SAP aims at early stage product definition with composite app

The initial stages of product development require the melding of both ideas and data sources. This is the kind of creative environment that enterprise suite vendor SAP says its new xApp for product definition, xPD, is well suited for. The solution—built on SAP's Netweaver integration and services-based architecture technology—already is seeing use from some SAP customers.

The xPD solution was released March 31, and Dallas-based consumer goods manufacturer Kimberly Clark presented on its use of xPD at a recent SAP conference.

According to Dennis Moore, senior VP for SAP's xApps unit, xPD is a composite application that addresses idea management and product concept development. Moore says users typically pair xPD with another xApp called SAP Resource and Portfolio Management, xRPM, and product life-cycle management applications from SAP's business suite.

"These xApps lend themselves to business processes that require a lot of collaboration, and that make use of analytics. They also use business process management technology and run in concert with other applications, including the systems of record for the data involved.

"Traditionally, PLM applications have been highly transactional—for product data management or engineering changes," Moore continues. "But on the front end of product development, you're looking at the need to collaborate around various media—text documents, or focus-group data—and typically, these are generated by different organizations using different applications."

Moore says he can't name xPD's early adopters, but they're found across several sectors, including consumer goods, heavy equipment, and high tech. "Our development of xPD was driven by these users who want a more predictable approach to the 'front end' of product development," says Moore.

Moore says xApps are built on what SAP calls an Enterprise Service Architecture because they leverage Netweaver technologies, which include an application server, integration broker, master data management layer, a portal, and business process management layer.

Ken Amann, director of research with analyst firm CIMdata, Ann Arbor, Mich., says other major PLM vendors are moving toward greater use of components, but he stops short of calling a services-based architecture a prerequisite for product portfolio management and early-stage idea management. "There are multiple ways to attack the problems, such as using portal technology and dashboards," he says. "Whatever the approach, it involves aggregating information and applying analytics."

Amann says that SAP is "speaking to issues its customers are clearly interested in." However, he notes other PLM vendors also have solutions for portfolio, idea, and requirements management.