SAP PLM

The SAP Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM) application provides you with a 360-degree-support for all product-related processes from the first product idea, through manufacturing to product service. With SAP PLM, you can:
Create and deliver innovative products that fulfill or create market demand.
Optimize your product developing processes and systems to speed products to market ensuring compliance to industry, quality and regulatory standards.
Become more agile than your competitors and able to react and take advantage of market and competitive opportunities across your business networks.
SAP PLM is part of the SAP Business Suite, which gives organizations the unique ability to perform their essential business processes with modular software that is designed to work with other SAP and non-SAP software. Organizations and departments in all sectors can deploy SAP Business Suite software to address specific business challenges on their own timelines and without costly upgrades.

Technical Details

SAP offers proven methodologies, advanced software tools, and best practices to get the SAP Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM) application up and running quickly – and contributing to your business goals.

We'll work with you to develop an implementation strategy focused on your key priorities. And we'll help you create an implementation plan to manage project scope and evaluate progress along the way.

Your implementation of SAP PLM can include the following:

  • SAP cProject Suite – SAP cProject Suite enables organizations to work in a collaborative way for both project management and collaborative engineering.
  • SAP ERP – SAP ERP is the foundation for SAP PLM. The software is currently in Release SAP ERP 2005.
  • SAP SEM – SAP Strategic Enterprise Management enables companies to implement strategies quickly and successfully, as well as manage business performance throughout the entire organization. The product design cost estimate (PDCE) based on SAP SEM provides early costing information to support design decisions. SAP SEM is currently in Release 6.0.
  • SAP SRM – SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM 5.0) maximizes the return on relationship with all suppliers across all categories of spend at all times. Smooth integration into SAP PLM ensures that only up-to-date information is used in supplier-related processes.

In SAP PLM, the current release of SAP NetWeaver is 2004s and includes these components:

  • SAP NetWeaver Portal – SAP NetWeaver Portal enables organizations to manage enterprise data – including applications, databases, and Internet information – and deliver content based on user roles. SAP PLM content is accessible via the portal, especially to occasional users.
  • SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) – SAP BW goes beyond traditional data warehousing to provide a complete solution for enterprise-wide information capture and evaluation. Reporting specific to SAP PLM (such as cross-project analytics) is provided to gain advanced visibility.
  • SAP Exchange Infrastructure (SAP XI) – SAP XI is the SAP platform for process integration based on the exchange of XML messages. SAP XI supports the integration of legacy and third-party systems to SAP PLM.

Business Benefits

The SAP Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM) application can help you quickly develop and deliver the products that drive your business. With SAP PLM, you gain the following benefits:

  • Reduced costs – SAP PLM allows you to outsource tasks and focus on your company's core competencies while controlling the cost of relationship management. The solution also allows you to manage the cost of changes and evaluate the progress of projects across product lines.
  • Better business results – With SAP PLM, you can develop innovative products, explore new market opportunities, gain a higher market share, and increase customer satisfaction.
  • Higher product quality – SAP PLM helps you manage product quality and reduce waste throughout every phase of the product life cycle.
  • Faster development – The solution reduces time to market and time to volume by integrating supply chain management and procurement closely.
  • Improved manufacturing operations – SAP PLM enables you to plan, measure, and track equipment availability, operation, safety, and maintenance.
  • Higher productivity – SAP PLM increases productivity through an easy-to-use, role-based enterprise portal that delivers all of the necessary content to workers.
  • Better business decisions – SAP PLM supports decision-making at all levels with powerful analytics covering areas such as portfolio management, occupational health, product safety, product quality, and maintenance management.
  • Lower cost of ownership – SAP PLM can be integrated with operational systems, such as computer-aided design, ERP, CRM, SRM, and SCM systems. Using a modular approach, you can implement gradually to meet evolving needs