SAP Honors Customers and Partners for Manufacturing Innovation

by Randi Polanich

Further demonstrating its commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration with its ecosystem of customers and partners, SAP AG today announced the winners of its first ever Manufacturing Co-Innovation Challenge. Established this year, the award recognizes customers' and partners' development of composite applications-flexibly deployable software that solves specialized business challenges across diverse industries. A panel of industry experts evaluated more than 35 entries from throughout the ecosystem of SAP customers, software partners and integration partners, and selected winners that exemplify the value of application composition and integration with SAP(R) xApp(TM) Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP xMII). The newly composed applications link with existing SAP software to simplify business processes, integrate manufacturing data into the enterprise and deliver optimized operational results. The awards were presented at the company's annual Adaptive Manufacturing Summit, being held today in San Francisco, Calif.

Whirlpool Tightly Connects Plant Floor and Warehouse Management Processes

Whirlpool Corporation identified an opportunity to improve visibility of products between the plant and warehouse. Developed on the basis of the composite application SAP xMII, the new composite application connects plant floor data with the company's warehouse management system to enable a more predictable manufacturing schedule, seamless transfer of data from the SAP(R) Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) application, reduced conveyor downtime and real-time notification of issues affecting transport of product from the plant to the warehouse.

"We are continuously impressed with the business value we are able to extract from the pairing of the SAP xMII composite application and our talented internal team," said Jim R. Shimp, vice president, global application development, Whirlpool Corporation. "We are proud to be recognized for developing this composite application and look forward to additional innovation that will drive value in our plant and corporate environments."

SEAL Consulting Mobilizes Inspection Teams to Boost Equipment Uptime

SAP integration partner SEAL Consulting used SAP xMII to develop a composite application that facilitates plant maintenance and inspections for employees using tablet PCs and handheld devices such as the RIM Blackberry. The mobile inspections composite application combines hand-writing recognition, SAP xMII, SAP(R) ERP and Google Gadgets into an application delivered on to the mobile device to speed time-to-repair, improve equipment uptime and optimize inspection and maintenance process within a plant.

Geometric Software Ensures Product Quality from the Shop Floor

SAP software partner Geometric Software has created a product quality management application that integrates business and operational processes across manufacturing, quality assurance, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and product life-cycle management (PLM). The resulting composite application enables real-time business process integration of core functionality from the SAP ERP application and SAP(R) Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM), such as quality management capabilities, with manufacturing execution solutions (MES) to respond in real time with corrective or preventive actions, determine the root cause quickly by bringing manufacturing and engineering together, and perceive potential quality issues in real time by analyzing shop floor data.

"With more than 30 years of experience working with the world's leading manufacturers, SAP understands the complex, heterogeneous nature of the production environment across multiple industries and across different manufacturing styles," said Harald Stuckert, senior vice president and general manager of PLM, SCM and Manufacturing, SAP AG. "Through our manufacturing co-innovation strategy and the open composition platform of SAP NetWeaver, our customers are able to experience the real benefit of the architectural shift to enterprise SOA by addressing their real-world, unique business challenges in the creation of composite applications that are quick to implement, easy to scale and deliver a rapid time-to-value. The variety of entries we received reflects the unbounded opportunity for co-innovation on the SAP platform across every aspect of our customers' business."