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SAP Digital Manufacturing for a digital factory
03.02.2026
SAP DM for future-proof and efficient production.
SAP Digital Manufacturing (SAP DM) enables companies to optimize their production processes and increase efficiency. The solution offers a wide range of functions, from resource planning and process design to data analysis. Thanks to the integration of partner solutions and the support of experienced SAP partners such as IGZ, companies can drive their digital transformation forward quickly and successfully.
SAP DM ensures efficiency, transparency, traceability and sustainability
Despite advancing digitalization, many manufacturers are still struggling with heterogeneous system landscapes and paper processes, which make it extremely difficult to control and carry out production. There is a lack of transparency, as important information is only accessible with a time delay and is not up-to-date. Production managers often make decisions without sufficient data, which leads to a loss of efficiency when orders are reprioritized or machines malfunction, for example. At the same time, production employees are confronted with reduced productivity due to this way of working, as manual processes across multiple systems are very time-consuming and are associated with a large number of potential sources of error. For IT staff, maintaining, supporting and servicing multiple individual interfaces of a fragmented system landscape with several different IT systems is also costly and time-consuming.
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) such as SAP Digital Manufacturing (SAP DM) have proven their worth in order to fully exploit production performance and use valuable resources profitably. With the new SAP DM solution, SAP has significantly expanded the standard range of functions compared to the previous SAP MES solutions (SAP ME and SAP MII), both for discrete manufacturing and for the process industry. In addition to fine order control, digital worker guidance, full QM integration, AI-based visual inspections and freely configurable dashboards, production processes can be digitally mapped and monitored online and centrally controlled through the direct connection of machines.
Deep integration scenarios in other SAP systems such as S/4 HANA and SAP EWM are part of the solution and enable complete standard out-of-the-box integration. This ensures a continuous flow of information of all relevant production data in SAP, without external subsystems. In this way, SAP DM not only offers the potential to optimize a company's production, but also improves the results of related processes as a central component in the »Design-to-Operate« portfolio. By monitoring production progress in real time, delays can be reported back to the upstream planning systems in order to calculate new optimal planning scenarios. Upstream and downstream areas such as logistics (production supply and disposal), including dispatch control, also benefit from this direct integration with the SAP logistics module (SAP EWM).
SAP DM: The Swiss Army Knife of Manufacturing
In order to realize the above-mentioned benefits, the SAP DM solution offers a wide range of standard functions, including the following core components:
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SAP REO (Resource Orchestration): real-time resource planning at store floor level ensures maximum capacity utilization with fully automated planning using various alogrithms by effectively visualizing the use of resources, employees (including qualifications) and tools using a GANT chart and displaying and correcting all changes in real time.
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POD Designer (Production Operator Dashboard): Intuitive user interfaces can be easily configured and flexibly and individually designed to support workers in carrying out work steps and eliminate the need for paper. For example, work instructions, drawings, videos and 3D models can be integrated and displayed. In addition to the pure recording of data, a wide variety of locking mechanisms and plausibility measures can also be configured to reduce the error rate of employees to a minimum.
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Process Designer: The process modeling tool enables manufacturing processes and workflows to be designed, modeled and managed in a visual low-code / no-code development environment in order to achieve a high degree of automation and establish best-practice workflows across locations.
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SAP DM Insights: The analysis and dashboard function based on embedded SAC (SAP Analytics Cloud) technology enables the visualization and evaluation of all captured production data as well as flexible creation of user-defined key figures and comprehensive reports.
The core components listed as well as many other standard functions and integration scenarios for S/4HANA, SAP EWM and the store floor form the foundation of SAP Digital Manufacturing. This enables manufacturing companies to meet the requirements of the future.
IGZ best practices for production: from the digital worker assistance system to the digital twin
In addition to the diverse standard functions and configuration options of SAP DM, companies also benefit from innovative partner solutions that supplement and optimize the standard. As an SAP partner and experienced project house, IGZ provides its business partners with customized solutions in this context, ranging from individual use cases to complete industry solutions. In addition, SAP engineers offer specially developed solutions to accelerate projects in order to ensure efficient implementation and a successful go-live.
