Digital Twin Driven Manufacturing Planning

SAPinsder will publish the "Supply Chain Planning in The Cloud" report in July 2022. We have published research on Modernizing Supply Chain Planning and Operations before but the cloud is an added focus in this particular research. Please share your input using this survey if you want to participate in this research. There is no doubt that the cloud has the capability to build supply chain planning capabilities that nearly a decade ago, were not feasible, solely with on-premise infrastructure. In this article, we will touch upon areas where you can build cloud-enabled real-time manufacturing planning capabilities in your SAP environment. Remember that a critical aspect of building real-time manufacturing planning capability is digital twins. In simple terms, a digital twin is an Internet of Things (IoT) enabled platform that allows you to create a digital representation of your manufacturing process, by capturing data from the real world on critical aspects like your assets, labor, flows, etc. Cloud is an essential element of a digital twin platform, considering the edge aspect that comes into play. SAP has a comprehensive digital twin and Industry 4.0 offering and has partnered with hyperscalers to deliver value to its customers in this domain.

Examples of Hyperscaler Partnerships That Enable Digital Twins

Irrespective of which cloud services provider you prefer, SAP has you covered through partnerships and collaborations: In May 2019, Elvira Wallis, SVP and global head of IoT at SAP announced a collaboration between SAP  Leonardo IoT portfolio and AWS IoT on cloud-to-cloud interoperability. In Elvira's words: "Interoperability for IoT allows the exchange of information within and across organizational boundaries to optimize business outcomes, so businesses can take advantage of the benefits and capabilities unlocked because of IoT data." Considering that AWS is one of the oldest hyperscalers, many organizations already have capabilities in this space. From that perspective, this collaboration was important for SAP customers looking to foray into IoT-enabled capabilities like digital twins. Similarly, in December 2020, SAP and Microsoft announced a partnership to deliver supply chain and Industry 4.0 solutions in the cloud. The significance of this partnership can not be overstated. With this partnership, as quoted by Franz Hero, SAP SVP for Digital Supply Chain Solutions: "This partnership gives our customers the ability to subscribe to our digital supply chain and manufacturing solutions in the cloud and enhances our offerings for Industry 4.0. Building on this, SAP solutions will soon be available at the edge in factories, plants, and automated warehouses in close proximity to sensors, machines, and control systems." SAP has extensive collaborative arrangements with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as well. Dominik Wee, Managing Director, Manufacturing and Industrial at GCP indicated in a January 2021 blog: "SAP customers need to merge their enterprise data with the machine and IoT data to inform more insightful business intelligence, feed advanced automation, and build more innovative Industry 4.0 solutions. They can do that by integrating SAP’s enterprise applications with Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data analytics capabilities. Google Cloud simplifies SAP deployment and offers a suite of applications that integrate with and enhance SAP. Manufacturers can bring together their operational and business data at scale to build an intelligent, connected digital factory."

What Does This Mean For SAPinsiders?

Following are examples of manufacturing planning capabilities that SAPinsiders can develop using cloud-based solutions and SAP IoT-enabled digital twins: Operational Planning: Leveraging the cloud, organizations can integrate manufacturing operational data with their other planning and IT systems, in near-real-time. Integrating services like Azure IoT, AWS IoT, GCP IoT, and SAP Leonardo IoT services can help organizations integrate operational data with other business data from the SAP ERP system. This obviously assumes that you have appropriate edge infrastructure in place. The operational data captured can help you monitor and control your manufacturing process in real-time. Tactical Planning: Leveraging data from assets you can plan tactical aspects like developing a maintenance management strategy through preventive and predictive maintenance analytics. You can use modeling and simulation methodologies to optimize manufacturing process performance and integration with your SAP ERP system ensures that your business configurations are applied to your processes. Strategic Planning: As highlighted earlier, using a cloud services provider and SAP Leonardo IoT services, you can integrate operational data with other business data from the SAP ERP system. This is a very powerful capability, that can help you translate operational data collected into the performance of strategic goals and KPIs. This data can also help you when you leveraged other analytical tools for strategic planning, like prescriptive analytics for manufacturing network redesign or strategic capacity planning, S&OP etc.   Sources: SAP and Microsoft Announce Partnership GCP and SAP Collaboration AWS and SAP IoT Interoperability Solution