Johannesburg, 14 Dec 2001
SAP AG today announced that Osram GmbH is live with the first phase of its implementation of mySAP Product Lifecycle Management. mySAP PLM enables Osram to accelerate product development and allows all the divisions within Osram to jointly develop a common product based on shared information and business processes. Osram is a leading global lamp manufacturer; SAP is the world's leading provider of e-business software solutions.
"With mySAP PLM, we now have the opportunity to leverage advanced product development capabilities that allow for collaborative engineering across different countries and divisions within the company," said Franz-Josef Bierbrauer, vice president and general manager, Ballast and Luminaries of Osram. "As a result, we expect to achieve a 30% time reduction for product information retrieval and a 20% to 30% reduction of engineering change cycle times."
Osram is now able to use a complete set of functions to handle product-related documents, develop comprehensive product structures and manage engineering changes. The central mySAP PLM system is located in the US and can be accessed from seven locations in the US, Germany and Italy. To improve time to market and time to volume, it will utilise the open and flexible infrastructure of mySAP PLM to tightly link development and manufacturing organizations by seamlessly distributing product information to decentralized manufacturing systems. With the document management capabilities of mySAP PLM, users can easily find updates on the latest product information. To ensure fast access in a global environment, Osram uses content and cache servers.
Currently, 370 people are using mySAP PLM directly or as part of supply chain management systems and will benefit from the information generated and passed along. At present, the centralised mySAP PLM solution manages about 100 000 master data records for all receivers.
A roll-out of the solution to additional locations in Asia and Europe is planned for 2002. In this second phase of implementation, Osram will use WebFlow functionality to automate its engineering change management and release processes in document management. Possible future opportunities are under consideration. They include leveraging the advanced Internet capabilities of mySAP PLM for collaborative engineering and implementing the enterprise portal capabilities of mySAP PLM.
"Through the use of a common product data knowledge base, mySAP PLM provides Osram with improved global cooperation in product development across geographical and organisational boundaries," said Archim Heimann, senior vice president of the Global Business Unit of mySAP PLM at SAP. "This results in a reduction of the cost baseline and an acceleration of a product's time to market, which is crucial in today's fast-paced environment. mySAP PLM allows Osram to respond quickly and efficiently to its customers."
In addition to the recent implementation of mySAP PLM at Osram GmbH, Osram Sylvania, the North American operation of Osram GmbH, went live with the mySYLVANIA site, an interactive, multi-featured portal. The company is using SAP's e-commerce solution and mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) to operate an online workplace for Osram Sylvania's commercial partners and key account customers to quickly and easily browse catalogs, purchase products, check product availability and obtain instantaneous order status - online and in real-time.
Share