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Technical White Paper

Why is SAP PLM

a fantasy for the SME’s?
Overview:
Very rarely, a small or medium-sized business
(SMB) that is looking to gain a competitive
advantage will do so by improving their • Product development
Product Life Cycle Management operations.
Decision makers of such SMBs often look
at Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) • Portfolio management
just as a support function. They fail to
understand that PLM can significantly
help SMBs in the areas of day to day • Configuration management
operational and financial management & change control
including revenue improvement, cost
reduction, capital management, and risk
management. Whether it’s time to market, • Product validation
better customer service, reduction of scrap
and rework, lowering inventory levels, or & compliance
meeting compliance regulations, PLM is a
proven contributor. • Label Management
A research work from an Industry analysis
firm has found that 80% of all products fail • Document Management
to reach their target ROI. Interestingly the
reasons mentioned are the same as that
of what SAP PLM addresses as its primary
challenges: Misaligned stakeholders, Regardless of whether SMB’s use PLM as an
disparate decision making, disconnected application or handle the function manually, all of
business process, and fragmented the above-mentioned processes and practices are
product information. In general, any managed by SMB’s. But enabling the IT application,
PLM solution helps in bringing product- organizations can expect multi-fold effectiveness and
related information from a fragmented efficiency. Both of which impact the company bottom
department-level application to an line regarding potential margin, time to market, and
integrated enterprise level. This is done revenue impact. PLM system implementation helps
while managing corporate product data organizations simplify and shorten each phase of
and associated processes hence it becomes the product development process and save a lot of
the product system of record. resources involved in it. Choosing new technology
is a challenge for any organization especially for the
Some of the core small and midsize SMB since most software (particularly PLM software)
business issues addressed by PLM includes is perceived to have designed for meeting the needs
global product development, outsourcing, of a large enterprise.
product variance and complexity
management, launch time, time to volume
and regulatory compliance. Specifically, The Cloud is an easy, low cost
PLM for small manufacturers revolves
around improvement areas including:
way to get started on PLM.
Misconceptions about PLM among SMBs:
Many SMBs believe that PLM solutions sold to smaller
companies are repackaged versions of their enterprise-
class software, merely concealing irrelevant features while
still demanding an expensive IT infrastructure. Training and
Support costs are unaffordable that too at the expense
of Usability. Even the purchase can be time-consuming:
suppliers emphasize process over results with uninformative
websites, multiple sales calls, complex service proposals,
and tedious license negotiations.
One more misunderstanding is that PLM systems of the
large vendors are designed with large manufacturers such as
automobile manufacturers in mind and include functionality
that is irrelevant and inapplicable to the development needs
of a small organization. Further, the SMB with its limited
financial muscle is paying for functionality that will likely
never apply to its product design process.
But over the last decade, there are a lot of leading ERP
companies and significant new companies that have brought
in significant customization on PLM front for the SMBs.
With our expertise in working on SMB space for more than
two decades, we understand that the improvements have
significantly addressed all those pain points of small and
medium businesses. This also implies that those SMBs who
are going to adopt PLM shortly can have a clear competitive
advantage on the market compared to others.
Identify cost potentials and gain visibility throughout the lifecycle – and
better maintain product quality, drive profit margins, and mitigate risks.
What SMB’s want?
Since the SMB operates with a smaller
cash flow, markets fewer products
and has a smaller customer and
supplier base, it needs to be tailored
to their specific needs. The ongoing
increased emphasis on outsourcing has
dramatically altered the operational
landscape of the SMB and has become
a key consideration in choosing the
correct PLM system. Also for such SMB’s
who consistently look for developing
existing products or introducing new
products, the process should begin
with the engineers who face issues with
data management and communication
with other stakeholders.
SMB’s often worry about Implementation
time and costs when selecting a PLM
system rightly so because SMBs cannot
afford to reassign their scarce resources
to long-term PLM projects. Hence it
demands software designed for the
SMB to have a quicker implementation
process and transition time.
How can SAP PLM help you?
Various organizations are still following the traditional top-
down approach for product lifecycle management which are
often complicated, time-consuming and costly – which makes it
impractical. SAP’s product lifecycle management rapid deployment
solution has helped in rapid and better innovations along with
reduced timelines and costs. Now a day’s company can build
PLM on critical pillars: 1) design simulation, documentation, and
document management system, 2) integration with third-party
tools & 3) integration with the production environment.
For more product and product development-oriented
organizations, it helps achieve better time to market goals and
also reduces the cost. This improves company’s operations with
high-quality products and reduces labor and scrap costs. SAP PLM
RDS solution is helping many organizations achieve better PLM
goals faster, better performance & at less cost than our traditional
approaches.
For the SME’s the major pain, the area is when they need to collect
data from poorly maintained records and then collate all the data.
Also with the merger of the new companies and partners, the
