Tracked data in product data management (PDM) systems are technical specifications of products, specification for manufacturing and development, material descriptions, Bill of Materials, drawings and other production and design information. SAP provides with its modules for enterprise and manufacturing resource planning, procurement, asset management etc. all information along the engineering process - from the first idea over design, manufacturing to service and maintenance. Because SAP also provides an embedded document management system the functionality required for modern PDM systems are covered by SAP’s core modules. To meet the requirement to integrate and organize also the geometrical engineering information captured in 3D CAD models and drawings manages SAP with its CAD integrations directly into SAP’s DMS.
The Management of the documents will take place in the central SAP database. This means that everybody with access to the SAP system can globally search, find and access this information. There will be only one database, one place to look for and one place to find the right information or drawing with the latest version. SAP’s Content / Cache Server architecture allows companies to keep big CAD files local in a file server. No time consuming download of big CAD assemblies and drawings, because they are in the local network available. Even locations far away can have a local copy on their Cache Server. SAP’s approved technology manages that changes are available, controlled and distributed and always up to day.
A major component to manage the globalization for engineering and manufacture companies is an IT platform which makes product data available all over the world on a 24/7 base.