With the advent of technologies such as IOT sensors, machine learning and artificial intelligence, this is a perfect example of a task that is crying out to be automated. 

SAP Visual Inspection, a solution in SAP Digital Manufacturing does just that. It brings ML/AI to this repetitive process, sparing not only the operator’s eyesight, but also mitigating the inherent risk of human error and undetected quality issues. 

The operator trains the system “on the job,” building a model for automation. A camera image of each part is captured and examined by the operator for defects. If the part is good, it’s marked as conforming and likewise, non-conforming parts are labeled defective – the analytical dataset that is created is fed into the machine learning model. The solution gets smarter with each new image and exception that it learns, and it requires no programming.  

Ultimately, the automated inspection process is faster and more accurate, reducing waste and freeing the operator for higher value tasks. With better quality comes higher customer satisfaction; reduced waste improves sustainability metrics; and employee satisfaction increases with the reduction in repetitive and stressful work. 

As the example of SAP Visual Inspection demonstrates, insights from AI can help manufacturing organizations lower defect rates and thereby increase production of ready-to-deliver materials, reduce packing and delivery delays, experience fewer servicing claims, and improve asset health and maintenance. 

With the cutting-edge tools of SAP for Product Lifecycle Management, you can create virtual models of products and production processes, simulate various scenarios, and take actions to optimize for maximum efficiency. This means you can utilize product, business and operational data along the whole Design to Operate process integrated in your ERP environment to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven contextualized decisions that will enhance your bottom line. 

For example, one of our customers is using our Augmented Reality App to reduce time for their service technicians by identifying the right spare parts quickly and reliably.

But that's not all. By using visualization tools, you can also boost collaboration between teams and increase communication effectiveness. By creating a shared understanding of the product or component through the product model, you can facilitate better teamwork, generate more ideas, and drive innovation. 

With our cloud solution SAP Enterprise Product Development, you can create Digital Twins in 3D, which are virtual models of products or processes that allow you to simulate and analyze different scenarios. By testing the impact of different materials, processes, or design changes, you can optimize product performance and efficiency, while reducing costs and achieving sustainability goals.

One way for manufacturing companies to address these challenges is leveraging Industry Business Networks like the SAP Business Network. These networks provide a means for better collaboration, resource allocation, and the development of new business models that can differentiate products in a crowded marketplace. SAP Business Network is a cloud-based collaboration network that enables buyers to collaborate with trading partners, regardless of type or size. With the SAP Business Network, companies can collaborate with suppliers, contract manufacturers, logistics and services providers, asset operators, maintenance contractors, and more. Already today the SAP Business network is trusted by millions of companies across 190 countries who transact more than $4,5T annually.

For companies that want to go beyond the capabilities of existing business networks especially when they require more industry specific functionality, data sovereignty or want to avoid being tied to just one network operator, open industry data ecosystems are emerging. These ecosystems provide core services for collaboration and data exchange but for each participant, the ecosystem allows them to retain full control over their data while granting access to others on a need-to-know basis.

One good example of such an open data ecosystem is the lighthouse project Catena-X, which is being developed by leaders and SAP in the automotive industry. At this year’s Hannover Messe automotive industry pioneers demonstrate for the first time how the standardized, sovereign and industry-wide data space works at the Catena-X booth. The use cases that Catena-X supports are mainly supply chain related and as such relevant beyond the automotive industry.

Building on the success of Catena-X, leading manufacturers, industry associations and the German government are now coming together to create Manufacturing-X, which takes the concepts and architectures of Catena-X and applies them to the complete manufacturing industry. The aim of Manufacturing-X is to significantly boost the competitiveness, resilience, and sustainability of the German and European manufacturing industry at large.  SAP is a driving force behind this initiative as well with the aim to ensure compatibility of the SAP portfolio and especially existing SAP Business Network solutions with the emerging technologies. 

In summary, both Industry Business Networks and open data ecosystems have their place in the manufacturing industry. Industry Business Networks provide a fast start into collaboration and resource allocation, while open data ecosystems can augment existing networks where increased data sovereignty is required. As the manufacturing industry continues to evolve, we are likely to see more companies and organizations adopting open data ecosystems to facilitate collaboration and drive innovation. By working together in a more collaborative and transparent way.

To protect your business from supply chain risk, you need to start a process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating potential disruptions or threats to the continuity and performance of a supply chain. In other words, you need to deal with Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM).

The main goal of supply chain risk management is to ensure the smooth functioning of the supply chain and minimize the impact of disruptions on the organization's operations, profitability, and reputation. Here are the five steps supply chain planners should take to increase risk resiliency:

1. Risk identification: Recognize potential risks and vulnerabilities in the supply chain by analyzing internal and external factors, such as suppliers, transportation, production processes, and distribution networks.

