Describing Machine Integration Concepts

Assets in SAP Digital Manufacturing are virtual objects that represent machines, facilities, equipment, sensors, or any kind of physical device on the shop floor that should be connected to SAP Digital Manufacturing.

An asset is represented by a digital twin in SAP Digital Manufacturing. An asset can be created in SAP Digital Manufacturing in the Manage Assets app. The assets in SAP Digital Manufacturing contain indicators that connect to data tags on the PLC to control the machine. Assets are part of the Production Connectivity Model, which ensures that all changes that are made to the digital asset are reflected by the real machine and the other way around.

For example, if the status tag on a machine is changed, the tag value will be changed on the digital twin as well. Similarly, if the order tag is changed on the digital twin, the Production Connectivity Model will write this value to the machine tags.

In SAP Digital Manufacturing, the operator works with the asset, or the virtual representation of the machine, rather than the machine itself. The asset, as the digital twin, exchanges data with the physical machine, actions are triggered, and information is read.

In SAP Digital Manufacturing, an asset usually contains one or more shop floor systems. A shop floor system represents a server that provides endpoints to SAP Digital Manufacturing to access the data of physical devices. In the Production Connectivity Model, it is possible to combine the data of many servers (shop floor systems) in one asset. Shop floor systems can be connected to external or internal data sources (shop floor system type).

To create a shop floor system in SAP Digital Manufacturing, open the Configure Production Connectivity application and go to the Shop Floor Systems tab. Once created, the shop floor system will appear for asset assignment in the Manage Asset Connectivity app in SAP Digital Manufacturing.

For more information on which objects configured in the Production Connectivity Model correspond to which configuration elements in production connector, see: https://help.sap.com/docs/sap-digital-manufacturing/integration-guide/machine-data-integration

In the SAP Digital Manufacturing Production Connectivity Model, an indicator refers to a specific data point or data tag on the PLC. These indicators can include information such as machine uptime, production output, energy consumption, error rates, and other machine-specific data.

By integrating machines and collecting these indicators, manufacturers can gain real-time visibility into the performance of their equipment, monitor production efficiency, identify potential issues, and make data-driven decisions to improve operations. SAP Digital Manufacturing provides the capabilities to integrate with various types of machines, collect their data tags in indicators, and analyze the data to optimize manufacturing processes and drive continuous improvement.