5-Step Roadmap to a Sound SAP xMII Deployment

by Mo Ghanem, Director, xMII Field Enablement and Consulting Services, SAP Labs

This five-step roadmap helps you understand what you need to do to implement SAP xApp Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence, build an effective team, and establish a rapid deployment model that you can repeat and enhance after every deployment.

Categories: Implementations, Upgrades, and Migrations, Manufacturing, Project Management, SCM

Key Concept

An SAP xApp Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (xMII) implementation involves functional synchronization and reengineering of business processes as opposed to being a technical application development. A successful deployment approach must combine functional and technical knowledge. Business process analysis, industry knowledge, and best practices are keys to building a useful application and realizing return on investments. Taking the time to prepare and analyze business process execution and building a repeatable implementation model is the best approach to ensure continuous success.

SAP xApp Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (xMII) connects the operation-level and enterprise data in your manufacturing systems with R/3 and SAP ERP Central Component (ECC). It allows you to detect and resolve schedule, material, machine, labor, and quality issues in real time.

So, what does it take to implement SAP xMII? My clients and partners have asked the same questions over the past couple of years:

How many people does it take and what are their required skill sets?
What is the best way to approach a project?
How do I coordinate with other teams?
What interfaces/systems do I need?
Which architecture is best for us?

To understand what it takes to achieve manufacturing integration and synchronization, you need to understand your business. Most likely, you execute every business process on both sides of the enterprise — the shop-floor and ECC sides. Your implementation project should do so as well.

There is no one-size-fits-all deployment strategy. Therefore, I have compiled the following deployment roadmap based on SAP ASAP methodology: project preparation, business blueprint, realization, final preparation, go-live, and support. I also based this roadmap on my own experience managing implementations and from projects that I witnessed or reviewed across different industries and throughout the SAP xMII community of partners and customers.

I will describe each step in the five-step process in the context of a hypothetical Quality Management (QM) scenario. Although you can use SAP xMII with other manufacturing systems, such as manufacturing execution systems and shop- floor automation applications, I’ll use QM in my example because it’s an area that is equally understood and important across industries.

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