SAP's SOA-based software should bode well for sustainability

Earlier this week, SAP announced
general availability for its Business Suite 7 enterprise
software. This new generation of its software is based on
services-oriented architecture (SOA), and promises to help
companies more quickly arrive at needed functionality by using
pretested components that support specific business processes, or
what SAP calls “value scenarios.” It turns out that part of the
value in some of these value scenarios involves green product
development.

Shortly after this week’s announcement, I got the chance to
interview Vivek Bapat, VP of solution marketing for SAP’s
manufacturing, supply chain, and product lifecycle management (PLM)
solutions. Bapat says one of the scenarios this new generation of
software will support will be integrated product development that
is able to dip into supply chain application data to support green
product development. Bapat says value scenarios such as “Integrated
Product Development” and “Embedded Product Compliance” help
manufacturers arrive at sustainble product development easier
because the components aren’t hampered by traditional application
boundaries.

For example, if a product development team needs supply chain
management (SCM) data such as information on packaging, or
materials declarations for components, a value scenario can bring
together the needed data without the need for upgrades to entire
PLM and SCM product suites. “These value scenarios represent
connected business processes that flow across application
boundaries,” says Bapat. The “enhancement packs” for the new
generation of software, says Bapat, support this smaller
step-change approach.

If SAP’s new software and vision prove themselves in the
marketplace, it would bode well for the ability of manufacturers to
more quickly develop greener, sustainable products and supply
chains. This is because traditionally, product development systems
didn’t have fingertip access to supply chain data unless someone
programmed a custom integration between PLM and SCM software
suites, and retested that integration after every big bang upgrade
to either suite. Few companies could manage this, so traditionally,
supply chain information needed by product development teams needed
to be requested, hunted down in another system, and then thrown
over the wall back into hands of the product development team.

Time will tell how many SAP users move into this new generation of
software and actually start applying it to product development
processes, but at least one SAP user already is moving toward this.
Ealier this year, when SAP unveiled details
of Business Suite 7’s ramp up program, I got to interview Ed
Toben, senior VP of global IT for Colgate-Palmolive, the consumer
goods manufacturer and one of the ramp-up program participants.
Toben told me a more effective “product ideation” process that has
access to needed SCM data is one of the first functional benefits
Colgate-Palmolive wants to gain from Business Suite 7.

Julie Fraser, president of Cambashi Inc., the U.S. operation of
U.K.-based analyst firm Cambashi, believes newer,
component-based software could help knock down the application
barriers that have hampered green product development, but warns
that “it won’t happen overnight.” But Fraser is optimistic that
over time, companies will adopt newer software that lets them dip
into data traditionally held in separate systems. For example
Fraser says, companies could benefit by being able to quickly
assess the likely supply network for a would-be product without
having to force-feed data between PLM and SCM domains. SOA-enabled
systems should help, says Fraser, because needed functional
components could work together without having to put all the data
into one giant system of record, or engage in painstaking
integration.

“There doesn’t have to be the big high walls around these domains,”
Fraser says. “Supply chain information is clearly a critical elment
that people want to figure out how to bring into the product
development process.”

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