Exploring Digital Manufacturing for Insights (DMi) Architecture

SAP Digital Manufacturing for Insights (DMi) is an analytics solution that is delivered within SAP Digital Manufacturing. It offers multiple reporting approaches to analyze and optimize your digital operations. With SAP DMi, you can visualize production data and gain manufacturing insights. The manufacturing data is structured and stored in the so-called Manufacturing Data Objects (MDOs).

• MDOs are really at the heart of SAP Digital Manufacturing for Insights (DMi). They are created by restructuring the production data from SAP Digital Manufacturing for Execution and storing it in a separate database within DMi.
• MDOs can be used to analyze production data without requiring complex data models, as the MDOs and their relationships are created automatically in the background.
• MDOs are divided into categories such as Material, Order, Resource, and Routing. Furthermore, you can filter subsets of data within each MDO to analyze specific attributes or related tables. More information about the available MDOs can be found here.
• MDOs can be accessed by various apps, features in- and outside of SAP DMi.

The data flow through the architecture of Digital Manufacturing for Insights (DMi), as it is depicted in the image below, starts with data logging of the event data from Digital Manufacturing for Execution. This logged data is transformed into interconnected Manufacturing Data Objects (MDOs) and stored in a HANA Store within DMi. From there, the data can be exported into a Cold Store for long term preservation, as well as several SAP and non-SAP analytics applications and systems.

Message Broker:

The Message Broker converts the raw production data from Digital Manufacturing for Execution into analytics-ready MDOs. Thus, it is saving you time and effort in data preparation.

HANA Store:

The Manufacturing Data Layer is the central storage location in DMi. This stores all MDOs and makes them accessible to various applications and features.

Manufacturing Data Objects:

Manufacturing Data Objects (MDOs) are your transformed manufacturing data, that is interconnected, creating a web of related data. This interconnectivity helps to uncover hidden insights and patterns more easily.

Embedded SAP Analytics Cloud (eSAC):

Embedded SAC is an Integrated analytics tool within DMi that allows the creation of custom dashboards to visualize production data.

Cold Store:

The Cold Store is a cost-effective data storage solution designed for rarely accessed data that must be preserved over the long term.

SAP Live Connection:

SAP is providing specific out-of-the-box APIs for data exchange between SAP systems. Currently, there is a Live Connection API available to connect SAP DMi and SAP Datasphere.

OData API:

Besides the SAP internal APIs, MDOs can also be accessed using the Open Data Protocol (OData). This enables the integration with SAP- as well as third-party systems and tools, which helps you to expand your analytics capabilities.