CASE STUDY

SAP NetWeaver PI ensures integration success

Rheinmetall Saves Legacy Investment with SAP NetWeaver PI

When defense contractor Rheinmetall Land Systems upgraded to SAP ERP 2004, the company needed to restore the connection to its legacy product lifecycle management (PLM) system. For Rheinmetall, there was never a question as to whether it would use SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP NetWeaver PI) functionality to integrate the two systems. Rather, the question was, could the company do it without inconveniencing users and still retain all the functionality that Rheinmetall had before the integration? Yes, and then some.

by Evan J. Albright, Senior Editor

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Reprinted with persmission from the Winter 2008 SAP NetWeaver Magazine

At-a-Glance

Rheinmetall Land Systems

Headquarters:Kiel, Germany Industry:Defense and Security Company: Mid-sized high-tech manufacturer of armored vehicles Subsidiary of Rheinmetall Group Employees: 1,700 (850 SAP users) SAPlandscape: SAP ERP 2004 SAP Financials SAP HCM SAP SD SAP PP SAP WM SAP NetWeaver PI SAP NetWeaver BI SAP NetWeaver AS SAP MSS

Rheinmetalls Leopard tank

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Rheinmetalls Wiesel armored personnel carrier

HistorywithSAP

Rheinmetall Landsysteme is a Kiel, Germany, defense contractor. The company has been an SAP customer since the 1990s, and in 2004 it upgraded from SAP R /3 4.6C to SAP ERP 2004. With the upgrade, Rheinmetall replaced all non-SAP legacy systems with their SAP counterparts. We have had SAP Sales & Distribution (SAP SD), SAP Production Planning (SAP PP), SAP Warehouse Management (SAP WM), and more since 1998. Now, weve updated to SAP Human Capital Management (SAP HCM), says Hartmut Hahn, CIO at Rheinmetall. (The company has no plans to put in CRM. Why? Because we only have 40 to 50 customers, all departments of defense. We dont need a CRM system, Hahn says.) Rheinmetall has just one exception: PLM. Its current system, Agile e5, wasnt even a year old when the company upgraded its SAP system. When we moved to SAP ERP 2004, we didnt even think about making the change from Agile e5 to SAP PLM, says Hahn. Replacing the Agile system was not an option. Integration was the only choice. The question became how to make that happen.

Integration Framework. We decided to go with SAP NetWeaver, Hahn remarks. We believe that SAP will be the leading company for a long time, whereas we dont think Agile will be on the market as long. SAP also fits Rheinmetalls business requirements better because SAP provides: Better process support Greater automation of data flow between systems Increased processing performance A more flexible adjustment of existing dataexchange processes, per the companys enterprise policy and structure More importantly, the integration had to be invisible to users, regardless of whether they were in Agile or SAP. In our strategy all systems are equal, whether the user works in PLM or ERP, Hahn notes. The company wants its employees to do their work within its own business processes and to have access to all the information they need to do their jobs without having to look for or worse, log on to another system. If a user is working with SAP and needs a drawing of certain materials, he or she shouldnt have to go into the PLM system and search for it, Hahn explains. We needed an interface that could realize this process. This requirement led Rheinmetall to Engineer-

SAPNetWeaverPI

Rheinmetall faced the same question that every company faces when integrating systems: Which tool do we use to integrate? The company had to choose between SAP NetWeaver PI functionality and Agiles
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ing Consulting & Solutions (ECS), another German company that builds interfaces between SAP products and other systems (for example, see Moving Material Masters below).

