How the Digital Thread enables new levels of visibility

In today’s fast-moving world, companies must react flexibly to market requirements. In doing so, they often encounter internal company barriers that arise from strictly separated business systems and engineering systems.

SAP and Siemens have a large common customer base who are looking to answer precisely these questions:

• How can our engineers get real-time information from downstream business systems, regardless of whether it is manufacturing or supply chain systems?
• How can the gap between business and engineering systems be bridged and information seamlessly passed on and used?

Siemens and SAPs customers are looking for exactly this next level of visibility and the common goal is to take the combination to the next level with the concept of the real, digital thread throughout the entire product lifecycle from design to decommission.

Joe Bohman, Siemens Head of Lifecycle Collaboration Software, and Keith Zobott, SAP VP Digital Products & Projects, talked with SAPs Business Evangelist Tom Raftery in his Podcast “The Digital Supply Chain podcast” in this new episode they discuss Siemens and SAP partnership and the benefits for our customers.

Thy explained how the joint partnership enables the digital thread, where everything is connected from start to finish. The reference to several digital threads makes this partnership so special and unique for our customers.

Six specific areas were defined by these business and engineering systems:

• Project and Portfolio Management in the early beginning of every product development process to accurate real-time tracking of product investments against budget and time constraints.
• Systems Engineering realizes the true Digital thread for the entire product lifecycle by combining design, engineering, product definition with the business data
• Product Configuration supports validation of buildable combinations of a product in the digital engineering phase. Errors and quality problems can be reduced in the physical phase in manufacturing.
• Supplier Collaboration allows seamless combining engineering & business data across partners & business processes
• Product Visualization is Accelerating time to market through a seamless visual digital thread from design to operations.
• Intelligent Asset Management an integrated flow of asset information between engineering and asset operations

The digital thread – connects the dots between these business systems and engineering systems to share this information and creates a seamless coexistence of these systems. Once you start sharing information and breaking down silos, you can react faster to accurate information, and bring higher quality products to market faster.

Instead of a point to point integrations , which can be very expensive to support and maintain, this process driven partnership can mean high operational savings potential for our customers. SAP brings the breadth of its business process solutions and networks, while Siemens with Teamcenter the depth of engineering knowledge.

Spoiler alert 😊 With Teamcenter X, the next big project is already pending. We are excited about what the future will bring for Siemens and SAP.

You can find the entire podcast here. We will be happy to answer more information about the partnership.

To learn more about how R&D executives drive supply chain excellence take a look at the Oxford Economics report