Gareth Webb: 0:03

What I always say to customers is, can you afford to wait? And they say what do you mean by that? The question is this solution is going to unlock value. You can make those savings today. If you wait those savings that you could have started to make have already been lost. So get started as early as possible

Tom Raftery: 0:21

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the digital supply chain podcast. The number one podcast, focusing on the digitization of supply chain. And I'm your host global vice-president at SAP Tom Raftery. Hi everyone. Welcome to the digital supply chain podcast. My name is Tom Raftery with SAP and with me on the show today, I have my special guest Gareth. Garrett, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for joining us. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Gareth Webb: 0:51

Thank you, Tom. Yes, hello everybody. My name is Gareth Webb. I work in the solution management team here at SAP. My role is specifically in the digital supply chain branch of our product portfolio and my special interest is in and around our integrated products. So the integrations of product lifecycle management solutions to our own SAP HANA and ECC solutions.

Tom Raftery: 1:14

Okay. And the last time you came on the podcast, Gareth, what was it? Nine months ago or thereabouts? We were talking about TeamCenter. And so we're back for an update on that. But in case people missed the last episode, I'll drop a link to it in the show notes so people can go back and listen to it if they want, but in case I missed it, could you give us a summary quickly of what actually is Teamcenter for people who might not be aware?

Gareth Webb: 1:39

Yeah, of course. Teamcenter is a product lifecycle management solution. So it enables companies to manage and orchestrate the process of new product introduction through the management of generally computer aided design information. So CAD data. But also could be, specification information, could be anything pertains to the design of a product. What that solution does is it formulates the information into what we call bills of materials or, specifications for products. And that information is then managed through a process of releasing and statusing of objects within that system before it gets, then passed across into the, ERP domain where generally products would be manufactured, produced, sold, and obviously, management of all of the logistics associated to the design of a new product. So that's Teamcenter. The Teamcenter solution is a solution not of SAP's design and making. It's a partner products produced by a company called Siemens, with whom we've developed to very significant strategic partnership to develop a more integrated solution set between Teamcenter and our own SAP tools. And that's really what we're here to discuss today is that new integration.

Tom Raftery: 2:54

Okay. So since we had the conversation, as I say, I think it was about nine months ago, but I'm open to correction on that. What's changed?

Gareth Webb: 3:05

We're now about to release the second version of that integrated product. So the view is that we're able to listen to the last time around. We described the integration as a solution which had a roadmap of capability that we were designing. That roadmap of capabilities saw us with three releases. We released our first-generation product back in November. That product would have encompassed a set of processes that would benefit a company, what we would call in a make to stock capacity. Therefore, a company that is simply producing products that will then be shipped and sold. Now we're in the phase of development with our release 2 product issued at the end of April, where we will start to look at configure to order type companies, and therefore companies that need a fundamental different type of process enabled between these two products that the PLM solution in their ERP tools in order to facilitate their processes, because they're very linked to orders from customers, as opposed to simply providing products to go on a shelf. So that's the fundamental shift. And oversee what we've got in this second release is a number of new processes and new requirements for information to flow from PLM into ERP to make those processes work. And that's really what we're launching now at the end of April is that second set of processes to help companies that are maybe designing more complex products, lower numbers of variants of products but a much richer product set a new set of processes that are required.

Tom Raftery: 4:37

From a practical perspective can you give me some possible use cases where this might help?

Gareth Webb: 4:44

Absolutely. I mean, the primary one that we're really, really excited about is now the ability to transfer variant information about a product's design from PLM into the ERP domain. I always liked to use simple analogies that I'm sure everybody who's listening to this product can associate with. So I always talk about cars. obviously close to my heart anyway. But it's something that everybody can associate with. As you will know, when you go to purchase a new vehicle, you start to list all of the things that you want in a new product. So I want to have an infotainment system. I want the two liter engine. I want the petrol version or the diesel version. I want it to have this leather upholstery and all of these things.

Tom Raftery: 5:26

I want a bigger battery cause I drive an EV. So, none of the petrol of or diesel rubbish.

Gareth Webb: 5:31

Excellent. Again another option, right? So that's good. So then you're talking about battery sizes and, charging rates and things like that. So all of these things are variants. But are fundamentally the same product is at the origin of that thing that you're purchasing, whatever it may be. What in the product lifecycle world we do is we design in all of that variability to allow you the consumer to make choices about what you want in your product to personalize it. And that's the big shift and the excitement that we've got around this particular release of the integration, because we will now be able to pass all of that designed in variability information from the PLM domain into the ERP domain, which means that we can now support customers who are maybe designing manufacturing products where we've got to have all of this variability available to the consumer. So imagine you go to your car configurator website. You go through all of your options. All of those options will then lead up to the development of an order. And then obviously that feeds back into the actual design elements of the product. And that's what we're now enabling with this latest version of our integration, as well as one of the key features of this new product and something we're very excited about.

