Business Requirements
The business requires the ability to monitor and analyze manufacturing processes and plant performance, both historically and current, and report on the results.
According to SAP Reference Business Architecture the Manufacturing Performance Management business area comprises the following capabilities (Figure 1 - available to view in SAP Signavio Process Explorer
Figure 1 – Manufacturing Performance Management Business Capabilities
Business Capabilities and Process Alignment
From the “Plan to Fulfill” end-to-end business process you can drill down to the activities enabled by the business capabilities (Figure 2):
Figure 2 – Business Process Module – Activities - Capabilities
The Solution Value Flow Diagram (Figure 3) shows the implementation of a Solution Process Module by depicting an implementable combination of Solution Components and their corresponding Solution Capabilities for hybrid deployment.
Figure 3 – Solution Value flow
Solution Options
SAP’s manufacturing solutions offers capabilities to analyze, report, and document manufacturing data. In addition to the core manufacturing solutions customer should consider corporate-wide data warehousing and enterprise analytics as part of the target application architecture with LOB specific content.
The following solutions are available to enable Manufacturing Performance Management capabilities (see Figure 3 above).
- SAP S/4HANA Embedded Analytics
- SAP Digital Manufacturing for Insights, Embedded Analytics
- SAP Analytics Cloud
- SAP Datasphere
- SAP BW/4HANA (only if already exists in the customer’s landscape)
Note: SAP Manufacturing Execution (ME) and SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII) are still available, however, the latest release (SAP ME 15.5, SAP MII 15.5) will reach the end of mainstream maintenance in 2027 (extended in 2030), and there are no plans for further releases of SAP ME/MII. Therefore, SAP ME+MII are not considered as potential solutions in this article. For further details please refer to (SAP Maintenance Strategy: Maintenance 2040, Product Availability Matrix (PAM)).
Moving forward, the platform of innovation is SAP Digital Manufacturing (aka SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud) as a key component of SAP’s strategic manufacturing solution portfolio.
In the context of the manufacturing performance management both SAP S/4HANA and SAP Digital Manufacturing provides core operational reporting and analytics capabilities. SAP Analytics Cloud is embedded in both S/4HANA and Digital Manufacturing to allow users to analyze, simulate, plan, discover, predict, and collaborate all in one place, seamlessly embedded into the Fiori UI.
Characterization of the Solution Options
The brief description below focuses on the analytics capabilities of SAP S/4HANA and SAP Digital Manufacturing. The enterprise data warehousing and analytics solutions are highlighted for completeness, but the detailed architecture considerations are described in a separate, dedicated article.
SAP S/4HANA Embedded Analytics
With the seamless integration of analytics features in S/4HANA, customer can benefit from a variety of analysis options in an environment with simplified data model, new user experience, advanced processing and deployment options suitable to their business needs. Embedded analytics includes technical embedding of analytical functionality and visualizations for seamless interoperability between transactional and analytical aspects of an optimized business process. Leverage out-of-the-box analytics for key manufacturing figures such as quantities and product specifications. Manufacturing analytics involve measuring operational performance to react quickly with the necessary adjustments.
While the fact that SAP S/4HANA covers all operational reporting, embedded analytics provides additional capabilities:
- “Insight-to-action” - Use real-time data and analytics findings to navigate to the transaction to initiate the necessary changes. Analytical elements allow the end user to become aware of the situation and get guided to the transaction itself. The reporting elements may also already contain AI-generated information.
- “fact-based process handling” - Use analytical visualizations to prioritize the order of work.
- functionality for end users - Fiori based visualizations, configurable KPIs, role-based overview pages and cockpits, flexible drill downs, simulations and predictions, etc.
- Key user tools for the Analytics Specialist to manage KPIs and create reports and dashboards.
For additional details please refer to SAP S/4HANA Analytics | SAP Help Portal
Note: SAP Analytics Cloud Stories (Business Content Packages) are now fully embedded in SAP S/4HANA. For the available packages please see the online documentation: Business Content Packages | SAP Help Portal
High level architecture of S/4 HANA Embedded Analytics
SAP Digital Manufacturing for Insights
With SAP Digital Manufacturing for insights, customer can analyze and optimize their production operations based on data provided by SAP Digital Manufacturing for execution. The production data is structured and stored in Manufacturing Data Objects (MDOs) that are ready to use for analytics. These MDOs can be accessed using external APIs. Users can live monitor the production processes, analyze data sets that cover longer periods using operational analytics and obtain deeper insights into the production processes using advanced analytics features.
Digital Manufacturing for Insights (DMi) aims to provide an easy to consume and intuitive self-service manufacturing analytics platform that supports our customers’ expectation to analyse manufacturing data, having real-time visibility and transparency into the shop floor to fuel business decisions toward better efficiency in their operation and improved quality.
Key capabilities
Manufacturing Data Layer
- With the Manufacturing Data Layer, data from Digital Manufacturing for Execution is available in a single store to allow cross plant data analysis and comparison.
