Siemens, SAP Expand Partnership to Deliver Intelligent Service and Asset Lifecycle Management Solutions

Software company SAP SE (Walldorf, Germany) and Siemens Digital Industries Software (Plano, Texas) announced on April 14 an expansion of its Jul 2020 strategic partnership, which will enable both companies to deliver new solutions for the service and asset lifecycle. With an initial focus on discrete manufacturing, Siemens will begin to offer SAP Asset Intelligence Network, the SAP Asset Strategy and Performance Management application and the SAP Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management package. SAP will offer Siemens’ Teamcenter software service lifecycle management (SLM) portfolio to enable an ecosystem with integrated service engineering and asset operations

These new cloud-based services will reportedly help industrial equipment manufacturers to increase critical asset operational efficiency, avoid unplanned downtime and shorten design cycles in asset engineering projects. This, in turn, can help maximize business value over the entire product and service/asset lifecycle and enable new collaborative processes between manufacturers and operators. Moreover, SAP and Siemens note that the new solutions will enable industrial equipment manufacturers to provide new services and business models for installed equipment and help owners and operators use operational insights to increase asset utilization while maximizing safety and reducing risks.

“Siemens is helping industrial companies make more confident decisions by closing the loop between IT [informational technology] and OT [operational technology],” said Cedrik Neike, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of Siemens Digital Industries. “Through this partnership we are enabling a true digital thread that integrates real time operations-based data with virtual product and asset models using components from both Siemens and SAP to provide operational insights. This can accelerate digital transformation for industrial equipment owners, operators and manufacturers who can offer new business models including performance and usage-based cost, and to more efficiently use assets.”

According to Siemens and SAP, companies that design, engineer, operate and service industrial assets strive to improve operational efficiency and avoid unplanned downtime, while managing the complex relationship between original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and asset operator. Through this partnership, both companies plan to offer solutions where service design content is shared with operations and back to product design as part of a closed-loop digital twin. The digital twin can be used to plan and execute service operations for plants, fleets, equipment and factories through a close collaboration among network partners. 

“Siemens and SAP share a common vision for the future of industrial enterprises,” says Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE for SAP Product Engineering. “Through this partnership we can offer unparalleled benefits to our customers by delivering a digital thread across production and supply chains — from product design, production and operations to maintenance. This will enable companies to improve overall business performance and return on assets. Taking advantage of cloud solutions such as the SAP Asset Intelligence Network to strengthen collaboration and information exchange, together Siemens and SAP can help our customers accelerate Industry 4.0.”

The new Siemens solutions are designed to leverage elements of Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio of software and services including the Teamcenter portfolio, MindSphere, the industrial IoT as a service and Asset Performance Management solution from Siemens, and the Mendix low-code platform and DataHub, together with SAP Intelligent Asset Management and SAP Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management cloud applications.