­COMOS/SAP interface
White Paper
Optimized data exchange between COMOS and SAP
June 2010
Summary
Today, consistent data exchange between engineering applications and ERP systems is indispensable for efficient and errorfree planning and operation of plant and equipment. With the
SAP interface in COMOS, data can be exchanged safely and
­easily with one of the most common ERP systems.
A white paper issued by: Siemens. © Siemens Industry Software GmbH 2010. All rights reserved.
White Paper | ­COMOS/SAP interfac | June 2010
Contents
Optimized data exchange between
COMOS and SAP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Engineering and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
COMOS/SAP interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Technical implementation of the ­interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Materials management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Document management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Result: optimized procurement processes and ­
efficient equipment planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A white paper issued by: Siemens. © Siemens Industry Software GmbH 2010. All rights reserved.
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White Paper | ­COMOS/SAP interfac | June 2010
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Optimized data exchange between
COMOS and SAP
Engineering and Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP)
Efficient state-of-the-art plant engineering and
plant operations require the data of the different
disciplines involved in the plant lifecycle to be interlinked. This requirement, however, is not limited
to applications for engineering and operations.
Engineering, installation and operations staff must
be enabled to access data from administrative applications, such as stock-on-hand systems, as well.
Moreover, the deployment of engineering components must be able to be passed on to ordering so
that materials bottlenecks can be avoided.
COMOS/SAP interface
SAP plays a decisive role in the asset lifecycle of many
companies. By means of the SAP interface in COMOS,
data can be exchanged between two systems easily
and consistently. The CAE system and the ERP system
are optimally networked. The disciplines using COMOS can thus access valuable information, such as
device catalogs, ordering data or stock on hand, during engineering, revamping or maintenance. Conversely, SAP users are provided with technical data
from COMOS, for instance for purchase requisitions,
because the interface, as well as other features, permits safe transfer of parts lists and technical documents from COMOS to the ERP application.
Since SAP is a very open tool that can be individually
configured, COMOS offers a flexible interface that
can be adapted to the various company-specific SAP
systems without any in-depth programming knowledge. In addition, the COMOS/SAP interface can be
automated with the aid of the COMOS Enterprise
Server. The COMOS Enterprise Server facilitates interoperability between COMOS and other applications
in a heterogeneous system landscape. A one-off
workflow definition enables the defined data from
­COMOS and SAP to be reconciled at regular intervals
without the user having to manually initiate this process time and again.
Technical implementation of the
­interface
COMOS facilitates data exchange with SAP through
a new interface technology that is configurationbased rather than programming-based. This is a particularly useful feature in view of the following facts.
SAP offers functional modules in the form of socalled RFCs/BAPIs (Remote Function Calls / Business
Application Programming Interfaces), which can
be accessed by third-party systems such as COMOS.
Experience has shown, however, that as a result of
an SAP version change, the RFCs/BAPIs can be modified to such an extent that the relevant interfaces
of third-party vendors have to be redeveloped from
scratch. To avoid this, the new interface technology
in COMOS now offers the possibility of merely making a minor adjustment to the settings in COMOS.
This involves a redefinition of the modified RFCs/
BAPIs in SAP that can be accessed by the COMOS
interface in future in order to bidirectionally transfer
data between COMOS and SAP. Even in the case of a
COMOS version change, the operability of the interface can be quickly and easily restored as required.
A white paper issued by: Siemens. © Siemens Industry Software GmbH 2010. All rights reserved.
White Paper | ­COMOS/SAP interfac | June 2010
4
Materials management
Maintenance
With the COMOS/SAP interface, users can define
their entire materials in COMOS via SAP data. During
the selection of manufacturer devices in COMOS, for
example, it is possible to directly link requisitions to
material master data from SAP via a ­graphical user
interface. This avoids double management of master data. Materials not yet existing in SAP but being
planned in COMOS are forwarded to SAP in terms of
a purchase requisition.
For maintenance purposes, the functional locations in
SAP and the equipment in ­COMOS can be bidirectionally matched at all times. Usually, a maintenance
measure is first scheduled in SAP, which involves,
for example, ordering the corresponding spare
parts. If the technical specifications of the spare
parts deviate from those of the previously used components, the new data will be incorporated in COMOS in accordance with a predefined workflow. This
procedure ensures that the current (as-built) status
of the plant is correctly represented in both COMOS
and SAP, i.e., double data management is avoided.
Data transfer from COMOS to SAP is possible through
order bills of materials and any other data extracts.
Various standard user interfaces define the information to be transferred to SAP. The COMOS object
query technology is employed to dynamically specify
the set of data to be transferred in each case.
SAP
Document management
By means of the COMOS/SAP interface, technical
drawings created in COMOS, such as P&IDs, installation diagrams or technical data sheets, can be directly passed to SAP. In this process, documents in SAP
are automatically linked to the relevant technical
objects in COMOS. The SAP documents are always at
the same revision level as the documents in COMOS
and therefore reflect an up-to-date status for further
use in the ERP system.
Business
Management
Lifecycle
Asset Information
Management
COMOS/SAP integration
A white paper issued by: Siemens. © Siemens Industry Software GmbH 2010. All rights reserved.
White Paper | ­COMOS/SAP interfac | June 2010
5
Result: optimized procurement processes and
­efficient equipment planning
The COMOS/SAP interface enables bidirectional data
transfer between COMOS and SAP. This makes for
sustained optimization of the supply chain throughout engineering, procurement and construction, as
well as during service and maintenance operations.
The plant documentation in the two applications can
be easily interlinked so that all disciplines involved
always access up-to-date data. Any changes to components can be entered in one application and trans-
ferred to the other application in a straightforward
manner. The COMOS/SAP interface optimally links
the administrative domains of an enterprise to all
technical disciplines that are part of the plant lifecycle. The accelerated data exchange between the various departments contributes to considerable time
and cost savings.
A white paper issued by: Siemens. © Siemens Industry Software GmbH 2010. All rights reserved.
White Paper | ­COMOS/SAP interfac | June 2010
Siemens Industry Software GmbH & CO. KG
Eisenwerkstr. 1
58332 Schwelm, Germany
Tel.: +49 2336 9188-2219
Fax.:+49 2336 9188-172
www.siemens.com/­­comos
All rights reserved. All trademarks used
are owned by Siemens or their respective owners.
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Contact:
Siemens Industry Software GmbH & CO. KG
Verena Vorwerk
Marketing
Eisenwerkstr. 1
58332 Schwelm, Germany
Tel.: +49 2336 9188-2219
Fax.:+49 2336 9188-172
E-mail: verena.vorwerk@siemens.com
© Siemens Industry Software GmbH 2010
A white paper issued by: Siemens. © Siemens Industry Software GmbH 2010. All rights reserved.