SAP is collaborating with partners like Everstream to provide visibility into the movement of goods and identifying any potential disruptions or delays. This allows companies to quickly respond to issues and minimize the impact on their operations. 

SAP has also introduced a risk dashboard based on risks that can be found within the supply chain planning data itself. It can illustrate risk areas resulting from low forecast accuracy, inaccurate safety stock levels, resource bottlenecks, and excess CO2 emissions. The risk dashboard content is based on the new analytics stories app which is now available in SAP Integrated Business Planning (SAP IBP). Read the recent blog for more details and see the look and feel of the solution in this video.

2. Risk assessment: You can evaluate the likelihood and potential impact of each identified risk on the supply chain through qualitative or quantitative methods, such as risk matrices, scenario analysis, or probabilistic modeling. 

With SAP IBP, planners can define multiple risk scenarios and analyze the impact of each scenario on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue, profit, and customer service levels. These simulations help organizations understand the potential implications of different decisions and identify the most suitable course of action.

3. Risk prioritization: You can rank the risks based on their significance and potential impact on the organization's objectives. Scenario planning in SAP IBP facilitates cross-functional collaboration to ensure that the organization's decisions are based on a comprehensive understanding of the potential risks.

4. Risk mitigation: You can develop and implement strategies to reduce or eliminate the identified risks. This may involve diversifying suppliers, and intensifying collaboration with your business network. 

It is essential to establish robust processes, trustful long-term relationships, and feedback loops with critical suppliers to, for example, exchange data on expected demand, available supplier capacity, and inventory. Specifically, by sharing forecasts and demand plans digitally with your suppliers and receiving commitments, you can see if supply will meet your needs, which increases visibility and reduces cycle times.

By providing broad visibility into your trading partners’ inventory and capacity, SAP Business Network helps you identify supply issues early, even on a n-tier supplier level, and helps you avoid supply chain disruptions.

5. Risk monitoring and review: It is important to continuously monitor the supply chain to identify new risks and assess the effectiveness of existing risk mitigation strategies. As new information becomes available or market conditions change, organizations can update their scenarios and re-evaluate their risk mitigation plans. This iterative approach helps companies stay agile and adapt to changing circumstances more effectively.

Effective supply chain risk management requires collaboration and coordination among various stakeholders, including suppliers, manufacturers, logistics providers, and customers. By proactively managing risks, supply chain planners can improve the resilience of their supply chains, reduce operational costs, and enhance their competitive advantage in the market.

Find out why IDC says SAP solutions can help you realize a holistic supply chain planning strategy that gives you greater control and reduces supply chain risk.

Your organization needs to collaborate with all your trading partners across the supply chain, especially since Scope 3 emissions can make up to 70% of your carbon footprint. You need information from your trading partners about their sustainability initiatives to ensure that, collectively, you are meeting your objectives.

By increasing collaboration across your supply chain, coupled with smarter product and packaging design, the introduction of circular economy principles into a manufacturing business can, in the long run, increase profitability and enable new business models. ​However, manufacturing companies must initiate their sustainability transformation now to ensure they are complying with an ever-increasing number of regulations​, embedding sustainability principles into processes and business models, and driving sustainability across their operations and supply chain for greater stakeholder trust​. 

To assist, SAP recently unveiled the following innovations at Hannover Messe:

Transform to Net Zero

Company-specific sustainable package guidelines are now supported in SAP Responsible Design and Production so customers can monitor, measure, and act to eliminate waste during packaging design. Enhanced capabilities support the legal requirements of Spanish, Italian and UK customers to identify  trade-offs and simplify product portfolio decisions. The solution enables manufacturers to track the global regulatory landscape and maintain reporting on producer responsibility, voluntary commitments, and taxes on materials, such as plastics. Using the solution, they can combine and manage data on material properties and logistics across silos and feed insights into material impacts and circularity back into their ERP and supply chain systems.

Selecting Sustainable Suppliers

SAP has extended its integration with EcoVadis within the Trading Partner Profile (TPP), enabling suppliers on SAP Business Network to showcase their EcoVadis sustainability rating status to differentiate themselves in search results and help  buyers identify opportunities to drive toward compliance with emerging ESG due diligence and reporting legislation, or select suppliers who can help them reach sustainability commitments.

In addition, with the latest human rights due diligence legislation in countries like Germany and The Netherlands, suppliers can expect human rights, carbon footprint, and security assessment requests from their buyers to multiply. Our new self-assessment innovation on SAP Business Network automates and reduces the number and redundancy of assessment requests. If a supplier receives a request they have already completed, they can share the assessment from the network back to that buyer to action.  

These are just a few of the sustainability innovations that SAP has underway. Please provide us with some feedback about what you and your company are doing to promote sustainability and what challenges you are facing in the process. Stop by for a tour of our booth or a demo of our sustainability solutions at Hannover Messe. In the meantime, take a look at our sustainability solutions and subscribe to our newsletter.