systems cannot be modified as per their requirement. Training the
people again becomes huge task when we have multiple systems.
PLM is a business strategy for managing products more effectively
by bonding the product design with operations. PLM is a business
strategy for meeting the business goals by deploying the right
kind of technology, implementing best practices, and training
the people. It promises both the efficiency improvement and
innovation gains, which a proper automation, can expedite. It
involves the linking of technologies and the processes for product
design. This is designed in such a way that everyone is up-to-date
throughout the product cycle and can take the right decision at
right time with proper actions.
It is part of the SAP solution strategy for the extended supply
chain, a holistic business approach to manage the entire lifecycle
of a product, with connected processes in design, manufacturing,
logistics, and service. The early stages of new product development
involve stakeholders across multiple streams who would benefit
from visibility into ERP data as well as from a way to simplify the
maintenance of an overwhelming maze of spreadsheets.
Designed to drive profitability, SAP Product Lifecycle allows
companies to manage product and for both new product innovations
and customer-specific engineered products in line with strategic
targets. In the early stages when the design is evolving, and master
data is incomplete, transparency and proactive management are
critical to helping secure future product margins.
Solution Approach:
The solution approach should be robust and
easy to adopt, as it can be modified and tailored
as per the client’s requirements. Some of the
key areas that are taken into consideration
include the organization’s framework,
stakeholders, PLM maturity level, supporting
systems and infrastructure, future goals and
the key business process. As the scope of PLM
has grown with the expansion of software
functionality, there is a need to manage
this change and overcome organizational
resistance which has grown along with it.
Initially, during the planning stage, the detail
implementation plan is prepared considering
the scope, subject matter experts (SME),
risks and the timelines for the entire project.
Service providers use their PLM Capabilities to
facilitate these discussions and guide clients
in the direction that is appropriate for their
business context. Getting off on the best foot
and having visible success earlier should be a
consideration in this decision.
The solution is implemented as per the
roadmap. Also, the client organization plays
a key role by providing the experts with the
detailed requirements and access to the
process repository and infrastructure. This
would help the service provider to build a
robust and flexible solution which can be
easily adopted and used.
SAP Product Lifecycle Management is designed
as an end-to-end solution for entire lifecycle
including the early engineering stages. SAP
PLM tool provides a high-performance,
real-time calculation engine with a modern,
dedicated and role-based user interface. The
tool offers excel-like configuration and can be
personalized. The solution includes:
• Flexible, hierarchical product-
costing structures, with
native integration with the
SAP ERP application and
product lifecycle management
(PLM) data structures
• Application programming
interface (API) for integrating
with other applications
• What-if scenarios and analytics
to support smart design,
production, and supply chain
and sourcing decisions based on
alternative product structures,
cost rates or quantities
• Standard SAP business application
security, locking, and versioning
The solution approach of some leading service
providers would also emphasize not only on the
long-lasting relationship but also on the continuous
process improvement. The best-in-class companies
are enjoying substantial returns on their PLM
investments. These organizations have shaken off
the hangover, learned their lessons, and tackled
another transformational program with success. By
partnering with capable service providers, SMEs can
navigate them through smooth implementation and
collaboration. Some of the leading SAP partners have
even designed a set of tools to help clients define
the scope and prioritize program investments.
Conclusion:
In general solution, implementation has to
be holistic in approach using PLM as the
backbone. This enables the SMB’s to have more
transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency of
their product development process. It also
empowers them to remove the hidden cost and
components by restructuring and to optimize
their PLM process. Therefore a customized
framework can systematically prepare the SMBs
towards the implementation of the PLM solution
and also initiate the process improvements thus
Recipe with Side Panel
avoiding the resistance that could arise from
people, process, and system perspective. A
successful IT partner can make this leap effective
for SMBs with their capabilities on technology
and business fundamentals. The benefit of
PLM is realized when the application drives the
innovation, collaboration between the upstream
and downstream process and also takes the
SMBs to green objectives, rather than just being
a tool to maintain data.
Specification:
Recipe:

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at info@yash.com or visit www.yash.com

About YASH Technologies

YASH Technologies focuses on customer success. As a leading technology services and outsourcing partner for large and fast growing
global customers, the company leverages technology and flexible business models to drive innovation and value throughout its customer’s
enterprise. YASH customer centric engagement and delivery framework integrates specialized domain and consulting capabilities with
proprietary methodologies and solution offerings to provision application, infrastructure and end user focused Right-Sourcing services.
YASH is a SEI CMMI (Level 5) and an ISO 9001:2015 certified company with U.S. and India headquarters and regional sales and development
offices globally with customers spread across 6 continents.
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