The pace of technological advance is constantly increasing and puts pressure on manufacturers to be more innovative. It is nothing new to see multiple CAD systems dotting the landscape of manufacturers. Driven out of business needs, end customer requirements or due to organic evolution of organizations, often a variety of Cad systems resides in customers. These often have their own dedicated data management systems to manage the content from the authoring tools building up small information islands. And as products are becoming more and more complex and are often a combination of mechanics, electronics and software, the complexity only increases.
Accessing the right information for a product in such information islands becomes a challenge. A far more significant challenge would be to manage the whole process of product development: How to seamlessly access the data across multiple tools and across the enterprise to ensure a smooth flow of development process? And if we elevate this to the enterprise context, it is hard to ignore the huge cost implications of maintaining the information islands while attempting to drive the product development process.
In this context, SAP’s strategy for authoring tool integration aims to provide a platform for integrating not only the authoring tools including mechanics, electronics, software and simulation but also consistent enterprise data residing in SAP. SAP´s goal is to provide a 360 degree view of the product bringing a total transparency across engineering disciplines. The consequence: increased efficiency in engineering and manufacturing by enabling manufacturers to generate consistent product designs and achieve higher product quality.
SAP intends to provide a platform for companies to not only address the challenges as they embark on the journey of fourth industrial revolution, but also support them with a scalable platform to grow! The renewed and harmonized user experience across authoring tools delivered through the new strategy is intended to make this journey a lot more easier!
Read SAP's press announcement here : http://www.news-sap.com/sap-develops-new-strategy-for-authoring-tool-integration/
