Schneider Electric and SAP collaborate to advance industrial digitalization with seamless shopfloor OT/IT integration

Schneider Electric, the global leader in the digital transformation of energy management and industrial automation, and SAP,  one of the world’s leading producers of software for the management of business processes, today announced they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on IT/OT integration applications. Schneider Electric and SAP plan to explore opportunities to enhance industry innovation and digital transformation, drive open standards, and foster close integration of IT and OT technology to benefit industrial customers.

The companies intend to validate scenarios with their complementary offerings to help provide easy and seamless integration for joint industrial customers. The companies also plan to address future collaboration in the areas of sustainability and energy management.

“Our collaboration with Schneider Electric demonstrates SAP’s wider support for the  Industry 4.0 ecosystem,” said Peter Maier, President, Industries & Customer Advisory, SAP. “Our companies align on the importance of collaboration, innovation, and open standards, making integrated information and operational technology solutions easy to consume for our joint customers.”

The companies plan to explore opportunities to deliver value to customers through preconfigured and tested end-to-end solutions to lower cost of implementation and operation of mission-critical business processes. The first scenarios will be:

1. Simplified shopfloor OT/IT integration based on common standards, onboarding, and lifecycle management of assets as digital twins.
2. End-to-end closed-loop, intelligent asset and field service management using virtual and augmented reality technologies.

One augmented reality solution will be demonstrated in the Schneider Electric exhibit, 540 Halle 1, during the SPS 2022 conference, November 8-10, in Nuremberg, Germany.  Event attendees will be able to experience EcoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor, which leverages augmented reality to enable operators to superimpose the current data and virtual objects onto a cabinet, machine, or a plant. It integrates with SAP’s Intelligent Asset Management which can orchestrate the entire lifecycle of these assets including operation and planning as well as maintenance scheduling and execution. Schneider Electric has also implemented EcoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor in its own manufacturing facility in Carros, France.

“Many of our customers are looking for easier ways to integrate advanced technology in their digitalization journey,” said Bruno Zerbib, EVP, Chief Platform and Technology Officer, Schneider Electric. “With SAP, we’re committed to addressing market challenges with innovative digital solutions to help these customers leverage the benefits of Industry 4.0. For example, ensuring end-to-end OT/IT connectivity enables data-driven decision making and improved performance strategies. Solutions that automatically trigger maintenance or service orders in SAP’s applications can close the loop between maintenance strategy and execution for optimal asset maintenance. And augmented reality can give users the right information at the right time, and in the right place, to reduce the time and increase the accuracy of root cause analysis.”