Review: .riess UPDATE 21.0 DIGITAL
The annual user meeting - for the first time held completely digitalFor the first time completely digital
On February 24th, 2021 the .riess UPDATE took place for the 21st time. The global health situation caused by COVID-19 made the event something special. Usually held as an on-site event, the .riess UPDATE 21.0 DIGITAL stands out from its predecessors.
For the first time, the annual user meeting for the integration of PTC Solutions in SAP was held completely digitally. This offered more participants than ever the opportunity to attend. In fact, .riess engineering was able to achive to a record number of almost 200 participants from over 80 companies who followed the various presentations and were active in the virtual roundtables.
A year filled with challenges
The past year presented companies with completely new challenges. The focus was particularly set on digitalization. Not only because of the newly gained experience, it is clear that the seamless integration of applications and systems opens up great opportunities and is an important part of a successful digital strategy. With standardized and optimized PLM processes, SAP offers the key to the digital enterprise and thus supports companies in making optimal use of the opportunities offered by the digitalization of their product development processes.
As part of UPDATE 21.0 DIGITAL, the first SAP PLM event of the year, it was explained in detail how the SAP price list products developed by .riess engineering, SAP Engineering Control Center interface to PTC Creo and SAP product data management integration to PTC Windchill, the customers support.
.riess engineering had put together a varied and informative agenda for the day, with a strategic overview, information about innovations and roadmaps, product presentations, success stories on the two different SAP PLM integration solution approaches, as well as virtual roundtables.
.riess engineering is changing
Managing Director Wolfgang Schukowski during the opening of the UPDATE 21.0 DIGITAL
After the welcome by Wolfgang Schukowski, the managing director of .riess engineering europe gmbh, he introduced the company based on the milestones of the .riess company history, with the aim of setting another milestone with UPDATE 21.0 DIGITAL.
“You are probably asking yourself why I am presenting milestones in the company's history at UPDATE 21.0. Because we want to set a milestone again this year: .riess engineering will change - today - with a new company logo and a new appearance. I would now like to invite you to be there when the new .riess company logo is unveiled."
said Schukowski and started the transformation process from the old to the new company logo by playing an animation.
.riess engineering will change - today - with a new company logo and a new appearance
Wolfang Schukowski, Managing Director .riess engineering europe gmbhUnveiling of the new .riess engineering company logo
“The .riess dot is still an important part of the new company logo. It is even interpreted several times in it. We have chosen a modern and fresh design and color scheme and expect a serious increase in visibility and recognition"
Schukowski continued and presented the new .riess website, which went live for the public that very moment.
The presentations of the day at a glance
Stefan Ziegler presents the open strategy of SAP for direct CAD integration, as well as for external PDM integration
What makes digital product development successful?
At the beginning of the official presentations of the day, Stefan Ziegler, Regional Presales Expert PLM at SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG, showed in his SAP keynote "What makes digital product development successful" how the early phase of product development in the entire product creation process can be integrated and which different implementation strategies are supported by SAP. The focus was set on the strategic openness of SAP for direct integration via ECTR and PDM integration, always with the aim of seamless integration. Stefan Ziegler intensively examined the key success factors best practices, new technologies and partnerships.
Split of the event
Afterwards, all participants were divided into the two tracks SAP ECTR interface to PTC Creo and SAP PDM integration to PTC Windchill, in which the two solution approaches outlined in the keynote were further deepened with presentations by the responsible SAP product owner, the .riess team and customer representatives.
In Track 1, Gerhard Himmelsbach from SAP presented the strategy as well as new and soon available functions of the SAP Engineering Control Center such as the checkout assistant or the use of snapshots especially for CAD integrations, but also software capabilities. Furthermore, the participants were given an insight into the SAP ECTR roadmap.
SAP producta data management integration to PTC Windchill as part of the "Design to Operate" Big Picture of SAP
At the same time in Track 2, Dennis Detjens went into more detail on the generic PDM integration component there and its new functions such as package monitor for structures and visualization, as well as support of SAP PEO (Production Engineering and Operations).
Representation of the information sources for the SAP Engineering Control Center interface to PTC Creo
After the lunch break, the .riess team, consisting of product management and business development, continued completely synchronously with detailed product presentations. In track 1 with the presentation of new functions and working methods of the SAP ECTR interface to PTC Windchill, also using the process optimization solutions .riess® Converter and .riess® ProcessOptimizer.
In Track 2 with the demonstration of an exemplary, bidirectional end-to-end process via SAP PDM integration to PTC Windchill, including a cross-system change process. All participants were given an excellent insight into the new functions of the SAP standard integrations, but also into the many possible uses in processes due to the high degree of configurability.
Success stories from our customers
We were particularly happy that two customers had agreed to share their success stories again this year:
Welser Profile Austria GmbH
With the customer presentation "Strategic Migration to SAP S4/HANA - We are taking the next step", Welser Profile Austria GmbH showed challenges and possible solutions for the migration to SAP S4/HANA and the associated change over to SAP Engineering Control Center. An important part of the project's success was achieved thanks to the parallel operation of SAP CAD Desktop and SAP Engineering Control Center. Approaches to solutiosn were not just talked about. Towards the end of the presentation, a live demo was even shown on the customer system, in which the audience could see very well how easy, high-performing and at the same time deeply process-integrated and highly optimized work can be done with SAP ECTR and the integration for PTC Creo directly in SAP.
Overview of the systems involved in the project
MOSCA GmbH
In a parallel customer presentation of the MOSCA GmbH "Model-centered PLM through company-wide data consistency", their Group Director R&D / Design & Engineering presented a very deep integration between PTC Windchill and SAP S/4HANA in a customer environment: Workflow-based support of PLM processes like material master creation and changes across system boundaries, as well as the use of additional documents and STEP models in the SAP system for company-wide consumption using SAP 3D Visual Enterprise. It was emphasized that the solution in the next step will include providing the PMI information on the 3D model for a model-centered way of working.
Closing words & outlook
After merging the two tracks again, Wolfgang Schukowski summed up the very successful day again and thanked all participants and speakers.
Immediately afterwards, the participants had the opportunity to dial in to 5 product-specific roundtables and switch flexibly between these in order to discuss the day's content, to get questions answered by the experts present, or simply to have some small talk with each other.
In its virtual way, the UPDATE 21.0 DIGITAL was certainly something very special. We would like to thank all participants and speakers for the successful day!
The .riess UPDATE 22.0 is expected to take place in February 2022. We will inform you of the exact date in good time.