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MDM for High Tech - Central Component Management: An SAP Discovery System Scenario

The SAP Discovery System for enterprise SOA is the complete sandbox environment that is pre-installed and pre-integrated with software, hardware, and business-oriented contents. It provides a complete prototype environment to conduct proof-of-concept projects, and enables you to focus on business needs, and not technical configuration and installation.

A new, real business scenario that can be tried with the SAP Discovery System is the MDM for High Tech - Central Component Management scenario. Central management and controlled distribution of product data is crucial in globally operating High Tech companies. This is due to the short life-cycles of the products, but also due to the mandate for globally distributed design teams to work as efficient and cost-conscious as possible by re-using already existing validated and recommended parts.

SAP NetWeaver MDM is used in this scenario to centrally manage part data. The following key SAP NetWeaver capabilities are being leveraged:

  • Usage of the MDM Enrichment Controller for data enrichment from PartMiner CAPS database
  • Usage of Guided Procedures for part request processes
  • Usage of the MDM NetWeaver Portal iViews as end-user UI
  • Usage of MDM Syndication Server to distribute released part data to other systems

This architecture provides the following business benefits:

  • Increased parts-reuse, resulting in reduced material costs
  • Automated part data population from PartMiner CAPS, resulting in less manual effort and better data quality
  • Faster request and approval of new parts resulting in reduced time- to-market
  • Pre-delivered product syndication mappings to SAP Business Suite applications, resulting in reduced integration costs
  • Automated distribution of part data to downstream supply chain systems, resulting in less manual efforts and better data quality

Scenario Overview:

A design engineer does not find a needed manufacturer part in MDM and initiates a new part request. The part request is enriched with additional attributes coming from the PartMiner CAPS component database in the web. After various departments have processed the request, the manufacturer part and a corresponding internal part are created and linked and are also automatically distributed to the client systems that also need the part (not shown).

To begin the process, go into the NetWeaver Portal page and look at the current data repository in MDM, data schema that's currently assigned to MDM, and also the data that's already populated inside MDM. Rather than going directly to the management console in this instance, we've created an iView in the SAP Portal, and a guided procedure to walk you through the steps sequentially.

The scenario will open with the reference database with all the internal part numbers and standard part descriptions already documented inside of MDM. This reference data includes High-Tech specifics such as MPN (Manufacturer Part Number), AML (Approved Manufacturer List), and an industry-standard taxonomy (IEC 61360 Component Data Dictionary).

The database includes:

  • 26,000 components (IPNs) in 6 categories
  • 35,300 Manufacturer Part Numbers
  • 22 images
  • 22 specifications

The next step is to input a manufacturer part number that is needed as a component for a new product design. The application will look for the closest match to the key you entered, in this case there is none.

Industry-Standard Taxonomy IEC 61360

Since the manufacturer part number is not available in the component database, a new part request needs to be initiated in order to request this to be added. Due to the fact that there is an automatic enrichment workflow available to pull the component attributes from the PartMiner CAPS database, only the part number and the manufacturer need to be entered in the request.

After the enrichment has been finalized, the new part request can go through an approval procedure. Not every business requires approval, but we wanted to show how this task can effectively be delegated among different people in an organization using a guided procedure. Once the part is approved, this scenario will automatically create an internal part number and link the requested manufacturer part number to it as an approved manufacturer part.

The obvious next step is to populate that new part data across the different ERP, PLM, SCM, SRM or other legacy or home grown systems in the landscape that need this part data. A great advantage to MDM in a SOA world is that the enriched part data can be syndicated to either internal or external systems.

Approved Manufacturer List

One example of how the syndicated product data will be used is of course that purchasing will use the part number to initiate the part procurement process, e.g. within ERP or SRM.

This scenario is a great way to test out a real and immediate process improvement with SAP Discovery System for enterprise SOA. Try it out for yourself today. Visit the home page for the SAP Discovery System on SDN for more information on this and other scenarios. To download an offline executive demo of this scenario, visit this page. For more information on MDM, visit the SAP Master Data Management (SAP MDM) - EIM - SAP Developer Network on SDN.

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