EngineeringConsulting&Solutions

When Rheinmetall was integrating the two systems, beginning in late November 2006 and going live in

July 2007, SAP NetWeaver PI, then called SAP Exchange Infrastructure (SAP XI), was new. Few customers had implemented SAP XI, and There were only a few consultants who could help you with it, Hahn says. Fortunately for Rheinmetall, ECS had a ready-made interface between SAP ERP and non-SAP PLM systems. The solution used comes in two parts: an SAP NetWeaver PI adapter (PLM Integrator 2.1) and ECSs

Moving Material Masters

Material masters are one of the most critical components of the product lifecycle process. Because they identify and track any materials procured, processed, or stored within a company, creating and managing them requires considerable collaboration among a variety of departments procurement, planning, production, inventory management, and finance and their functional levels. Material masters at Rheinmetall reside in SAP MM, SAP PP, and Agile e5 PLM systems. Communications between the PLM article (an item) and the material masters must flow freely. If you consider an engineer creating drawings, he or she puts a lot of material-master data in them, Hahn says. The Agile system does this. But when the drawings go to production, the material-master information is almost always changed. Perhaps, you substitute one part that the company has in inventory for another that it doesnt have. Or maybe some part is out-of-stock and you cant reorder it in time to meet production schedules, so you have to use another part. Each one of our vehicles has about 25,000 different materials, Hahn notes. Much can change between engineering and production, between accounting and even human resources. There needs to be a lot of communication between the SAP and Agile applications. (To see how the system manages the exchange scenario, see Material Master Transfer to SAP ERP below.)

Material Master Transfer to SAP ERP

Request of the material transfer template Material Transfer Request
1
Process initiator, e.g., call by a master process
Request the material transfer Manage the query of the material that shall be transferred Manage the creation of the previously queried material Receive material transfer status

The Process Integration template Process_ Integration_Server

PLM Integrator Web Service for Agile template PLM_Integrator_ WS_for_Agile

SAP ERP 2004 template ERPSystem

Mail system template MailSystem

2
Process control using optional business rules

3
Invoke the query for item in Agile PLM

Retrieval of relevant data for material master from PLM system

Call BAPI_ MATERIAL_ SAVEDATA

4
Mapping of object attributes PLM SAP

5
Creation of new material master in SAP ERP

6
Feedback to calling system or master process

7
Send material transfer status in case of error

This shows the process flow for a basic exchange scenario to transfer an items PLM-related data to a material master when the PLM system releases the item.
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ERPxPDM 1.1, which has preconfigured SAP NetWeaver PI content. Together, these tools use SAP NetWeaver PI functionality to connect the ERP and PLM systems, especially for those product data management (PDM) systems that dont provide suitable Web services to integrate, says Detlev Mller, senior consultant for ECS, who worked with Rheinmetall. ERPxPDM installs on SAP NetWeaver Application Server (SAP NetWeaver AS) in the Java stack, and it is configured with tools like Integration Builder (mapping, routing, business-process management (BPM)) within SAP NetWeaver (see ECS PLM Integrator and ERPxPDM to the right, above). PLM Integrator knows that it needs to look for the application programming interfaces (APIs) of the nonSAP PLM system (see Generic Adapter Concepts to the right, below). PLM Integrator uses generic function calls to get specific object descriptions espe-

cially any that are customer-modified in a generic definition language so that it can establish specific types of business objects and services within the SAP NetWeaver PI adapter. When it is uploaded or updated, this adapter can call specific services to handle inbound and outbound data streams between SAP NetWeaver PI and the non-SAP PLM system according to these downloaded definitions.

FromStarttoFinish

Go-live was in August 2007, and the changeover was invisible to engineers and SAP users, Hahn states, as the Rheinmetall team anticipated. In the last month, we took functionality from the old interface and brought it to the new one, one-to-one, Hahn says. It was better than a one-for-one exchange with regard to future functionality, however. While the new

Rheinmetall AG in Dsseldorf, Germany

3 Lessons Learned
Make your move to the new technology as invisible as possible to the users. This tactic has proven to be a successful one for Rheinmetall. When you are replacing or modifying existing systems, if your users are not experiencing any pain points, it is particularly important that you not create any new ones as a result of implementing the new upgrade or change.
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Simplicity of SAP NetWeaver PI does not preclude need for expert help. Although SAP NetWeaver PI functionality enables complex scenarios and process definitions are more intuitive, thanks to the GUI, it doesnt eliminate the need for an SAP NetWeaver PI expert. You may get your system to work, but youll have performance issues. For that you need an expert, according to Mller.

