SAP SE  announced new advancements to its supply chain solutions that generate new data-driven insights to enable risk-resilient and sustainable supply chain operations.

This includes artificial intelligence  embedded into the SAP Digital Manufacturing solution, 3D product and operations viewer capabilities in manufacturing, service and maintenance processes, and adherence to sustainable packaging guidelines in the SAP Responsible Design and Production solution.

• Advancements to Supply Chain Software from SAP Enable Risk-Resilient and Sustainable Supply Chain Operations

In today’s world, constant disruption has become the new normal. Resilience is essential for businesses to withstand the forces of change. To achieve it, companies are looking to redesign their supply chain and manufacturing processes to consider cost, speed, profit, customer service and risk. According to a global 2023 Oxford Economics digital supply chain report, manufacturing executives are more likely than those in other functions to deploy intelligent technologies at scale to improve predictive analytics capabilities. However, only 36% of the 1,000 survey respondents said they have deployed predictive analytics in any part of their enterprise. To become more resilient, SAP customers can employ AI embedded into SAP Digital Manufacturing for AI-driven insights and AI-powered visual inspection processes. Customers can ensure that defective parts are discovered early and are addressed quickly, producing higher yield, ready-to-deliver quality materials. The lower product defect rates result in fewer service claims and improved asset health and maintenance.

“In recent years, it has become apparent that our global supply chains are vulnerable to disruption,” said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE responsible for SAP Product Engineering. “This has far-reaching consequences for the manufacturing industry as well. SAP is a driving force in many industry-relevant initiatives, such as Catena-X and Manufacturing-X. Open data ecosystems, especially, have their place in the manufacturing industry. What is more, in many of the conversations I’ve had with business leaders, and according to our latest Oxford Economics study, it becomes clear: They see the need of investing in Industry 4.0 principles and AI to increase supply chain resiliency, but many are still in the piloting stage. SAP is in a unique position to accelerate the journey to resilient manufacturing because we can embed intelligent capabilities in enterprise software across all end-to-end-processes.”

Smart Press Shop, a joint venture of Porsche and Schuler, reached a new milestone in automotive production by using AI embedded in SAP Digital Manufacturing. Adapting a cloud-first development strategy, Smart Press Shop enables fully paperless production and a completely automated process for configuring production-line machinery for pressing automotive body parts. With the help of SAP software and embedded AI, Smart Press Shop can assess the quality of materials in real time and adjust machine performance to improve downstream processes in logistics and operations.

“With the help of SAP solutions, we were very quickly able to build a system landscape at the Smart Press Shop based on the principles of Industry 4.0 and covering our requirements, such as self-optimizing production, end-to-end traceability and resource-saving production,” said Hendrik Rothe, CEO, Smart Press Shop GmbH & Co. KG. “Within a few months, our core solutions SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition as well as SAP Digital Manufacturing were ready for use. Above all, the solutions enable us to process data in real time, to handle our entire production without paper, and ultimately to make all our processes transparent. Thus, we are very flexible and positioned for the future.”

3D Capabilities to Strengthen Resiliency

To further help manufacturing become more resilient, the 3D product viewer capabilities of the SAP Enterprise Product Development solution are now integrated into manufacturing, service and maintenance processes. In SAP Digital Manufacturing, production operators now can view 3D product models in their dashboard and work environment to streamline complex assembly. In the SAP Service and Asset Manager mobile app, field engineers can use 3D augmented reality views to accelerate asset maintenance, increase first time fix rates and reduce downtime.

Sustainability Initiatives Are Still at the Top of Business Agendas

According to the Oxford Economics study, 28% of supply chain executives include improving sustainability metrics as one of their top three strategic goals. To enable not only risk-resilient but also sustainable supply chain operations, SAP Responsible Design and Production now supports company-specific sustainable package guidelines. Customers can monitor, measure and act to eliminate waste during packaging design.

SAP had extended its integration with business sustainability ratings provider EcoVadis SAS within the Trading Partner Profile (TPP). The integration enables suppliers to promote their sustainability performance and showcase their EcoVadis sustainability rating status across SAP Business Network. This helps buyers identify opportunities to comply with emerging ESG due diligence and reporting legislation, as well as enabling them to select new suppliers who can help them reach ambitious corporate and value chain sustainability commitments.

These innovations are helping customers achieve better visibility across their supply chain operations and to ultimately increase resiliency.