As the trend towards outsourcing and Business Network Transformation (BNT) continues, companies are increasingly relying on extended partner networks to bring products to market. However, the increased visibility required to ensure those collaborations are successful means that companies have to find a way to bridge both internal silos as well as external barriers that impede information flow. SAP solutions for Product Lifecycle Management provide companies with an integrated solution for product innovation, collaborative development, quality and maintenance management, along with centralized access to all product-related information.

The presentations in this track provide insights from leading companies and SAP experts on how to leverage the Product Lifecycle Management solutions from SAP to bridge organizational silos and collaborate with partners to optimize plan-to-build processes, accelerate new product introduction cycle times, lower warranty and service costs, ensure regulatory compliance, drive competitive differentiation, and ultimately increase profits.

Other key takeaways include:

• How to make faster decisions in a New Product Introduction time-to-market environment and how to address the common pain points and issues in the early stages of New Product Development and Introduction (NPDI)
• How to reduce cost and lead time for new product launches
• How to leverage SAP Business Objects to identify strategic product and service innovation opportunities
• How to capitalize on the best ideas and translate them into innovative and successful products and services
• What collaboration solutions are available and how to choose the one that’s right for you
• How to improve idea management and concept development
• How to avoid quality and scale issues during production ramp up through seamless processes, a common material master and aligned development and manufacturing bills of material
• Which infrastructure components can be used to implement data lifecycle management
• How to use enterprise services for quality management
• How new environmental regulations affect product manufacturers in discrete industries
• Which best practices to leverage to effectively protect your revenue and your brand

Highlights include:

ConAgra Foods will share stories from their Recipe Management implementation, which includes food and packaging components, graphics label versions, equipment and process requirements, as well as transformation to master recipes. Learn what ConAgra Foods did and why, and discuss other possible approaches to the same tasks that could result in different outcomes.

Learn how Monsanto leveraged cProjects to achieve centralized and transparent project management and streamline their weekly processes. Monsanto will describe key benefits and lessons learned from their implementation of RPM/ cProjects 4.0 SP10 for their Regulatory organization. They are currently leveraging the tool for project management with the intent to expand into portfolio management.

Learn how Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, a global leader in life science and high technology, implemented Portfolio and Project Management solutions from SAP to successfully win in this challenging market. They will share business drivers for selecting the solution, corporate benefits realized, and key factors for a successful implementation.

Join SAP and Right Hemisphere for an introduction to new 3D visualization technology and capabilities that are integrated with the upcoming version of SAP PLM. You will learn how to take full advantage of 3D visualization technologies to enhance overall product development and collaboration effectiveness. Join Colgate-Palmolive Company as they share learnings from their PLM implementation, including best practices, critical activities for success, and challenges they overcame during the project, whose scope included Product Data Management (PDM), New Product Development and Introduction (NPDI), Quality and EOHS Audit, and Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS).

A multi-currency environment is a fact of life for many projects, but it can introduce a significant layer of complexity in managing and reporting to these projects. Join Halliburton and Fluor to learn how they addressed their project currency issues without compromising financial integrity.

SAP will share the latest enhancements to the SAP Product Lifecycle Management application. See how new capabilities like the new collaboration approach including the new authorization concept, add value. Learn about the new user interface for materials, BOMs, documents and change numbers, and the new search capabilities.

Other key topics addressed in this year’s program include:

• Collaboration – New Capabilities for Efficiently and Safely Working with Business Partners in Engineering
• Continuous Product and Service Innovation: Vision and Roadmap
• Data Distribution Using cFolders
• Earned Value Management – The BASICS
• Efficient Data Lifecycle Management with Data Archiving for PDM
• Experiencing the Power of Order Engineering Workbench
• Optimizing Your Capital Accounting Portfolio – Proposal-to-Asset
• Portfolio and Project Management for Consumer Products Industry and IT Portfolio Management
• Quality Management 101: An Introduction to SAP’s Quality Management Module
• Rapid Prototyping of Your PLM Solution
• Recipe Management Integration – The Good, the Bad, and the Opportunities
• Recipe Management Updates for 2008 – Labeling and More
• RPM Panel Discussion: Custom Extensions to Meet Business Needs
• Strategies for Reconciling Engineering and Manufacturing BOMs
• Streamlining Quality Management Processing Using Workflow
• The Impact of World-Class NPDI on Corporate Performance
• Visual Composer and Xcelsius Real-Time Reporting