The recently held SAP NOW Week 2018 conference aimed to inspire Czech companies with the possibilities of smart technologies and show them how to become a modern enterprise.
Over 800 participants attended the event over the course of four days, with around seventy expert presentations in six thematic blocks. When it comes to the modern company, we don’t have to mention artificial intelligence, machine learning, or the Internet of Things right away. A modern company is defined by how it can respond to the world around it by properly evaluating and “monetizing” the data it has in its IT systems.
The success of any technological innovation is not just based on a great idea, a customer application, a new product, or service. The key is the ability to connect data and processes with human capital and to exploit the potential that is offered.
At the conference, our output outlined the specific potential we see for manufacturing companies. However, these practices can be generalized and are applicable to other sectors.
In a nutshell, the Advanced Planning System (APS), complemented by our years of experience and SAP PP/DS capabilities, is able to plan the production of a large number of parts—often in different production cycles, with different production speeds and technologies.
Previously, APS implementations were very complex and resource intensive. Today, we are successfully addressing this with the new industry-specific SAP Manufacturing module, which is part of SAP S/4. This uses time-continuous and heuristic scheduling, working with a high number of algorithms and variables.
The result of such real-time planning and monitoring is a reduction in production time and an overall increase in productivity:
- Reduction of production lead times
- Reduction of stocks
- Increased productivity
- Alignment of different plans across the company
- Increased availability of critical parts
- Better feasibility of plans and targeted planning
- Allows planners to focus on current problems and bottlenecks in production
Are you asking the right questions?
Even if you know your business perfectly—and often, paradoxically, because of this—it can be useful to take an independent view and identify opportunities where technology can unlock the potential to do things more simply and efficiently. For starters, you just need to know the outline of where your business stands and then ask the right questions.
- Can you correctly assess development opportunities—resources, linkages, and processes, their impacts, etc.?
- Are you able to effectively collect and connect data to draw out what can move you forward?
- How quickly do you react to market changes, adjust internal processes, and what kind of customer experience do you provide to your clients?