Understanding the Positioning of SAP Digital Manufacturing

Shop floor personnel can record results of quantitative and qualitative inspections. If the SAP Digital Manufacturing system is integrated with SAP S/4HANA, you can transfer the results to the inspection lot in SAP S/4HANA.

Confirm production order operations or phases with yield, scrap, and activities. SAP Digital Manufacturing transmits yield, scrap, and activity confirmations posted by the shop floor worker to SAP S/4HANA. This makes costs and other information available for analysis and production tracking.

SAP Digital Manufacturing transmits component consumption and goods receipt postings to ensure accurate inventory in SAP S/4HANA.

SAP Digital Manufacturing records timestamps for when operations start and stop, providing insights for production planning optimization.

Alongside operation duration, SAP Digital Manufacturing records quality and resource usage information for calculating OEE.

Production routings describe the steps required to manufacture a semi-finished or finished product.

Let's consider the manufacturing process of a simple bicycle:

1. In the first step, you attach the wheels to the bicycle frame.
2. In the next step, you mount the saddle and lights.
3. Finally, you package the bicycle into the shipping box.

Each of the three steps is modeled as an operation in the production routing. In SAP Digital Manufacturing, you can create and update routings. If SAP Digital Manufacturing is integrated with SAP S/4HANA, you can transfer routings and enhance them in SAP Digital Manufacturing with additional production-relevant information.

In SAP Digital Manufacturing, you can create production orders to request the manufacturing of a certain quantity of a product. If identical production lines exist, you can dispatch the orders to a production line with available capacity.

Shop floor personnel interact with SAP Digital Manufacturing via a user interface called the Production Operator Dashboard (POD). The POD provides all of the information required to execute manufacturing operations, such as assembly instructions. Additionally, shop floor personnel can start, stop, or interrupt manufacturing operations and record production data, including component consumptions, component serial and batch numbers, quality data, and non-conformances.

You can adapt the POD layout as needed for the process executed at a specific work center. For example, some work centers only require recording component consumption, while others, like repair centers, need to be able to review non-conformance data, and to remove and reassemble components.

For situations where a manufacturing operation, for example an assembly step, requires verification by another person, like a shift supervisor, you can define and execute electronic buy-offs. This ensures that the next manufacturing operation can only proceed after approval.

If products or components are damaged during assembly, shop floor workers can document this as a non-conformance in SAP Digital Manufacturing. The damaged product is then directed to an analysis-and-repair workstation, where the issue is analyzed and corrected, if possible. You can set up predefined analysis-and-repair workflows in SAP Digital Manufacturing. For different non-conformances, different analysis-and-repair workflows can be set up.

Master recipes outline steps to manufacture products in process industries. For instance, producing paint involves mixing solvents and adding pigment at a specific temperature. While the master recipe is usually in SAP S/4HANA, SAP Digital Manufacturing can extend it with additional execution information, such as detailed work instructions and process parameters.

In process industries, the shop floor worker performs various steps of an entire order in the POD, unlike discrete industries where each operation is executed at a separate work center. The POD for process manufacturing displays all order operations and phases, enabling shop floor personnel to execute all relevant steps for the order in one, single UI.

SAP Digital Manufacturing allows batch creation and valuation for main and by-products. For instance, when measuring the final product's concentration, the operator records the value in the POD, which then updates the batch record in SAP S/4HANA.

If you need to record multiple inspection results, for example at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of a phase, you can record inspection results for inspection points in SAP Digital Manufacturing and transmit the results to the inspection lot in SAP S/4HANA.

A comprehensive report in SAP Digital Manufacturing displays production data for a manufactured batch, including component information, activity logs, recorded non-conformances, and other data points recorded during production.