SAP Solution Brief

LIFE-CYCLE DATA
MANAGEMENT
WITH mySAP™ PLM
INNOVATE, ENGINEER, AND MAINTAIN PRODUCTS
FOR CONTINUOUS BUSINESS SUCCESS

All companies want to be A HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE

market leaders. To achieve When it comes to developing new products and improving
existing ones, innovation is no longer owned by designers and
this goal, they need to find
engineers. The most successful companies involve departments
new ways to innovate, engi- within their organization (marketing and sales, production,
neer, and design products; procurement, quality management, and maintenance) and out-
collaborate with the extend- side (engineering partners, suppliers, contract manufacturers,
ed business community; and service providers, and customers) in the development and
improvement of products.
deliver support and mainte-
nance services. They need mySAP™ Product Lifecycle Management (mySAP™ PLM) provides
to bring the right product to the flexible and adaptable business solution to facilitate end-to-
market at the right time and end product development and management. It covers all key
functional areas for creating, engineering, designing, and main-
at the right cost. Life-cycle
taining products. It includes powerful capabilities for:
data management with
• Product life-cycle data management
mySAP™ Product Lifecycle • Product life-cycle collaboration
Management (mySAP™ PLM) • Program and project management
helps companies meet that • Quality management
goal.
• Asset life-cycle management
• Environment, health, and safety (EH&S)
Companies in all industries need a comprehensive, end-to-end
solution to master the product life cycle. mySAP PLM is so
flexible that any company in any industry can reap its unique
benefits: increased revenue, reduced costs, and a competitive
advantage.
Increased Revenue designers, work schedulers, and project team members – whether
mySAP PLM helps you develop innovative products and explore consecutive or simultaneous – into integrated processes so that
new market opportunities by exchanging ideas faster. It helps global processes run smoothly and efficiently. Close integration
you make the right decisions by sharing up-to-date information with computer-aided design and manufacturing, customer rela-
with all the people – internal and external – involved in creating tionship management (CRM), and supply chain management
concepts for new products, engineering and designing products, (SCM) builds an extensive platform for processing and distrib-
ramping up production, and providing maintenance services. uting product information inside the company and across its
mySAP PLM ensures that your products meet market require- boundaries to ensure tight collaboration with the extended
ments for design, function, and quality; that they comply with business community. This tight collaboration allows for superior
environmental regulations; and that you can bring them to forms of outsourcing so you can concentrate on your core
market in time to meet prime demand. competencies. And that adds to the bottom line: future corpo-
rate success and increased shareholder value.
Reduced Costs
mySAP PLM maintains consistent product information through- LIFE-CYCLE DATA MANAGEMENT AT WORK
out the entire life cycle of your products. Everyone involved in Process Engineering and Logistics Data Within Your
product-related business processes can collaborate via the Company and Across Company Boundaries
Internet, eliminating manual interfaces from product develop- Every day, your designers, engineers, work schedulers, and
ment processes. And the seamless exchange of all relevant project team members make crucial decisions about products
product information with production (such as the availability and projects. Do they have immediate access to the up-to-date
of accurate design information, bills of material (BOMs), or information they need to make all the right moves? The life-
engineering change requests) wipes out costs for scrap, rework, cycle data management functions of mySAP PLM manage and
obsolete materials, and warranty claims. deliver the wide range of product information they need during
all phases of the product life cycle:
The comprehensive mySAP PLM solution allows for efficient • Documents and specifications in the design phase
management of maintenance tasks. That means it delivers enor- • Engineering documents, material numbers, bills of material,
mous value for companies in which maintenance costs and equip- and routings in the planning and production phases
ment reliability directly affect profitability; for companies that • As-sold or as-maintained structures for organizing service and
require preventive maintenance, facility management, and quality maintenance work
management of technical assets; and for companies that require
high levels of service and maintenance for goods manufactured. Life-cycle data management functions also deliver tools for eval-
uating and distributing product and project data so that it is
Competitive Advantage available to everyone who needs it. Ready access to information
mySAP PLM reduces time-to-market because it uses new methods cuts administration costs, forms a solid foundation for making
for integrated product and process engineering, including decisions, and ensures high-quality products. And the collabo-
development of the initial product concept, engineering and rative working environment of mySAP PLM allows for tight inter-
design, production ramp-up, engineering change management, action with business partners all along the way.
and maintenance. It assembles the day-to-day tasks of engineers,
Document Management Product Structure Management
mySAP PLM’s life-cycle data management capabilities integrate The life-cycle data management features of mySAP PLM use con-
all necessary documents into all product-related business sistent interfaces to transfer relevant information into manufac-
processes. You can: turing processes, such as work scheduling, and to manage
• Store information in a broad range of formats, including images resources for production control. A powerful workbench helps
and audio, and integrate information stored in CAD/CAM you easily maintain product and process data. You can even
systems, digital mock-up systems, and the Internet process bills of material (BOMs) and routings simultaneously,
• version management tools to record progress, use classi-
Use which simplifies work scheduling. Integrated views on key infor-
fication functions and links to logistical data to process docu- mation keep all the relevant people up-to-date on work center
ment information, and use data archiving to store outdated usage and basic scrap quantities.
information
• Provide project status information to project managers and A state-of-the-art enterprise portal solution is included with
project team members, provide work schedulers with precise mySAP PLM, making it easy to use. Even occasional users can
operational method sheets for production processes, and help simply click their way through complex product structures and
quality-control personnel analyze critical situations and organize use filters to restrict the information to just what they need to
follow-up activities do their jobs.
• Use open Internet standards to share needed information among
the extended business community to enable collaborative Inter- and intra-company development teams can use mySAP
engineering PLM’s digital mock-up functions to simulate and analyze the
product design before building a prototype. Using mySAP PLM’s
Integration of Third-Party Applications integrated viewer, engineering partners and occasional users
mySAP PLM integrates data from numerous internal and exter- without CAD systems can monitor new products, viewing the
nal sources and incorporates it into engineering processes. It also product as a scale drawing or as a 3-D model. Customers and
eliminates data redundancy. Tight integration with CAD and other external stakeholders can request the inevitable product
office applications allows people to create and edit data in their changes early on – and that cuts costs and streamlines the plan-
work environments and then transfer the information to mySAP ning process.
PLM for centralized processing. Digital mock-up and redlining
functions streamline product development, and WebFlow, SAP’s mySAP PLM’s life-cycle data management features also help you
Internet-based workflow function, enables process automation modify BOMs and the production process of multiple-variant
for everyone involved in a product development project. products to meet each customer’s wishes and manage them on
an order-by-order basis.
The life-cycle data management capabilities of mySAP PLM also
allow for the seamless transfer of data about processes, build- Claim management functions help clear up problems with
ings, or infrastructure from process control systems to mySAP customers and vendors, as well as internal problems that might
PLM. To help workers focus on the most important management be caused by a product. By defining standard responses to project
information and eliminate information overload, mySAP PLM variances – about due dates and times, for example – mySAP
can link to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) PLM applies tried-and-tested methods and activities so you can
systems and geographical information systems (GIS). react logically and at lightning speed.
 www.sap.com/contactsap

