Two titans of the enterprise software world came a little closer to working together as Siemens and SAP announce a new PLM/ERP partnership.
The move has been described by Siemens as a means to deliver integrated end-to-end software solutions across product lifecycle, supply chain and asset management.
The new partnership will leverage the industry expertise of both companies, and proposes bringing together their complementary software solutions for product lifecycle, supply chain and asset management.
What’s key here is that solutions from both Siemens and SAP will be sold by both organisations allowing both to cover the true full lifecycle, from requirements capture through design, engineering production and into the field with SAP’s asset management.
As with all things enterprise focused, there’s much talk of Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0 and connected products and enterprise.
As a first step, it looks like the partnership will see SAP sell Siemens Teamcenter as the core foundation for product lifecycle collaboration and product data management, while Siemens will offer SAP Intelligent Asset Management and SAP Project and Portfolio Management solutions.
“Through this agreement, both SAP and Siemens will be able to complement and integrate their respective offerings in order to offer customers the first truly integrated and enhanced solutions for product lifecycle management (PLM), supply chain, service and asset management,” said the announcement.
“This will enable customers to form a true digital thread integrating all virtual models and simulations of a product or asset with real-time business information, feedback and performance data over the entire lifecycle.”
It’s going to be interesting to watch this play out; Siemens and SAP are competitive organisations but there’s not a huge amount of overlay in product offerings.
Those that are using both Teamcenter and SAP will know that integration between the two is something can be fraught with problems.
While there’s always been connectivity at the hand off from PLM to ERP, having the integration ready to go before the integration consultants show up on site might be a benefit to the customer. There’s an indication that the two companies will look to develop applications from an ‘end-to-end lifecycle perspective’ to help customers achieve a seamless digital thread to improve business performance.
As a last comment, I just learned that SAP stands for “Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing”. Who knew?
If you want to learn more on this announcement, it’s worth having a read of Verdi Ogewell’s post at PLM-ERP news – Ogewell discusses monopolies and what this might mean for competitors.
