The potential of digital twins in industrial companies seems formidable and, according to a Bitkom study , will make its presence felt by 2025 with an increase in productivity of up to 78.5 billion euros. While the application previously concentrated on maintenance and monitoring, the next step is collaborative product development on digital twins: SAP’s S/4HANA Cloud for Intelligent Product Design is considered a central networking point for research on and development of new products: Involved parties meet online at a digital twin to make the right decisions together in real-time.

Besides digital images, the online system also enables the exchange of technical documents. Information on the status, control and configuration of the system is made available by integrating the digital twin with SAP Predictive Engineering Insights , SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service , and SAP 3D Visual Enterprise . At the same time, it is possible to connect systems and their digital twins via the SAP Asset Intelligence Network . SAP Ariba and SAP Distributed Manufacturing are also utilized. A combination of SAP S4/HANA, S AP Engineering Control Center , SAP Hybris Cloud , SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence and SAP Manufacturing Execution enables all production steps to be recorded, from basic product design, to actual production, to maintenance and service.