Change and Configuration Management WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU

Inconsistent customer requirements or changeovers to new The life-cycle data management capabilities of mySAP PLM are
materials can wreak havoc in a production environment, but the cornerstone of far-reaching product innovation, new product
these types of product changes are common. mySAP PLM life- development, and a comprehensive engineering and design
cycle data management features provide the flexibility to design strategy.
company-specific product change processes, and they ensure
that change management is an integral part of your best-practice You and your company will benefit from:
operations. The efficient management of engineering change • Reduced administration efforts based on user-friendly, integrated
requests ensures product quality in all phases of the product life data maintenance
cycle. • Web-based tools to collaborate with business partners
• Streamlined engineering processes that automate information
The scope and timing for a change process depend on the scope exchange with business partners and within the company
of a change (minor or major change), and whether the entire • Increased effectiveness through fast access to consistent, up-to-
process needs to be automated. With mySAP PLM, people inside the-minute product information
and outside your company can request product changes via the • Graphical information by linking product structure and
Internet. The system notifies the responsible employee to check geometric data
the feasibility of the change and to decide how to modify the • Integrated engineering and logistics processes
product. Several best-practice scenarios in mySAP PLM make • Improved product quality
change a smooth and efficiently handled process that does not • Simplified engineering change processes and claims manage-
disturb your ongoing business. ment
• Flexible business processes to meet changing conditions and
Complex changes can be released step-by-step for simulations requirements
and for individual areas of the company to determine the changed
costs before the product goes into the modified production To learn more about the value that mySAP PLM generates and
process. mySAP PLM maintains a record of changes so you always how it supports life-cycle data management; life-cycle collabo-
know who made a change, who authorized the change, and ration; project and program management; asset life-cycle man-
which validity conditions apply to the change. And to make agement; and environment, health, and safety issues, contact
change management bullet proof, mySAP PLM features robust your SAP sales representative or visit our Web site at
security mechanisms, which ensure that only approved personnel www.sap.com/plm
can perform specific change management tasks.

50 048 639s (03/05)

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