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The SAP & Siemens partnership lays the groundwork
Ever since the July 14th, 2020 partnership announcement we were excited to hear from customers, partners and analysts how much they embrace this bold move and our joint ambition with Siemens to unlock new opportunities, remove silos and accelerate transformation. Delivering on the promise of faster time to value, sustainable development processes and new business opportunities requires a new generation of integration. And this is what SAP and Siemens have been investing heavily in – so far behind the scenes.
The Digital Thread vision requires better integration
We know that our customers are challenged today to improve their velocity to market while simultaneously building more complex and higher quality products. Although our individual solutions deliver industry leading capabilities for their respective functional areas, the true benefit comes from a seamless, closed-loop communication between product development and enterprise management… this is the north star we jointly follow:
Combining SAP and Siemens integration expertise
Integration between engineering and enterprise systems is of course not a new phenomenon. But it still is a complex undertaking. Why? Because agreeing on a common language, common processes and the related technical solutions and architectures across line of business, organizations and networks is a challenging task. Add the engineering, business, IT and industry perspective to it and you might agree to my statement.
A strategic partnership like ours with Siemens is a great opportunity to solve some of these fundamental issues. Firstly we build on the idea that our engineering and business systems would be co-equal and accommodate the even greater level of interoperability and visibility needed to bring the digital thread to reality.
One Domain Model: Lingua franca and key success factor
An aligned data model between SAP and Siemens is foundational to the integration as an intermediate layer. It is an abstraction of the data that needs to be exchanged between Siemens Teamcenter and SAP S/4HANA / ERP. It should be understandable from both sides, and gives a clear semantic way of thinking suitable for all implementations.
The aligned domain model will continue to evolve as the various parts of the next generation integration are launched. Stay tuned for further Blog Posts on this topic.
Roadmap Preview 2022: Continuous innovation building on a strong foundation
Since the announcement of the partnership, Siemens and SAP development teams have come together to put the principles above in action. We started with the focus on seamless exchange of product relevant data to enable the bi-directional process integration. And then put the end-to-end process coverage for specific industry and business processes in focus: Starting with make-to-stock to configure- and engineer-to-order.
The result is a jointly defined roadmap plan, which builds on the first release in October 2021. So let me share a preliminary preview of the intended scope:
Release 1: Delivers product development to SAP integration
Our first release builds on the joint domain model, underlying end-to-end processes and sets the foundation for traceability, federation and linkage across system boundaries. It focuses on the processes and data transfer from product development to SAP, such as:
Release 2: Expands scope and closes the loop between product development and SAP
Early 2022, the next wave of innovations will focus on “closing the loop” between SAP and product development. And we’ll focus on the foundation for the advanced business processes including configure to order, engineer to order scenarios and more. Some highlights include:
Release 3: Bi-directional system interoperability and advanced integration scenarios
We’ve also planned for a second release in 2022, which will not just focus on the continuous enhancement of the advanced configure and engineer order processes, but also on bi-directional interoperability enabling transparency and interoperability. Sample capabilities will include:
If you are interested to learn more about our plans, bookmark and review the SAP Roadmap Explorer in the coming weeks for details. And do not hesitate to contact us, to learn more.
// updated after delivery of the first release in October 2021. For more details see this blog //
Please Note:
All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates, and they should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.
For all recent and planned innovations, potential data protection and privacy features include simplified deletion of personal data, reporting of personal data to an identified data subject, restricted access to personal data, masking of personal data, read access logging to special categories of personal data, change logging of personal data, and consent management mechanisms.
Ever since the July 14th, 2020 partnership announcement we were excited to hear from customers, partners and analysts how much they embrace this bold move and our joint ambition with Siemens to unlock new opportunities, remove silos and accelerate transformation. Delivering on the promise of faster time to value, sustainable development processes and new business opportunities requires a new generation of integration. And this is what SAP and Siemens have been investing heavily in – so far behind the scenes.