Finding the answer in SAP Notes maynotbeaseasyasitseems.Adding to the complexity is SAPs documentation through SAP Notes. Using them can be a frustrating experience, Mller says. Via SAP Notes, documentation is broken into smaller segments, and sometimes you can lose the thread of the narrative. The answers are usually there but may require patience to find.

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ECS PLM Integrator and ERPxPDM

SAP NetWeaver PI
Transfer assembly Transfer document with file

RFC adapter/ ABAP proxy

Process monitoring

BPM
ERPxPDM 1.1

Adapter engine
PLM Integrator 2.1 Adapter framework

SAP ERP 2004

Agile e5 PLM

ECS PLM Integrator is a generic adapter that manages the communication of customer-specific business objects and services between SAP ERP 2004 and Agile e5 PLM. The ERPxPDM tool sits within SAP NetWeaver, and you can configure and monitor it with standard SAP NetWeaver interfaces and tools.

Generic Adapter Concepts

SAP NetWeaver PI Integration engine of SAP NetWeaver Services PI messages PI mapping PI routing

PLM-neutral adapter component PLM-specific adapter component API library of PLM system
Generic function call for requested PLM object/service PLM-specific transport layer
PLM-specific API

PLM Integrator 2.1

3 Inbound data stream (e.g., PLM-related data for specific ERP object)

Definition Phase
2

Runtime Phase
4 Outbound data stream for a specific object (e.g., additional ERPrelated data for a PDM object)

Generic description of requested PLM object/service

PLM system (server)

The generic concept for the self-learning SAP NetWeaver PI adapter PLM Integrator 2.1, which reacts quickly to customer-specific system modifications in third-party PLMs, is shown here.
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Process Flow within Failure Reporting and Corrective Action System (FRACAS)
Quality manager Engineer/specialist

Creates a new quality notification: Master data Positions/related objects Failure type/location Actions needed (open issues) Responsible engineer Time schedule Imports of engineering feedback and status change of open issue Gets notification in inbox/mailbox of SAP related to specific notification and issue Works on quality notification (further issues, and so on) Closes quality notification by status change SAP ERP

Automated creation of notification with transfer of related documents Gets message in inbox of PDM system with link to the just transferred notification Investigates cause of failure Sets up a solution proposal (change process according to standard CMII) SAP NetWeaver PI Gives feedback on open issues Technical comment Status of open issue Created by and when Probable next steps Agile e5 PLM

This is the workflow for a quality notification with technical background within FRACAS.

integration duplicated the functionality of the old, it also opened up various new possibilities, tantalizing Rheinmetall with possible future enhancements. One such area is the quality-notification process, which is called the Failure Reporting and Corrective Action System (FRACAS). In the past, the interface between the two systems didnt allow any direct communication among the quality managers who use the SAP system and the engineers who use the Agile system. All communications had to be achieved outside the respective companies systems through email, telephone, or direct contact. The new system enables quality managers and engineers to exchange messages and transfer documents as they require (see Process Flow within Failure Reporting and Corrective Action System (FRACAS) above). Now, quality managers can report issues with products in the same system that has the product lifecycle record, and engineers can respond there too. Processing time is reduced. With our previous interface, we had to print a change request and send it to a colleague so he or she could work on it. Now, the paper is sent electronically, which saves money on every change request, says Hahn.
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Furthermore, the new systems interface is broad, and you can reuse it in related capacities. For example, you can extend the basic workflow to other systemspanning business processes, for example, the definition and acceptance of new suppliers and the provision of technical data or feedback for any open issues on a sales contract. Based on the implementations success, Rheinmetall is planning some enhancements. The first will be to use the new system to create an enterprise-wide workflow for engineering changes. The technology also has broader application possibilities. Rheinmetall is committed to using SAP NetWeaver PI for other data exchanges as well, such as automatic data transfer with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI). We [organize our] work in projects, so all reporting focuses on the project. Some data is in SAP ERP and some is in Agile e5, and we have to bring it together. We are thinking about the possibility of taking what we need from both systems and bringing it into the business warehouse. We also provide SAP Manager Self-Service (SAP MSS), so that a manager responsible for one or more projects can see all the data at a glance, concludes Hahn.

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