Webcast on SAP ECTR innovations hit bull’s eye

Karlsruhe, October 24, 2022 – A future-proof PLM solution capable to evolve with the requirements is essential for manufacturing companies. It is not by coincidence that the DSC webcast “More to discover than ever before – The highlights of the new SAP ECTR release” established an attendance record. About 600 interested persons had registered for the German and English sessions to learn more about the SP06 release of SAP Engineering Control Center | SAP ECTR – the greatest functional release in the SAP ECTR history.

What has changed with the latest SAP ECTR release? Which are the most important new features? What does the future road map look like? Experts from DSC Software AG and SAP answered all these questions and many more. On the one hand, Achim Rossel, Senior Vice President Business Development at DSC, who moderated the webcast and took up the participants’ questions from the chat. On the other, Gerhard Himmelsbach, Product Owner for SAP PLM at SAP, and Dominik Maier, Senior Vice President Products & Development at DSC.

More than 100 new features and improvements at one go

What makes the SP06 release so special? “Never before did we include so many innovations into a release as this year,” Himmelsbach said. As Maier showed, these innovations include 25 new functions, 75 improvements, as well as solutions for more than 30 customer suggestions provided via SAP Customer Influence. All of this created lots of benefits. An important value added especially resulted from the modernization of the SAP ECTR user interface according to Fiori design principles – for a modern look&feel and a better user experience, which are essential aspects for SAP and DSC.

User interface and data handling: greater individuality, transparency, and flexibility

From the numerous new possibilities the SP06 release offers especially for users, the webcast team presented the following as examples:

• Customization of the SAP ECTR user interface using predefined or user-defined themes
• Quicker and easier identification of objects thanks to previews in all object lists and tables
• Convenient storage of objects in Favorite folders and more flexible export of CAD documents (rule-based)

According to Maier, these changes had been highly rated in SAP Customer Influence. The new features for administrators and supervisors were none the less important and interesting. As for the users, the webcast dedicated a thematic section to that target group as well with a presentation of selected features.

Enhanced process focus – beyond the discrete industry

Also with regard to company processes, the new release offers plenty of benefits. Firstly, Himmelsbach and Maier covered the integration enhancements of SAP Enterprise Product Development | SAP EPD. This integration facilitates the cloud-based data exchange with external parties for an even better support of hybrid collaboration scenarios. A classic with a new look aroused keen interest: the completely revised BOM generation with new BOM Wizard and operation dialog, as well as the enhanced display and functionality.

A whole new and exciting solution presented by Rossel and Himmelsbach is the integration of SAP Product and Process Governance by BDF | SAP PPG. SAP PPG enables the automation of customer-specific order processes for highly variable products and complex plants. According to Rossel, the integrated solution enables orchestrating the entire product lifecycle with a digital product model – from sales, engineering, and manufacturing, to service and the entire logistics.

The SP06 release breaks another new ground with Recipe Development: a first step towards enabling the management of products with SAP ECTR for companies in the process industry. Himmelsbach explained that the target is to describe the complete product model including packaging, and to map it with bills of material. As Maier added, it is planned, among other things, to integrate the artwork tools Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign to reach this goal.

And: The next SAP ECTR release is already in the pipeline

At the start of the webcast, Maier already explained: “There is always the next release.” At the end, he and Himmelsbach gave an outline of the road map for 2023. For the next year, SAP and DSC have many things planned and closely collaborate to further promote SAP ECTR. Being asked what this means for the SAP partnership with Siemens, Himmelsbach answered that this is about specific industries and use cases. Having already highlighted the unique position of SAP ECTR right at the beginning, he revealed at the end: Even more functional variety is planned and the next SAP ECTR release is already in the pipeline.

Satisfied audience, fantastic feedback

After an hour of concentrated information and a live Q&A session with many questions from the audience, the participants seemed very pleased. The written feedback revealed, for example, that the new features of SAP ECTR are “a great step forward”. Or also: “Good to see that there are additional improvements in many areas.” Even better, improvements that people look forward to.