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Review: .riess engineering Update 17.0

Read everything about this years user meeting for the integration of PTC Creo into SAP PLM.

Following increasing interest in their solutions, .riess engineering, the strategic partner of SAP for development and implementation for the integration of PTC Creo in SAP PLM, presented their annual “Update” at a new and larger venue: The Radisson Blu Hotel in Karlsruhe/Ettlingen.

Main subjects of Update 17.0 on February 8th 2017, the big user meeting for the integration of PTC Creo in SAP PLM for interested parties and existing customers, were Live Engineering and True PLM with SAP, the SAP Engineering Control Center, and the SAP Engineering Control Center interface to PTC Creo. In addition to the SAP Keynote and live demonstrations of Use Cases including many improvements of the solution, a highlight of the presentation was the talk of a reference customer about SAP PLM harmonization and the introduction of the SAP Engineering Control Center interface to PTC Creo in a globally active medium-sized company.

CEO Wolfgang Schukowski welcoming the participants

“Our Update – the 17th of its kind already – but this time with a new face at a new venue. Ettlingen has not changed but we are in the Radisson Blu Hotel for the first time” said Wolfgang Schukowski, CEO of .riess engineering europe gmbh during his welcoming address of the event. “Changing to a larger venue has become necessary because of the growing number of customers and participants for this event each year.”

What does the digital transformation mean for R&D and what opportunities arise from it? Which life cycle data is relevant to R&D and how does SAP PLM support this change? How can you leverage the opportunities of digitalization to grow successfully? What advantages does changing to S/4 HANA and SAP Engineering Control Center offer to SAP customers in this context? A lot of questions that SAP SE answered at the keynote “Live Engineering” with clear and well-illustrated examples.

During the subsequent coffee and lunch break there was an excursion to SAP Product Lifecycle Costing: Calculating product costs in an early phase of product development. Following an overview of the subject, the guests of the event experienced a presentation of the solution on a live system.

Gerhard Himmelsbach, Product Owner SAP ECTR, presenting the SAP Roadmap

After the lunch buffet in the atrium and the BluLounge, the Product Owner SAP PLM of SAP SE opened the SAP Engineering Control Center topic group with the “Roadmap of SAP Engineering Control Center”– a very interesting overview for customers to see what SAP and the development partners in SAP ECTR have implemented so far with regard to functionality and supported systems and what else they have planned in the medium and long term. S/4 HANA support and SAP 3D Visual Enterprise were the most anticipated subjects for customers. The speaker was able to give customers confirmation with the already available SAP ECTR for S/4HANA 1.0.


With “Live Use Cases: SAP Engineering Control Center 5.1 with interface to PTC Creo 1.1”, .riess engineering really opened up. What followed were almost 2 hours of live presentations of Use Cases for SAP ECTR interfaces to PTC Creo and MS Office, together with the SAP change service, Engineering Record, Workflow and SAP 3D Visual Enterprise as well as the .riess ProcessOptimizer – all fully integrated into SAP ECTR.

Denis Gierich, Innovation & Business Development, shows live how SAP CAD Desktop customers can migrate to SAP ECTR

Meanwhile, Concurrent Engineering Processes showed CAD Desktop and SAP ECTR running parallel with their respective Creo interfaces on 2 screens. The audience was excited and it was clear to everybody that the transition from CAD Desktop to SAP ECTR or the mixed operation of both solutions in the context of a larger incremental roll out can be realized and executed in a SAP system without any issues.


“Parallel operation” was also the main subject of the subsequent coffee break. Then, SAP Deutschland made a live presentation of how data created by a CAD direct integration is further processed in the SAP process flow: Using 3D supported work preparation with the SAP 3D Visual Manufacturing Planner and visual installation guides for more efficiency and better results. This is “3D for all“, from product visualization to digitally supported manufacturing.

Markus Moßmann, Group Vice President IT und Vice President Supply Chain & Logistics Europe der J. Wagner GmbH, referiert über die PLM Harmonisierung bei der WAGNER GROUP

Another highlight of the day was the “PLM Harmonization at the WAGNER GROUP” reference customer talk presented by the Group Vice President IT and Vice President Supply Chain & Logistics Europe of the company. Topics of the presentation were the initial situation and the specific customer requirements and the visions of the company, the various PLM sub-projects as well as their planning and implementation. A special focus was on the presentation of the SAP ECTR sub-project with an interface to PTC Creo. As a result of that project, the WAGNER GROUP has transferred the Creo direct integration environment with CAD Desktop that is already used around Europe to ECTR and has also harmonized the CAD data management processes for the upcoming PTC Windchill migration at another location in the US.


After the speech, Wolfgang Schukowski enthusiastically summed up the day. “After this event, the present customers and interested parties had no more doubts about the fact that SAP ECTR and SAP ECTR interface to PTC Creo are fully developed SAP software solutions and that changing from CAD Desktop to implement them is technically no problem at all. This is true for smaller companies with a big bang roll out as well as larger customers with sequential roll out plans.”

After the speech, Wolfgang Schukowski enthusiastically summed up the day. “After this event, the present customers and interested parties had no more doubts about the fact that SAP ECTR and SAP ECTR interface to PTC Creo are fully developed SAP software solutions and that changing from CAD Desktop to implement them is technically no problem at all. This is true for smaller companies with a big bang roll out as well as larger customers with sequential roll out plans.”


After the official part of the event was over, the dinner buffet offered more opportunities for networking in a nice ambience between customers, interested parties, SAP specialists, CAD integration partners and .riess engineering.


The following day, a workgroup meeting for the integration of PTC Creo in the SAP PLM took place in the .riess engineering offices in Karlsbad.


We would like to express our gratitude to all participants and guests for these two very successful days!


The .riess Update 18.0 will take place in February 2018. We will notify you of the exact date in good time.

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