How Can you Collaborate with your Business Partners?
In many cases it is vital to be in close contact with your business partners, for example, if you need updated model information from you manufacturer, or if you want to share details on a machine breakdown with your service provider. This requires a close and easy collaboration.
This collaboration is enabled by SAP Asset Intelligence Network (AIN) which allows you to share details of a digital twin with your business partners. The digital twin is a representation of the physical object in the cloud - with every object having a unique ID in the network, forming a single version of truth for all business partners.
Your Manufacturer (and the Engineering & Construction department) has a business benefit in that they can streamline and standardize the asset information across all business partners, centrally manage information once, and share model info with the operator.
The Operator / Asset Owner benefits by receiving model info or service bulletins from the Manufacturer, or send information on problems in the form of notifications or alerts.
The Service Provider has an advantage if they can work on a reliable data source and collect service data centrally.
Sharing Business Objects
Business objects can be shared with Business Partners and Invitees. Sharing refers, not only to the business object itself (for example, a piece of equipment), but also to its dependent objects - such as template, model, documents, spare parts etc.
During the sharing step, you can grant Access Privileges (Read / Write) to your business partner - both for the business object itself, and the dependent objects.
For automatic sharing, you can use Sharing Patterns which automatically select a certain predefined set of objects together with the respective Access Privilege.
Business objects and their dependent objects can also be unshared.
Sharing capabilities depend on the account type which the customer has. Full sharing with all business partners within the AIN Network is provided with the Premium account.
The operator has two options:
- Link an existing equipment (SAP S/4HANA or SAP ERP) to an AIN model and inherit the model data
- Create a new equipment by instantiating the model, bringing all the model data across to the equipment without the need to enter it manually
Capabilities of SAP AIN
SAP AIN is an Internet of Things (IoT) application seamlessly integrated with the SAP BTP. It holds a global registry of equipment that uses common definitions.
These common definitions are then shared between multiple business partners such as manufacturers or original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), or operators, or service providers to deliver new collaborative business models resulting in true operational excellence.
The manufacturer publishes the model with the desired content, such as manual, drawings, instructions of installation, instructions of repair, spare parts, attributes, and counters.
The supplier also collaborates by providing data of spare parts or any other content.
Asset data and related content can be collaboratively exchanged over the SAP Asset Intelligence Network referred to as "Shared data", and can also be synchronized with connected SAP ERP systems. Shared data updates are pushed to the SAP ERP system when equipment is shared (or) revisions of shared equipment are published.
The equipment can inherit the following data from the AIN model:
- Attributes
- Class / Subclass
- Manufacturer
- Serial number tracking on model level
- Spare parts
- Documents
- Instructions
- Failure modes
- Alert types
- Announcements
- Indicators
Your Company on SAP AIN
After onboarding, the organization administrator can edit your organization’s company profile, add locations of your organization, add subsidiaries, and maintain Industry IDs of your organization in SAP AIN. You can search for organizations using the industry member names. You can also create locations, contact persons, and industry IDs for a subsidiary.
The prerequisite is that your organization and the users of your organization are successfully registered with SAP AIN, and you have received the necessary information to log on to SAP AIN and use the applications.
Managing Your Business Partners
All companies which are registered in SAP AIN are visible in the Business Partners app. Using this app, you can view the list of your connected business partners, view and send connection requests to a business partner, view and accept connection requests from your business partners, and also disconnect from an existing business partner connection.
If a company is not registered in SAP AIN yet, you can invite it to the network. This company then has the status of an Invitee. Invitees can be created via the app Company Profile. Invitees can be assigned a user to log on to the network (via app Application Settings).
Invitees and Invitee Subsidiaries are treated as private to the respective premium accounts.