One of the perks of my job is that I get to spend a considerable amount of time with our industry partners. Whether I’m talking with a startup software company or an established global service partner, two words — two letters actually — are the hot topic of almost every engagement lately: artificial intelligence, specifically business AI.
As we navigate this brave new world of business AI, SAP partners are playing an essential role as equal parts technology disrupters, trusted advisors, and innovation multipliers. They work and live at the edge, breaking technology rules with every new solution and innovation they bring to the table. These companies are passionate about their AI-driven solutions, which will provide what SAP manufacturing customers want most for their businesses nowadays: more efficiency, accuracy, and agility in their production operations and supply chains. Their energy and passion are positioning them to redefine the rules of engagement regarding how partner ecosystems work.
It doesn’t matter what kind of partner you are — you could be on the build, implement/service, or sell sides of the SAP partner ecosystem, the opportunities to innovate, and co-innovate with SAP and other partners, solutions that bring value to customers in discrete manufacturing industries are as limitless as our imaginations. It’s an exciting time to be an SAP industry partner.
Innovative Solutions from SAP and Partners Give Our Manufacturing Customers a Competitive Edge
Giving our manufacturing customers the business AI solutions they need to thrive in highly competitive and often volatile markets is an absolute must. Whether those solutions are developed by an SAP partner, SAP itself, or collaboratively is secondary.
This new drive to co-innovate on our customers’ behalf is creating opportunities for partners to develop and deliver industry innovations in three areas of discrete manufacturing:
- Solutions that enable efficient, accurate, and agile manufacturing and supply chains by integrating processes, removing data silos, and seamlessly connecting manufacturing and supply chain applications with the whole of the business.
- Solutions that improve decision-making by using AI to analyze data from internal and external sources in context and produce insights that increase manufacturing operations’ resilience and help customers strike the right balance among cost, sustainability, and customer satisfaction.
- Solutions that promote collaboration within a business ecosystem. Many of the company executives I’ve spoken with recently wanted to talk about Manufacturing-X, the growing cross-industry initiative in which companies across various manufacturing value chains come together within a global business ecosystem to define a standard that enables them to share production and supply chain data across platforms and technology to further increase resilience, sustainability, and competitiveness.
We are bringing this customer-focused, partner-driven approach to life this week at Hannover Messe, bringing center stage the latest, most compelling innovations to emerge from SAP and our partner ecosystem, across both discrete and process manufacturing — many embedded with business AI.
Some of the showcases that have been developed collaboratively in action include:
- Modular manufacturing that orchestrates production cells with a hard independent fleet manager
- High-speed bottling that captures traceability data and in-line quality assurance
- A centralized operations control center that manages an offsite process production line
- AI-enhanced visual inspection and guided instructions during component assembly
- A quick guided journey through an Industrial Metaverse, showing how assets inside a power plant can be intelligently and remotely managed
SAP partners are playing an integral part in our presence at Hannover Messe, just as they are in our overarching industry vision. Partners including Accenture, Camelot ITLab, Cideon Software & Services, FORCAM, Kinexon, Systema, and TeamViewer are all exhibiting their solutions alongside their SAP counterparts, demonstrating the true power of partnership and innovation at every turn.
By leveraging resources like the new SAP AI Launchpad and generative AI hub, our partners will introduce industry innovations that will add immediate value for customers in the discrete and process manufacturing space. Hence, they have the intelligent digital tools they need to be future-ready.
Kinexon’s OS extension to the SAP Digital Manufacturing solution is one example. Kinexon OS orchestrates the shop floor and automates previously manual processes, improving production speed, quality, and asset utilization. It is providing customers with an essential pathway to modular production and autonomous manufacturing.
For those of you at the event, stop by the SAP space and experience innovation and partnership in perfect harmony firsthand. An electric injection molding machine developed by Fanuc with support from partner Syntax will be cranking out made-to-order drinking vessels.
Come enjoy a cup of inspiration on us. It’s a small but meaningful taste of what’s possible for partners in our collaborative, customer-focused, and business AI-driven cloud ecosystem.
Sven Denecken is senior vice president and chief marketing and solutions officer for Industries & CX at SAP.