Configuration Management with SAP Enterprise Product Development

Impressions from the perspective of a system integrator and consulting company when it comes to Configuration Management and Baselining

In the past I have participated in many PLM benchmarks in which the customers had requirements in the areas of configuration and baselining. Unfortunately, we were not able to fully meet these requirements to the customer’s satisfaction. Especially when the customer came from the high-tech industry, aerospace or medical devices.

The situation is now about to change

Thanks to SAP and Martin Bachmann product manager for the new SAP EPD Configuration Management solution. I was in the session Martin held over the last few weeks and attentively listening what SAP offers with the new capabalities. And after a few days have gone by, I am still impressed by what was shown and also by the roadmap.

Figure 1: Product Configuation over the Product LifeCycle with SAP EPD Configuration Management

Now we are able to offer a solution not only for baselining, but also and this is really very interesting to have a solution for configuration management to document the product composition. This is a real game changer. Now we are back in the race.

Figure 2: SAP EPD Configuration Management. Copyright SAP.

And yes as we know in its first version it still can’t meet all needs. But it is a very good first step and ready for production use if you want to draw a baseline for the product structure with the bill of material and/or bill of documents.

Game Changer with a real unique selling point

In the end Martin wants to have a solution that collects all relevant business objects from the SAP backend and objects from EPD in one configuration with baselines. A configuration that collects objects from the RFLP stream and additional objects like routings and production orders from ERP as well. This is not only cool, it’s a game changer. To my knowledge, there is no other standard system that can do a configuration with different baselines and business objects across PLM and ERP.

And that’s just in passing. This is a good example why a cloud based PLM solution with a wide range of APIs make sense!

Summary

SAP EPD Configuration Management enables companies to control objects from e.g. SAP EPD Requirements Engineering, SAP ECTR and also business objects from the backbone SAP S/4HANA or SAP ERP 6.0 and ensure a consistent change management process across all these objects and are the foundation to fulfill regulatory requirements.

If you need advice to implement this solution and connect it to your SAP ERP 6.0 or S/4HANA please get in touch with me. CENIT has extensive SAP PLM knowledge for many years and is one of the preferred SAP partners for SAP EPD and the trusted advisor for our customers.

More to come

Read also the blog provided by Martin Bachmann. Join this SAP PLM Expert Group on LinkedIn.

About the Author

I am the Head of Business Development SAP Solutions at CENIT AG and your partner for the industrial transformation process in the discrete industry. Expert to design and implement your end to end processes from design to operate. Follow me in the SAP Community: Frank Schlotter.