The Digital Thread vision requires better integration
We know that our customers are challenged today to improve their velocity to market while simultaneously building more complex and higher quality products. Although our individual solutions deliver industry leading capabilities for their respective functional areas, the true benefit comes from a seamless, closed-loop communication between product development and enterprise management… this is the north star we jointly follow:
Combining SAP and Siemens integration expertise
Integration between engineering and enterprise systems is of course not a new phenomenon. But it still is a complex undertaking. Why? Because agreeing on a common language, common processes and the related technical solutions and architectures across line of business, organizations and networks is a challenging task. Add the engineering, business, IT and industry perspective to it and you might agree to my statement.
A strategic partnership like ours with Siemens is a great opportunity to solve some of these fundamental issues. Firstly we build on the idea that our engineering and business systems would be co-equal and accommodate the even greater level of interoperability and visibility needed to bring the digital thread to reality.
One Domain Model: Lingua franca and key success factor
An aligned data model between SAP and Siemens is foundational to the integration as an intermediate layer. It is an abstraction of the data that needs to be exchanged between Siemens Teamcenter and SAP S/4HANA / ERP. It should be understandable from both sides, and gives a clear semantic way of thinking suitable for all implementations.
The aligned domain model will continue to evolve as the various parts of the next generation integration are launched. Stay tuned for further Blog Posts on this topic.
Roadmap Preview 2022: Continuous innovation building on a strong foundation
Since the announcement of the partnership, Siemens and SAP development teams have come together to put the principles above in action. We started with the focus on seamless exchange of product relevant data to enable the bi-directional process integration. And then put the end-to-end process coverage for specific industry and business processes in focus: Starting with make-to-stock to configure- and engineer-to-order.
The result is a jointly defined roadmap plan, which builds on the first release in October 2021. So let me share a preliminary preview of the intended scope:
Release 1: Delivers product development to SAP integration
Our first release builds on the joint domain model, underlying end-to-end processes and sets the foundation for traceability, federation and linkage across system boundaries. It focuses on the processes and data transfer from product development to SAP, such as:
- Creation of material masters in SAP based on business semantics
- Transfer of classification information to enable a consistent information flow to SAP
- Creation of document info records in SAP
- Transfer of bill of materials to SAP
- Teamcenter triggered engineering change
Release 2: Expands scope and closes the loop between product development and SAP
Early 2022, the next wave of innovations will focus on “closing the loop” between SAP and product development. And we’ll focus on the foundation for the advanced business processes including configure to order, engineer to order scenarios and more. Some highlights include:
- Creation of plant specific and configurable material masters and bill of materials
- SAP triggered engineering and manufacturing change
- Transfer of variant definition for variant configuration
- Provisioning of manufacturing relevant information data along the business process
- Transfer of classic SAP routings
Release 3: Bi-directional system interoperability and advanced integration scenarios
We’ve also planned for a second release in 2022, which will not just focus on the continuous enhancement of the advanced configure and engineer order processes, but also on bi-directional interoperability enabling transparency and interoperability. Sample capabilities will include:
- Maintenance of order specific Bill of Materials in SAP
- Exchange of product models for Variant Configuration and engineering constraint rules
- Enablement of streamlined Engineer to Order scenarios
- Exchange of Supplier information based on Vendor information
- Enablement of manufacturing artefacts to support complex assembly manufacturing scenarios in SAP
- Enablement of cross system portfolio and project management
- Enablement of cross system traceability for workflows
- Enablement of cross system impact analysis
If you are interested to learn more about our plans, bookmark and review the SAP Roadmap Explorer in the coming weeks for details. And do not hesitate to contact us, to learn more.
// updated after delivery of the first release in October 2021. For more details see this blog //
Please Note:
All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates, and they should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.
For all recent and planned innovations, potential data protection and privacy features include simplified deletion of personal data, reporting of personal data to an identified data subject, restricted access to personal data, masking of personal data, read access logging to special categories of personal data, change logging of personal data, and consent management mechanisms.
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