Cooperation Between SAP and Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics

In 2015, the SAP Variant Configuration development team and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM) in Kaiserslautern embarked on a common journey. The goal of this journey is to develop the most adequate algorithms for the new state-of-the art configuration engine that will be available in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud as of summer 2017 (SAP S/4HANA for advanced variant configuration).

The core competence of the ITWM is mathematics, which allows them to give innovative technological impulses to industry partners who then put this technology into practice. Since its foundation in 1995 the ITWM has shown great success in building mathematical bridges between applied sciences and concrete applications, mainly by developing efficient algorithms for computing and analysis.

ITWM and SAP are working together in 3 areas:

• Advanced string constraints
• State-of-the-art table evaluation
• Constraint modeling syntax

After almost 2 years of collaboration, we are convinced that partnering with the ITWM was the best thing SAP could do to streamline the development process of SAP S/4HANA for advanced variant configuration. The Fraunhofer colleagues are the perfect fit – they have the know-how required for challenging topics such as string constraints, table reductions, or correct floating point computations, etc. Thanks to Wieland Schreiner for supporting the collaboration and thanks to all colleagues involved – SAP S/4HANA for advanced variant configuration will be the best in breed.

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