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Worker assistance system IDA3 powered by Assembly by Motion:
With the »Assembly by Motion / IDA3« solution, IGZ offers a digital worker assistance system that enables gesture-controlled assembly with automatic process acknowledgement. Using camera-supported live validation, employees are immediately alerted to anomalies in the product or the components to be installed, enabling zero-defect production. In addition, work processes are automatically checked and confirmed by the system if they are carried out correctly, making assembly processes even more efficient.
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Machine emulation: Digital Twin Shopfloor
The best practice solution »Digital Twin Shopfloor« enables the emulation of machines and systems in the form of a digital twin for virtual tests of production processes without physical machines. The option of virtual commissioning enables users to test new processes in advance and assess the effects of disruptions or the expansion of production capacities in advance. This not only saves users time, but also allows them to continuously work on optimizing their processes and minimize the risk of production errors and costs due to unexpected failures or production stops.
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Test automation: Automated Rapid Validation (ARV):
IGZ's Automated Rapid Validation (ARV) solution is a modern best practice that helps manufacturing companies validate their production processes faster, more accurately and more efficiently. By combining automation, simulation and integration with existing IT systems, companies can ensure that their machines, software solutions and processes function optimally and in the shortest possible time. This not only strengthens competitiveness through smooth operation with minimal effort on the part of IT staff, but also supports the implementation of digitalization projects and their rollout at the same time.
Practical examples of the successful use of SAP Digital Manufacturing
Below are some selected examples of success from the industry.
ContiTech - Digitalization of production processes
ContiTech AG, a subsidiary of Continental AG, relies on the MES solution SAP DM for the global standardization of the production of industrial hoses. The focus is on the replacement of paper-based production documents, the introduction of digital production data acquisition and the bidirectional connection of machines and systems. In addition, the MES system is to be rolled out worldwide using a global template approach and represents a decisive milestone on the way to a smart factory.
»With SAP DM, we not only benefit from an innovative cloud solution, but can also redesign our processes with the Process Designer and introduce them across all locations thanks to the global rollout based on a template approach. In this way, we are using the opportunities offered by digitalization to improve our production processes worldwide in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability,« explains Hermann Illian, Project Manager at the ContiTech plant in Korbach.
MTU Aero Engines - Efficient, future-oriented production
The engine manufacturer MTU Aero Engines also wants to further optimize its production in terms of availability and performance with SAP DM. The technology change from SAP ME to SAP DM enables MTU to meet its own ambitious targets for even more efficient production. »We have already experienced the benefits of fully integrated SAP standard software as an MES solution with the predecessor product SAP ME/MII. Thanks to the many advantages of cloud technology, we see SAP DM as the perfect solution for digitally controlling energy-efficient production for the aircraft engines of the future,« says Sascha Pirke, IT Manager at MTU.
Transforming manufacturing: Into the digital future with SAP and IGZ
With SAP DM, IGZ production experts and proven best practices, a rapid digital transformation is possible, which also sustainably increases the efficiency and quality of production processes. The continuous development of the functional scope of the SAP DM solution is particularly noteworthy. Thanks to the software-as-a-service delivery model, users benefit from quarterly updates and SAP's innovative strength. In this way, companies can ensure that they are ideally prepared for key future topics such as the use of artificial intelligence and the detailed recording and provision of sustainability reports.
It is important that the production platform is adapted to the often highly individual requirements of manufacturers in order to create significant and sustainable benefits. This requires companies to see digitalization and the introduction of new software solutions as an opportunity and not only digitalize manual processes, but also innovate with the new possibilities. IGZ's strategy consulting services start with the evaluation of existing processes, taking into account the wide range of possible applications of the future-oriented MES solution »SAP Digital Manufacturing«. Through a targeted process analysis by SAP engineers, a rough concept based on the SAP DM standard functional scope is developed together before the project decision is made - tailored to the specific requirements of the respective production.