Companies join forces to accelerate industrial transformation

Siemens and SAP announced a partnership designed to bring together their complementary software solutions for product lifecycle, supply chain and asset management applications.

By Siemens Industry, Inc. July 15, 2020

Siemens and SAP announced a partnership designed to bring together their complementary software solutions for product lifecycle, supply chain and asset management so their customers can deliver new innovation and collaborative business models that will accelerate industry transformation globally.

Through this agreement, both SAP and Siemens will be able to complement and integrate their respective offerings in order to offer customers the first truly integrated and enhanced solutions for product lifecycle management (PLM), supply chain, service and asset management. This will enable customers to form a true digital thread integrating all virtual models and simulations of a product or asset with real-time business information, feedback and performance data over the entire lifecycle.

“Digital transformation will be critical for the manufacturing industries to increase productivity, flexibility and accelerate innovation, so companies must come together in new ways to enable the digital enterprise,” said Klaus Helmrich, member of the managing board of Siemens AG and CEO of Siemens Digital Industries in a press release. “This exciting collaboration between two industry leaders is about more than just interoperability and interfaces; it is about creating a truly integrated digital thread that unites product and asset lifecycle management with the business that enables customers to optimize production of products.”

Silos between engineering and business have existed in enterprises for decades. This new partnership will help customers to break down these siloes so manufacturers, product design teams and service managers have the information needed to quickly create and manage customer-centric product and service offerings.

“As manufacturers design and deliver smarter products and assets, access to real-time business information across networks is critical to bring new and improved innovations to market faster,” said Thomas Saueressig, Head of Product Engineering and Member of the Executive Board of SAP. “Bringing together expertise from SAP and Siemens to offer Industry 4.0-enabled business processes allows enterprises to create a digital thread for the entire product and asset lifecycle. With this end-to-end solution, teams across the business network can efficiently work together to design and deliver innovative products productively, profitably and sustainably.”

Going forward, SAP and Siemens will be able to offer new solutions that combine their technologies in order to help companies shorten time to market by leveraging Industry 4.0-enabled data using intelligent assets and products. This will also give organizations the benefit of incorporating customer insights into product development through a comprehensive solution, from product design to service and asset management.

“Combining Siemens Teamcenter and SAP S/4HANA software provides companies an end-to-end process capability from product design to decommission,” said Bob Parker, senior VP of industry research at IDC. “The IT benefits of pre-integration of PLM, ERP, asset management and supply chain applications and the business benefits from having a more resilient response to changing market demand make this a compelling consideration for companies seeking a competitive advantage in the digital economy.”

– Edited from a Siemens press release by CFE Media.

Original content can be found at Control Engineering.