Tom Raftery: 6:53

Okay. And just to bring it home for me. What does that do for the manufacturer?

Gareth Webb: 6:58

So for the manufacturer it simplifies their process of getting that variability through into the manufacturing process. By taking this variability through the integration, we remove the need for rather complex manual processes or around the order execution on the SAP side. So we can, get rid of those processes. We can shorten the overall lifecycle of the product then. Because we're not reproducing information, we're simply passing information, which has already been created between the two systems. And the aim is to therefore overall reduce the time it takes to get a product from the engineers. I was going to say whiteboard then, but that's a really archaic definition, but the virtual whiteboard that is their computer aided design system, into something that then becomes the physical product. So, everybody is trying to reduce their life cycles to address market trends, shifts in market, obviously being first to market is all important. So the more that we can do to pass information between these two systems, simplify that process means that you become way more efficient in the process of bringing a product to market.

Tom Raftery: 8:09

I assume if it's the original data that's coming through, rather than being manually reentered, you're getting over data errors, being introduced as well.

Gareth Webb: 8:19

Exactly that. So that's a key other driver, is that the quality of the information that's passed between the two systems being exactly the same. We want to master it once, as we would say, in a master data management capacity and then reuse it multiple times. And that's one of the core principles of why integration is so important to make sure that not only am being more efficient, but you're also not introducing error and therefore downstream problems as a result of transferring out of date information.

Tom Raftery: 8:50

Nice. Any other advantages, the new system gives?

Gareth Webb: 8:54

I mean, linked to that whole quality aspect is obviously change management. So one of the key things that you want to do as part of any new products introduction is understand any issues that are happening with that product may be in manufacturing or in use. And what has traditionally been the cases that we tend to have quite a disconnected process around change management within an enterprise. It's not always difficult to understand how a problem in the operational use. Then ultimately comes full circle and comes back with a resolution to that problem. So one of the key other features and functions of this new release is now what we call a closed-loop process between ERP and Teamcenter, the PLM solution. So it's now going to be possible for a company to raise change requests or problem reports, whatever it may be at any point in their process and have that linked all the way back through to the resolution that comes back from the design environment, where that change is ultimately redesigned or whatever the outcome of that particular change is. So that's a key fundamental shift in an integrated approach. And again, another example of where quality information can support the whole end- to-end process in making us more efficient. I think this is a really, really key point in a sense that this is the first embodiment of the reason why SAP and Teamcenter and Siemens actually started out on this journey. We want to bring these two processes and two products much closer together and change management is a core enabler of that vision if you like to bring these processes more closer together and therefore drive increasing value.

Tom Raftery: 10:41

Okay. Great. There are already third party solutions available for integrating SAP and Teamcenter. Why would anyone go for this solution rather than the any of the third party solutions that are available?

Gareth Webb: 10:56

I think what we've done with our solution is much more tightly coupled the two products together. Where Teamcenters process finishes SAP's process picks up. We're not expecting steady state data to pass between the two systems. So that really is key shift. Most other products that are on the marketplace will expect to be at a particular date of information before data transitions between the two systems. What we are now doing is breaking that down and saying, well, actually that's not now relevant. We want this whole process to determine the state; therefore much more tightly integrate the two solutions. And because we've fundamentally rewritten the way that the SAP side, we interact with the external system information that enables this process to take place and obviously that's unique to us. All other integrations would rely upon open APIs that exist within the SAP product set to do this kind of integration. And therefore it's not an integrated process. It's an orchestrated process, which is a little bit different. And obviously we're the only ones because it's the two vendors that are in effect, writing the solution that have that ability to integrate at that level.

Tom Raftery: 12:12

So if I am a manufacturer, first of all, I guess which industries in particular, you mentioned automotive, but are there other industries that this would be an ideal solution for? Then following on from that, if I am in one of those industries what do I do next to try and take advantage of this integration?

Gareth Webb: 12:35

The partnership was originally set up to obviously focus on discreet industries. But what we've noticed throughout the process of developing these solutions is their applicability to any industry. There's some of the concepts that I've just described with regards to the variant and configuration management capabilities of this certainly the release 2 are going to be much more applicable to complex products. Less so arounds, consumer based products.. Because the variability just isn't there. But certainly for airplane manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers, complex products with lots of variability, those types of customers are going to be really interested in the capability that we've developed. But that's not to say that in, even in product lines where you've got maybe different flavors of products, thinking of consumer goods, drinks or medical permutations, all of those things still have variability, whether it be labels on packaging, ingredients for certain geographies, that's all an example of variability in a product line. So although we say the variant configuration would generally be focused around those complex discreet products, it has certainly multiple market applicability, Because in some instances that ability has never been there before to pass that information, and therefore, if you are a company that's in those areas where you think, that sounds really interesting as an option. This is possibly the first time that being able to transfer that type of information has been feasible. And therefore it is multiple market appeal. And then in response to your second question there about how do you start the journey? Well, obviously the first thing is get in contact with us, let us understand what your processes are, how those processes that you're currently looking at map to what capability delivers. Then we can work with you to determine what the right course of action is, whether that's the integration is that the first start point of your journey through a more integrated end to end, product development process, or whether you already on that journey and how we can augment or add value to what you've already got designed. Because this isn't necessarily a rip up and replace integration approach. This can support other integrations that you may have, because as I said, we're looking at much tighter process orchestration rather than simply just passing data between systems.

