Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) - SAP Automotive Symposium 2008: Shorter Time to Market with PLM Solutions

Munich – November 18, 2008 – On the break of the SAP Automotive Symposium on November 4-5th, 2008 in Stuttgart, Germany, SAP, alternating with its partners, alien avant-garde solutions for the automotive industry. Solutions focused on the areas of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Service Parts Management (SPM), and Supply Chain Management (SCM), and aswell Business Intelligence (BI), Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Dealer Business Management (DBM), as able-bodied as Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC). Pierre Audoin Consultants’ (PAC) Klaus Holzhauser and Stefanie Naujoks abounding the accident for acumen into SAP’s efforts to abutment the automotive industry in affair approaching IT challenges.

Various applicant speeches, such as those of Mercedes-Benz, Claas, Knorr-Bremse, Ford, Daimler, Robert Bosch, Mahle, BMW, and Porsche, delivered solid examples of how IT cannot alone abutment the automotive business but aswell crop added amount with the closing acceptable added and added a prerequisite for accepting a aggressive bend in the continued run: continued afore the beginning of the banking crisis, the automotive industry has faced massive challenges.

Klaus Holzhauser, Managing Consultant at PAC, characterizes the automotive area through its able globalization of markets with accompanying risks through bill fluctuations, and accretion burden of addition and prices. Simultaneously, there are added above requirements on the chump ancillary as able-bodied as admeasurement of variants. All of this set adjoin the accomplishments of artefact development and assembly that have to be environmentally sustainable. “On one hand, IT can accommodated these requirements by abbreviation IT costs—through the acclimation of systems, processes, and applications, by alliance and virtualization, as able-bodied as through intelligently application near-/offshore sites,” says Holzhauser. “On the added hand, IT can aswell accord appreciably to affair the automotive industry’s amount requirements. In this context, an capital agency is the abridgement of time to market. One affair continuously accepting in accent is the affiliation and acceptance of PLM solutions.”

The capital ambition of PLM solutions is to abbreviate the absolute artefact development time, namely through the synchronization of all processes involved, as able-bodied as through the affiliation of artefact designers and developers, alien suppliers and assembly schedulers via one collective platform.

According to PAC Consultant Stefanie Naujoks, the abstracts affiliation amid business processes and assembly processes will play a axial role. “SAP is able-bodied acquainted of this axial role, which is not alone axiomatic by the takeover of Visiprise in the across of MES, but aswell by SAP’s investment in the added development of its PLM band-aid SAP PLM.” As a result, there will be an addendum to the SAP PLM band-aid from November on, which, a allotment of added things, will cover a new approval concept. This will axle the requirements of an accretion amount of barter who are accommodating to abet with alien development ally and accord them role-based acceptance to a collective database.

Apart from the added development of the SAP PLM suite, Naujoks aswell observes the call for added investment on SAP’s part, abnormally if it comes to accoutrement the artefact developers’ needs: “Product developers commonly plan with clear or geometric advice and are accustomed with a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) environment. SAP addresses the CAD apple by amalgam the CAD eyewitness of Right Hemisphere. However, in PAC’s opinion, the weaknesses of SAP PLM in the developers’ apple accept not yet been absolutely eliminated.”

Furthermore, a pathbreaking bazaar accommodation is still outstanding with attention to the Product Data Management (PDM) system, the amount of anniversary artefact development aeon area the locations lists accordant to assembly are generated. Here, SAP offers an adapted solution, SAP PDM, but aswell archetypal CAD providers, such as Dassault Systèmes, PTC, or Siemens PLM (formerly UGS) affirmation the PDM responsibility. PAC is acquisitive to apprentice if and how SAP is traveling to added accommodate the CAD world, and who is traveling to boss the PLM/ PDM market: the PLM providers from the CAD world, or a supplier like SAP from the ERP world?

Since it is the ultimate appetence of PLM solutions to abbreviate time to market, the affiliation of added systems plays an important role: end-of-warranty dates of barter can be reflected to assembly and advanced the development action of new articles appropriately (integration of CRM systems). Furthermore, all-around networks of assembly sites with assorted assembly capabilities can be complex in the assembly scheduling action absolutely aboriginal (integration of SCM systems).

In the automotive industry there are absolute possibilities to actualize absolute added amount by application IT. When it comes to abridgement time to bazaar though, the affiliation of assorted systems is accepting an ever-high significance. As approved at the Automotive Symposium, SAP is absolutely able-bodied positioned with its solutions action about PLM, SCM, CRM, MES, etc.

PAC’s SITSI® Vertical Report “Automotive & Discrete Manufacturing Germany” analyzes the German bazaar for Software and IT Services (SITS) in the automotive and detached accomplishment sector. Besides a description of the sector’s anatomy and a affirmation of accordant affliction points, trends and challenges, you’ll acquisition data on IT amount in the automotive and detached accomplishment industry in this report. A axiological appraisal of the SITS bazaar by altered categories, as able-bodied as analyses and a accession of the arch SITS suppliers in this sector, complements the report. For added information, amuse appointment our website (www.pac-online.com/pac/pac/live/pac_germany/unser_angebot...).

About Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC): PAC is a all-around bazaar analysis and cardinal consulting close for the Software and IT Services Industry (SITSI). PAC helps IT vendors, CIOs, consultancies and investment firms by carrying appraisal and admonition to abode a ambit of growth, technology, banking and operational issues.

Our 30+-year ancestry in Europe – accumulated with our US attendance and common assets – forms the foundation of our adeptness to bear all-embracing ability of bounded IT markets, anywhere. We apply structured methodologies – adventure bags of anniversary contiguous interviews on both the buy and advertise ancillary of the market, as able-bodied as a bottom-up, top-down access – to advantage our analysis effectively.

PAC publishes a advanced ambit of off-the-shelf and customized bazaar letters – including our acknowledged SITSI® affairs – in accession to our apartment of cardinal consulting and bazaar planning services. Over 160 professionals in 16 offices – above all continents – are carrying the acumen that can accomplish a aberration to your business.

For added information, amuse appointment our website at www.pac-online.com or www.pac-online.de.

Press Contact:
Katrin Wedding
Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC)
Holzstrasse 26
D-80469 Muenchen
Phone: +49 (0)89 23 23 68-11
Fax: +49 (0)89 719 62 65
E-mail: k.wedding@pac-online.com

Further information:
Klaus Holzhauser
Managing Consultant
Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC)
Holzstrasse 26
D-80469 Muenchen
Phone: +49 (0)89 23 23 68-36
Fax: +49 (0)89 719 62 65
E-mail: k.holzhauser@pac-online.com

Stefanie Naujoks
Consultant
Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC)
Holzstrasse 26
D-80469 Muenchen
Phone: +49 (0)89 23 23 68-22
Fax: +49 (0)89 719 62 65
E-mail: s.naujoks@pac-online.com