Introducing the Production Connector for SAP Digital Manufacturing

With the production connector for SAP Digital Manufacturing, SAP is providing a middleware to enable the integration of SAP Digital Manufacturing applications with devices and equipment on the shop floor. It is an on-premise software component and is typically installed in the same production network as the shop floor systems you want to integrate. The production connector enables access to production data and services from various sources and technologies and integrates these with SAP Digital Manufacturing.

You create the configuration elements for connecting and exchanging data with the shop floor directly in the manufacturing automation apps in SAP Digital Manufacturing. After deployment, the required configuration elements are created in the production connector and the data flow between the shop floor systems and SAP Digital Manufacturing is established via the production connector.

The production connector connects local data sources, such as OPC UA, using agent instances in the Production Connectivity Model. The machines’ endpoints are mapped to shop floor systems' indicators, modeling tag information, and services. The agent instances establish the data flow between the shop floor and SAP Digital Manufacturing. They also handle queries, method calls, and notification messages. Each agent instance is a standalone Windows service that can be run independently. The following graphic illustrates the basic architecture of the production connector in conjunction with the cloud connector and the data sources in manufacturing.