side by Side

WALLDORF, early March (bv).They gave it a straight-forward name – Info Day -, but it ended up being much more than that. This one day event, hosted at the corporate headquarters of SAP by the PLM Alliance turned out to be a profound source of information about everything related to expansion solutions for engineering and product lifecycle management based on SAP applications. The SAP Alliance is a veritable association of “Coopetition Partners” Cenit AG (Stuttgart), Cideon AG (Bautzen), DSC Software AG (Karlsruhe) and Riess Engineering GmbH (Karlsbad). “Coopetition” is a term created from the words cooperation and competition. On the one hand, these companies have a strong sense of allegiance when it comes to the development and implementation of SAP-related integration solutions; on the other hand they are certainly always ready to compete with each other. After all, these system providers represent the four key MCAD systems Catia V5, Inventor, NX and Pro/Engineer. It is a known fact that these systems are rivaling for market shares. What the foursome does have in common is that they have all been knighted by the Walldorf-based software conglomerate and that their CAD integrations have been included in SAP’s price list. Moreover, each of these companies has developed additional solutions, which either aim at filling specific niches in the SAP-PLM environment or integrate other solutions. The PLM Alliance always presents a unified front when the task at hand is an integral CAD topic, such as a concept that provides a solution for document management in combination with SAP. The partner who has the highest level of competency in the subject matter directs the relevant project, while the others bring know-how and resources to the table whenever the need arises.

During his opening address, Helmut Stengele, Director Sales at SAP Germany, reminisced about the early days of the liaison, which focused on engineering. In 1998, the first PowerPoint presentations on SAP PDM appeared on the horizon. Putting the rule to the test, Autocad arrived just a short time thereafter. However, the SAP partner engineering concept did have a flaw: it did not take very long and users had the choice of six different Autocad integrations. Things did improve following the decision to leave the development and sales for each CAD interface in the hands of only one partner and got even better as a result of the launch of CAD Desktop thanks to the fact that this SAP solution elevated the CAD interfaces to a common functional level. SAP is satisfied with the activities of the PLM Alliance, but apparently not with its own. “It has been worth our while,” Stengele comments, albeit not without adding self-critically: “We have arrived at the conclusion that something will have to be done in the PLM segment.” In front of an audience of about 150, the SAP executive announced that his company is planning to invest 100 man-years of development work into this segment. He did, however, fail to answer the question what this investment might yield. Co-keynote speaker Joachim Roeder, DSC Chairman of the Board and current spokesman of the PLM Alliance did come to his rescue when he emphasized that PLM is not something you simply plug into, like electricity, but a solution that requires adaptation to processes and objects. To this end, continued Roeder, the user enjoys the benefit that all “engineering works” can be integrated into SAP with a defined scope of functions at a fixed price with the assistance of the PLM Alliance tool kit.

Frank Spiegel’s presentation was dedicated to the SAP™ PLM support solution for end-to-end innovations. However, instead of focusing on the support of respective processes by the familiar ERP-solution, the SAP manager gave in to the temptation of trying to explain the true meaning of product innovation to the audience in great detail. Listening to the two user presentations, delivered by Uwe Kiel of Gottwald Port Technologies and Thomas Schuster of Modine Automobiltechnik, it was obvious that German engineering experts have no need for such explications. Gottwald, a Demag Group company, is engaged in the production of ship cranes and the construction of complete container ports. A certain sense of pride was evident as Uwe Kiel pointed out the fact that his company survived plagues like KVR (“After all, we are a highly innovative company.”). In Antwerp, this global market leader is currently building the world’s first fully automatic, driverless container harbor. Other state-of-the-art port facilities in London, Melbourne and Marseille will follow. The 55 designers involved in these projects are accessing SAP from 85 Inventor work stations. A total of 550 employees use SAP at Gottwald. The company uses the Cideon conversion server and plot management. Gottwald also uses CAD Desktop; according to the head of IT “because we want the data to be delivered to where it is actually needed”. Interestingly enough, the company, which produces revenues of EUR 270 million a year, has once again hired many tracers to convert the generated 3-D models into production drawings. For the company’s production 2-D drawings are still of critical importance, since it processes primarily sheet metal panels with dimensions of 15 x 4 square meters. The true challenge at Gottwald is the number of production orders that have to be processed. The current monthly total is 16,000 – just a year ago it was a mere 6,000.

Thomas Schuster of Modine Automobiltechnik delivered his presentation of supply chain management with flying colors as well. Modine manufactures cooling units for cars and trucks. To remain among the best in its class, the company operates a climate-wind channel, which does not only have the capability to produce airstream, but also high humidity and low temperature levels. In 1999, the automotive supplier began rolling out SAP modules PP, MM as well as SD; the implementation of cProjects is slated to be finalized before the end of this year. The process standardization for the CAD systems used by the company is ensured by CAD Desktop. Modine operates 50 Catia-V4 and V5 work stations and uses Seal Systems plot management solutions. Of a total of 900 SAP users, up to 300 utilize CAD Desktop for production planning, which includes the accessing of bills of materials, documents, certificates of use or material master data. All drawings are available in Tiff format, all 3-D models in JT format. Visualization is provided by the latest version of the SAP EAI Viewer. Schuster was obviously very pleased with the integrated CAD structure data exchange with customers and suppliers, the configurable mapping rules, the address administration and the complete SAP integration for CAD information imports and exports. For the latter, Modine uses Cenit software Enterprise Connector.

Participants were not only impressed with the customer presentations; they apparently enjoyed the entire event. The opportunity to share experiences and network was seized by many. Walldorf clearly demonstrated how closely intertwined SAP and PLM really are, just as in business and engineering. The hosts could not have picked a better forum for the event than SAP’s corporate headquarters.