CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
April 2007
CIMdata News
Ask the Expert: What is Your Experience with SAP IPPE as a Collaborative Tool?
CIMdata's Director of Research, Ken Amann and Director of Consulting Services, Peter Bilello, address the question What is Your Experience with SAP IPPE as a Collaborative Tool? in Managing Automation's Ask the Expert column.
Their Answer :
With the introduction of SAP's integrated Product and Process Engineering (iPPE), SAP launched an enhanced approach to the way mySAP PLM manages product structures. This approach addresses the requirements of organizations that need to manage a large variety of complex product configurations. Although initially developed to meet the needs of the automotive industry, SAP has found that iPPE is of interest to mechanical and plant engineering, aerospace, electronics, and other high-tech companies as well. In addition, SAP reports that iPPE is the foundation for other applications, such as Product Designer, to manage product features and requirements structures within the early engineering phases of a product, and for its Recipe Management application.
The organization of data within the iPPE is structured in three main components:
1. The Product Variant Structure (PVS), to enable a continuous step-by-step product definition
2. The process structure, with the activities that relate to the corresponding product structure items and the corresponding factory layout structure
3. The factory layout structure, including the work stations in an assembly line
Given iPPE's capabilities and functional design as described above, it is not what CIMdata would call a collaborative tool (i.e., a product development tool that supports collaborative development internally and throughout the extended enterprise). mySAP PLM's functionality in support of collaboration in this manner generally focuses on the use of cFolders and cProjects
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