#S4HANA 1610 use case series: 8b – Product Lifecycle Management (tech view)

In the last blog of this series, we learned more about Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in the SAP S/4HANA 1610 release and why it is important for software and hardware to work more smoothly than ever. Today we will shed some light on the technical side of product lifecycle management.

 Embedded Software and DMS

In the area of embedded software management, three new product features have been delivered. Those are: manage software constraints, check software compatibility in product structures and manage embedded software in product structures.

With the new SAP Fiori “Manage Software Constraints” app, you can retrieve a list of embedded software that are associated with the products in your organization. In the app, you can add, change and delete the constraints of a specific embedded software. Digging deeper, you can also check the versions that pertain to the embedded software.

Screenshot: SAP Fiori App Manage Software Constraints

You can view and maintain the compatibility information of the following:

• Hardware constraint: the compatibility between an embedded software and a hardware
• Software constraint: the compatibility between an embedded software and another software

After simulating the explosion of the product structure, you can also check the software compatibility in a product structure. Furthermore, the app will check for conflicts and redundancies of the maintained constraints.

The new Check Software Compatibility in Product Structures feature enables user to check whether all embedded software in a specific product are compatible or not. Please note that this function is only available after the simulation in product structures has been activated.

In the transactional SAP Fiori app “Manage Software Constraints” you can create and maintain the hardware and software constraints of an embedded software.

Screenshot: Check Software Compatibility in Product Structures

After you simulate the explosion of a product structure, you can use the Check Software Compatibility function in the Additional Functions to check whether there are any conflicts between an embedded software and a hardware, or the embedded software and another software in a product. This check is based on the constraints that you maintained in the app.

As part of the new “Manage Embedded Software in Product Structures” feature, the modeling of product structure is now enhanced to document software related data. With this new feature, you can view and maintain software in a product structure or multiple product structures. A configurable software comprises a set of hierarchical objects to form a representation of the software.

Screenshot: Manage Embedded Software in Product Structures

The new “Manage Embedded Software in Product Structures” features bears the following benefits:

• Representation of a configurable software in a product structure
• Representation of software by the combination of material master and assigned document info record
• Representation of software version by document version
• Automatic version calculation of the assigned software variant after simulating the explosion of a product structure

As already mentioned in the business view blog, with the 1610 release SAP also delivered enhancements in the area of document management. For this, SAP developed a new SAP Fiori app called Maintain Documents.

Screenshot: SAP Fiori App Maintain Documents

By entering the document number and the document type, you can maintain the document info record and all original application files which are part of it. In order to change, search and display document info records you need the role SAP_BR_DESIGN_ENGINEER. With this role you can upload, download, check-in or check-out original application files. Moreover, it is also possible to add URLs to the document info records.

Overall, the SAP S/4HANA 1610 on-premise release inheres many enhancements in the PLM application. In that manner, the embedded software management supports smart product development and maintenance. Embedded software as represented in the product structure and the compatibility with other components in the product structure is enforced. In addition, you can now manage your organizational documents effort-free.

Stay tuned when we examine the last use case of this series, Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling, from both the business and the technical perspective.

Discover the full scope and benefits of SAP S/4HANA 1610

• SAP S/4HANA 1610 Release Highlights Brochure
• SAP S/4HANA 1610 Release Information
• Discover SAP S/4HANA

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Here the link to Part 8a:

https://blogs.sap.com/2017/01/25/s4hana-1610-use-case-series-8a-product-lifecycle-management-biz-view/

Link to the series:

https://blogs.sap.com/2016/11/09/s4hana-1610-use-case-series-intro/