Enterprise Resource Planning Blogs by SAP
Get insights and updates about cloud ERP and RISE with SAP, SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and more enterprise management capabilities with SAP blog posts.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
former_member779164
Participant

Introduction


The Siemens partnership and the integration we are making together are part of the effort to help our customers create an end-2-end digital thread. The first release is a steppingstone – bringing in the core PLM objects of materials, documents, BOM and engineering changes from Teamcenter to SAP.

This is the third blog post  in relation to the release of PLM system integration for SAP S/4HANA. For a more high level overview see the overview blog post,  (overview ) and the blog post on architecture here (architecture).

Overview


This blog post covers features and functions of our first release, and the related business process content delivered with the software.

The new integration is built from previous experience with a completely new architecture. This mean all features delivered are newly designed to fit the domain model. In release one the focus was to establish a core PLM foundation that can transfer a 100% bill of material with the relevant materials, their documents and keep the whole under change control.

ERP vs SAP S/4 HANA


The functionality provided by the integration for ERP and SAP S/4 HANA is almost the same – for S/4 the integration supports long material numbers and characteristics values. We have achieved this by splitting the solution in two technical packages, and we will continue to release functionality for ERP where possible going forward.

A key point to note is that for SAP S/4 HANA 1809 and 1909, it is the same package & functionality as for ERP. Only from SAP S/4 HANA 2020 and onwards are the S/4 specific integration features available – change record, data federation UI and Production Engineering and Operations.

Functional overview


Materials


Materials (products in S/4 speak) are created from a suitable item in Teamcenter. The standard delivery creates the material with relevant texts and unit of measure + a few others – e.g. basic material. Those fields can be extended when required, so adding data to classification, standard fields in MARA and z-fields can be done without programming.  Revisions are also managed, so the material can be at the same revision in SAP as in Teamcenter. Note that changes to the material master are done with today's date – we don’t use the feature for future change to a material master (transactions MM11-13). For most customers we think this is a better option than the added complexity of the future change functionality.

Classification is also part of the feature set, and the classification values added in Teamcenter will be replicated to SAP – with the normal set of rules for update, delete and change. Note the classes and characteristics are not synchronized in release one – they have to be manually created up front before materials can be classified via the integration.


Classification in SAP


 


Classification in Teamcenter



Classification in Teamcenter - part 2


Materials can also be created from templates, so even if only some information is brought from Teamcenter, the material can be created from a template in SAP.

Bill of materials


Bills of materials are the core of any product structure. Release 1 of the integration transfers a 100% engineering BOM – created from design structure or part structure – both delivered as standard options. The BOM update is done with proper change management, so dates for effectivity are brought across and kept.


 

Documents


Document Info Records are created from the relevant Teamcenter object – in the standard delivery this is a Design Revision.  This creates the document info record in SAP, with a version aligned with the Teamcenter revision. The file is physically copied to SAP – to ensure that all users in SAP will get access and that all downstream processes will work as designed.  As for materials, documents can be classified as well.

Engineering change management


To support all the processes with proper change management, the solution brings the Change Notice from Teamcenter to SAP as a Change Master.

The change master in SAP is used to update the other objects and tie together everything that is released with one change.

Extensibility


Standard fields are usually not enough. There is an out-of-the-box solution for adding additional fields from Teamcenter to be mapped in SAP without development. In the example below, the mapping is from a custom extension field to the Lab/office field of the material.



Data federation to external PLM


Data federation provides a means to have a live lookup for information in SAP thus avoid the need to persist the data across different applications.  The data available is the full domain model including extensibility. To change what is shown on the UI is the normal Teamcenter modification of screens.  Also note the link to navigate directly to the material/product in SAP – no more having to search again in SAP.


 

Not just code


Together with Siemens, we deliver a set of content in Teamcenter/T4ST and SAP S/4&ERP. This means the integration works with some basic features out-of-the-box.  We deliver standard content that covers some basic mapping from a standard set of item types in Teamcenter to material types and documents in SAP. Two scenarios are delivered – one with CAD/part separation (two different item types for design and part) and one of with where the CAD-structure is used both for the materials, documents and the bill of material in SAP. Together with the domain model, this should ensure a consist setup of the integration.

Further Information


As the “PLM system integration” is a standard SAP product, you can find more information in the usual places:

 

And last but not least - our excellent forum if you have any questions
4 Comments