SAP knowledge at the touch of a button: How AI unlocks practical value from your product data

Making data treasures in the SAP system accessible with AI solutions

Using AI in industrial manufacturing – sure, but how?
There is no doubt: The application of AI in industrial manufacturing is one of the hottest topics and part of many enterprises’ corporate strategy. But often, enterprises are slowed down by essential questions: How can AI and the SAP system be connected? Is security ensured completely? Can SAP authorization concepts be applied reliably and can compliance requirements be met?

Nowadays, no industrial enterprise can go without adopting AI, as it offers enormous potential: AI elevates product development and manufacturing to a new level by revealing connections, connecting data from the entire SAP system, and enabling clear, secure decisions within seconds. Employees can easily search for documents in natural language and make use of the document contents instead of navigating through complex systems.

Modern AI functionality is a real game changer for value creation as it allows for:

• A modern way of working thanks to the intuitive, dialog-based usage
• Visible knowledge thanks to information from documents and data
• Automation of recurring tasks and reduction of errors
• Smart decisions thanks to relevant, context-based knowledge

Intelligent processes, increased innovation capacity

DSC’s new AI solutions pave the way for true value creation: They enable the connection of AI agents that read data from the SAP system, e.g., product and material data or documents, and deliver context-aware answers. The result: Teams gain quicker overview of products and processes, can analyze causes, and make well-informed decisions.

The basis for DSC’s AI solutions is an open, future-ready architecture that allows organizations to implement exactly those AI tools that match their strategic goals. And the best part: DSC’s AI solutions have been developed in close collaboration with universities and renowned enterprises. In addition, they are already applied successfully.

The solutions empower industrial enterprises to develop an intelligent and data-driven way of work within the SAP ecosystem while reducing the workload of their employees – a strong argument with regard to the skilled labor shortage in industrial manufacturing.

LINKWAY – for secure access to SAP data

With LINKWAY, DSC enables a secure connection between AI agents and SAP systems allowing for efficient, AI-supported working with SAP data.

The technology is immediately ready to use and enables organizations to grant AI agents selective and secure access to SAP data – without system changes or risks, and compatible with any infrastructure.

LINKWAY controls each access based on roles and authorizations, allows for a controlled and standardized communication, and keeps SAP systems stable, regardless of the used Large Language Model | LLM.

Any type of AI agent – whether SAP ECTR AI Companion, MS Copilot, or customer-specific agents, e.g., on SAP BTP – can perform the following actions via LINKWAY depending on the respective SAP authorizations:

• Finding SAP documents and materials
• Performing full-text searches in documents
• Using semantic searches
• Chatting with the SAP system based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation | RAG

Better decisions and fewer errors

With LINKWAY, new team members don’t need any SAP know-how, they simply ask questions in natural language – and AI finds the right information and guides through the context step by step. Teams need significantly less time for searching, as AI prefilters, condenses contents, and only provides what really matters.

LINKWAY is particularly beneficial for departments needing to access SAP information regularly and IT teams wanting to realize a secure, scalable AI integration.

Application possibilities are growing with increasing requirements

The potential of AI in the SAP environment extends far beyond single use-cases. New possibilities for using data more intelligently and optimizing processes arise constantly along the entire product lifecycle – from the product idea, development, and manufacturing to service and change management. DSC supports users already today with hands-on AI solutions for finding information faster, completing tasks more efficiently, and making well-founded decisions.

Together with their customers, DSC also continuously develops new use cases that are tailored to individual requirements and create concrete value added. This way, the range of possible applications is constantly increasing and provides organizations with new opportunities to unlock access to knowledge, accelerate decision-making, and boost their innovation capacity.

Typical use cases in product development

• Understanding changes: Quickly analyze changes, versions, and impacts on parts or bills of material
• Evaluating bills of material: Easily query and compare complex BOM structures, recognizing interconnections
• Reusing knowledge:Systematically find and reuse similar parts, solutions, or projects
• Identifying failure causes:Evaluate quality notifications, changes, and documentation in a holistic manner

Typical use cases in manufacturing

• Ensuring order transparency: Easily query production orders, statuses, and bottlenecks in real time
• Finding work instructions: Quickly retrieve relevant documents and instructions using natural language
• Increasing the Overall Equipment Effectiveness | OEE: Analyze disruptions and reduce downtimes
• Optimizing setup processes:Provide relevant information about materials, tools, and processes

LINKWAY unlocks future readiness

One thing is crystal clear: AI-ready enterprise systems are the future. They build the foundation for faster and context-based decisions thanks to quickly recognizable, relevant information and relations.

LINKWAY is a key element for the connection of any AI agent in order to immediately compare data modifications in documents and access metadata. In terms of security and compliance, the solution meets highest expectations, as it ensures strict adherence to SAP authorizations for data access.

LINKWAY creates a future-ready architecture and opens SAP systems, along with the data and documents they contain, for modern AI applications while ensuring stability and security.

Further information

Discover more: Artificial Intelligence with SAP