SAP connectivity is coming on stream

Mendocino – the first product to be jointly developed by SAP and Microsoft (and the name of a town half way between the companies’ H?Qs in the US) – is due for release about now to the first 50 pilot customers before going on general release later this year. The deal is tight integration between Microsoft’s desktop productivity tools and SAP ERP systems – leading to spread of SAP data among ‘knowledge workers’ (outside its normal remit) and some potential for early composite applications. Bill Wohl, SAP vice president of product marketing in the US, says it’s been built to help workers who spend most of their time in the Office suite but need to be in touch with SAP systems. “Mendocino tries to eliminate the system-to-system steps, so SAP functionality is automatically kicked off from, say, Outlook with the workflow being completed in SAP,” he says. “It’s a no brainer composite application.” Meanwhile, SAP’s acquisition of Lighthammer and its shopfloor analytics software last summer, is bearing fruit, with the functionality being delivered as another composite application on SAP Netweaver. It’s about bridging that well known but difficult divide, and enabling what SAP refers to as adaptive manufacturing – being responsive and flexible to unpredictable supply chain changes. It’s also about SAP’s public commitment to standards – in the shape of ISA-95, which govern business to production communications set-up. Says Wohl: “As more companies rely on lean supply chain management systems, events like a shipment that’s gone awry, can be plugged into the shopfloor.”