- This harmonized data from multiple sources are stored into well-defined schema definitions called Manufacturing Data Objects (MDOs) comprised of Master Data, Transactional Data & Precalculated Data that enables business users to design and perform several queries and draw reports out of their manufacturing systems using embedded Analytics powered by SAP Analytics Cloud.
- It is evolving to an Open Platform that allows full read access to all DM information via APIs and going forward also write APIs to send data from any data source into predefined MDOs.
Analytics/Insights
- Live Monitoring with Line Monitor, Andon Boards focusing on near real-time analytics looking at mainly current day/current shift.
- Operational analytics: Self Service environment to build all relevant manufacturing KPIs and dashboards on SAC technology that is embedded in DMi. Going forward sample content is provided. Typical analytics: planned vs. actual quantities, planned vs. actual times, quality (good vs. bad pieces).
- Advanced Analytics: KPIs and analytics capabilities that are based on advanced logic such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness are provided with the application and can be consumed for live monitoring and operational analytics.
Architecture
Enterprise Analytics
Customer can extend the core Manufacturing Analytics with and integrate into the Enterprise-wide Analytics landscape. SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud are the key applications to be considered for the target application architecture. SAP BW/4HANA is also possible, however SAP Datasphere is SAP’s strategic target solution for all data warehouse and data management use cases in the public cloud (SAP's Overall Data Warehousing Strategy).
SAP BW NetWeaver release 7.5 is nearing the end of maintenance in 2027 (or 2030 with extended maintenance). SAP BW/4HANA is supported until at least 2040 as per the maintenance strategy update.
SAP Datasphere and SAP BW/4HANA provide a flexible framework for a hybrid deployment, making it easier to adopt SAP Datasphere at your own pace as requirements evolve over time. Customers can run both solutions side-by-side, during their transition to the cloud. In SAP Datasphere we also provide a component called SAP BW bridge, which enables all existing SAP BW customers to move existing data models to our strategic target solution SAP Datasphere. Customers can leverage SAP BW data structures, transformations, customizations, and skills.
SAP Analytics Cloud is an all-in-one cloud product offered as software as a service (SaaS) for business intelligence (BI), planning, and predictive analytics. Built natively on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), it provides a unified and secure public cloud experience to maximize data-driven decision making. SAP Analytics Cloud is an end-to-end cloud solution that brings together business intelligence, augmented analytics, predictive analytics, and enterprise planning in a single system.
Architecture
Additional information
Data and Analytics | Business Solutions and Tools | SAP
SAP Analytics Cloud | BI, Planning, and Predictive Analysis Tools
SAP Datasphere | Unified Data Experience
Criteria to determine the most suitable target solution
Based on the characterization of the solution options both SAP S/4HANA and Digital Manufacturing enables the necessary manufacturing analytics capabilities. Embedded analytics provides advanced analytics features on top of the standard operational reports. The core manufacturing applications are sufficient however they can integrate with the enterprise data and analytics solution to form a comprehensive application architecture. We assume that SAP S/4HANA is part of the target application architecture - the customer already running SAP S/4HANA or planning the transformation to S/4HANA.
Questions that can provide some orientation from Manufacturing Performance Management perspective
- What is the Manufacturing application architecture?
If both S/4HANA and Digital Manufacturing are part of the target architecture, it is more beneficial to leverage the Digital Manufacturing Insights for operational reporting and plant/shop floor performance analytics. S/4HANA can support additional manufacturing analytics. - Is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), live monitoring or shop floor data required?
SAP Digital Manufacturing Insights offers unique capabilities that are not available in S/4HANA. Together with manufacturing execution DM should be considered for the target architecture. - Does customer run an SAP BW system?
As the mainstream maintenance is nearing its end, consider BW modernization and transition to SAP Datasphere - Modernize SAP Business Warehouse to SAP Datasphere. - Customer runs BW/4HANA?
Consider BW modernization strategy and plan the transition to Datasphere while running BW/4HANA parallel. - Customer using SAP Analytics Cloud?
Consider SAP Analytics Cloud for visualization and consumption in the analytical layer of the target architecture.
Decision Tree
A simple decision tree to determine the target application architecture is illustrated below:
Conclusion
Companies using SAP have been leveraging Manufacturing operational reports and analytics in their ERP and data warehousing / analytics solutions and moving to S/4HANA they can continue to do so. While SAP S/4HANA has the standard core Manufacturing Performance Management capabilities, customers recognize the need for more robust digital solution to manage manufacturing operations close to the SFC and therefore using real-time data for live monitoring of production processes and advanced analytical metrics to measure performance (e.g. OEE). Both S/4HANA and Digital Manufacturing equipped with embedded analytics - to assure the optimization of manufacturing processes, the close alignment and integration of transactional and analytical components is essential. Therefore, the usage of embedded analytics should be maximized wherever possible.
The operational reporting and analytics can be extended with and integrated into an enterprise-wide data and analytics architecture.
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