Tom Raftery: 14:59

So, this is iteration number two, what comes next? What's on the roadmap for the development?

Gareth Webb: 15:06

The next stage is obviously a level of detail around some of the capability that we're introducing in this second release. We've got more options coming around the various configurations that you pass between the two systems. We've got further development of capability around our ability to transfer manufacturing information from PLM into the SAP domain. Also we start to look at the process of looking at other feature areas, particularly around things like program management, where obviously SAP has a really strong program management capability and how we integrate that set of business processes with the execution of the project plan and a process inside of a team center. So that's the focus of our third release. and obviously there's nuances and a lot lower level of detail that we could go into, but probably not for today's conversation. That's the third release that we've got coming at the end of this year.

Tom Raftery: 16:04

Okay. And if I jump on board now, do I get to take advantage of release three coming out to the end of the year?

Gareth Webb: 16:12

Absolutely. Yeah. So all of the development effort that we're putting in is designed to be, delivered as part of the general upgrade process and development process of our products. So if you purchase the product today, you're fully entitled to any of the enhancements that come in that product in the future. We would urge customers to start the journey as soon as possible because as I said, we've got an incredibly rich set of capability there already. And therefore, anything that comes in release 3 can be built on top of what you invest in. So, any investments that you make in terms of integrating the solution today are not lost. You certainly won't have to reimplement. It's just a build on top of what's already there. So why wait to unlock that value? Unlock the value right now. Start to make the savings as soon as possible. And then add to that set of savings when the future releases come along. It's a very good question actually, because it's something that I get posed quite a bit. And what I always say to customers is, can you afford to wait? And they say what do you mean by that? The question is this solution is going to unlock value. You can make those savings today if you wait that those savings that you could have started to make, have already been lost. So get started as early as possible.

Tom Raftery: 17:25

Nice. Nice Gareth. We're coming towards the end of the podcast. Now, is there any question that I have not asked that you wish I did or any aspect of this we have not touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Gareth Webb: 17:38

I think there's an area, obviously on top of the complexities that I mentioned around this variant management. This second release is also the first point at which we really start to move manufacturing information from Teamcenter product suite into SAP. And this is something that I know is really really important to a lot of customers that are out there, in terms of where they do certain features and functions within their business today. And, how is the integration going to support that? As I said on our last podcast, what we are not trying to do with our partnership is prescribe what the answer is to a customer. We're trying to enable the customer to work with us to determine the best option for them. In this release, we're starting to unlock some of the options that are available to customers. So for any customer that's out there that is using a more Teamcenter centric approach to how they do their manufacturing design, I'm talking about the design development of the bill of process or the manufacturing bill of materials. This second release is really the first point at which they will be able to transfer that manufacturing information along with their product definition from their domain into their ERP domain. and this is, again, the start of that transformation of a much richer set of data flowing between the two systems and and as I said a moment or two ago, in release three, we build on that further with the more closed loop element around those manufacturing processes. So that's a really key thing that why we're really doing the podcast today, because we want to get that message out there that, now we can get not just a product information, but all of the manufacturing information across from the Teamcenter solution into ERP for execution as well.

Tom Raftery: 19:22

Okay. Superb. Gareth, that's been really interesting if people want to know about yourself or about the Teamcenter integration or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, would you have me direct them?

Gareth Webb: 19:35

So if they visit the sap.com pages, there's search for Teamcenter. There are a number of connection points on there where you can reach out and request demos. All of those sorts of functions are available on that site as well. Also, we will be starting to do a set of blog posts as well with regards to capability that's in the product and you will have direct connection to some of the people in our product development teams that are also associated to the bringing this product to market. And obviously, Tom I'll provide you with my connection details. If people want to reach me directly, I'm always happy to respond directly to customers. Or again, if you're already interacting with our sales community and your account executives reach out to them, they know how to contact me. And I'm happy to speak to you directly or in a email conversation.

Tom Raftery: 20:21

Tremendous Gareth that's been great. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Gareth Webb: 20:25

My pleasure. Thank you.

Tom Raftery: 20:27

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about digital supply chains, head on over to sap.com/digitalsupplychain or simply drop me an email to Tom.Raftery@sap.com. If you like the show, please, don't forget to subscribe to it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes, as soon as they are published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks catch you all next time.