CIMdata review on SAP's PLM cPDm program (PDF) - Large ...

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Figure 3-mySAP PLM Portals
These capabilities have been designed to support
preventive maintenance, facility management, quality
management, and the compliance to governmental
regulations in product development, production, and
maintenance. It also serves as the cornerstone for
guaranteeing high service and maintenance levels for
goods manufactured.
<strong>CIMdata</strong> is impressed with the approach SAP has taken
to extend the capabilities of its cPDm solution. SAP
has recruited experienced professionals knowledgeable
in the cPDm domain and who understand the disciplines
of the engineering design process.
In summary, mySAP PLM is a major solution and program
in the cPDm industry. The mySAP PLM solution
is a fully functional cPDm solution and it is one of the
few in the cPDm market that supports substantial configuration
management features, which are leveraged
from mySAP.com's e-business solutions. SAP has continued
to make significant progress in its cPDm enabling
product offering and has achieved a significant
number of sales successes in a very short period of
time. In addition, SAP continues to place significant
effort behind their cPDm program and sees it as a strategic
offering in their suite of e-business solutions.
This in itself is impressive from a company as large as
SAP.
SAP’s mySAP PLM
The release of mySAP PLM version
4.6C provides a number of significant
developments in its cPDm capabilities
with major enhancements in
the areas of inter- and intra-company
collaboration, and what SAP calls
product innovation management.
This includes several new functionalities,
such as cFolders for collaboration
and structured document and
information exchange across organizational
boundaries, recipe management
to support product innovation
in process industries, and new product
development and introduction
processes, including requirements
management for discrete industries,
to name just a few. For current SAP
users, the mySAP PLM solution has
to be considered a candidate in any
major cPDm acquisition program.
cPDm Background
Collaborative Product Definition management (cPDm)
is a strategic business approach applying a consistent
set of business solutions that collaboratively manage
the product definition lifecycle across an extended
enterprise. cPDm enables enterprises to bring innovative
and profitable products to market more effectively,
especially in the evolving e-business environment.
cPDm focuses on the complete product definition,
including all mechanical, electronic, software, and
documentation components, and the processes that are
used throughout a product's entire lifecycle. It is an
approach that incorporates a full suite of best-practices
methods and technologies such as product data
management, collaboration, collaborative product
commerce, visualization, enterprise application integration,
component supplier management, and others.
It addresses the extended product definition supply
chain of OEMs, sub-contractors, suppliers, partners,
and customers.
The need to manage product definition and associated
processes is growing even more acute because of increasing
complexity across an extended enterprise. The
globalization of companies has dispersed employees,
products, services, and partners around the world.
<strong>CIMdata</strong> Program Assessment