Tokyo-headquartered PSI Co., Ltd., a provider of sales and technical support for cutting-edge information security-related products, and SAP Japan have embarked on a collaborative partnership to help revitalize the country’s local agricultural farming. (InsideSAP Asia often references articles from websites in other languages to bring you as much information as possible.) The two companies have developed a supply chain platform that harnesses the power of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), dubbed as the technological foundation for all SAP applications and the Intelligent Enterprise, and PSI’s Digital Material Controller (DMC) solution, a certified IoT Edge Device for SAP BTP.

The strategic partnership between SAP Japan and PSI is focused on advancing the digital transformation of Japan’s agriculture industry with an emphasis on supporting small-scale dispersed farms and orchards in the rural region. The solution that integrates SAP BTP and DMC intends to streamline the supply chain management of Japanese enterprises such as miso and sake breweries in provincial areas.

Advancing Agri Industry’s Digital Supply Chain Strategy 

SAP has been at the forefront of agribusiness innovation creating intelligent solutions to support sustainable food supply chains and increase farming efficiencies. In last year’s virtual event “A Growing ASEAN, A Hungry Population: Building Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply Chains” organized by the German software enterprise SAP, Verena Siow, President and Managing Director of SAP Southeast Asia highlighted how technology can be the aching agent to tackle food security and sustainability as a resource management challenge.

In Japan, the agricultural industry’s development in the rural region is currently facing significant challenges such as the steady decline of population and economy along with no new industries to support or replace agribusiness, which is a key driver of the regional economy. Together, SAP Japan and PSI aim to revive the agricultural industry in the rural region by leveraging smart technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics in the cloud, and 4G communication SIM.

The latest digital supply chain strategy for the agricultural industry was kickstarted in partnership with Minano Mirai Souzousha, an abandoned farmland and aging population in Minano-cho, Chichibu-gun, Saitama Prefecture. Spearheaded by SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL), SAP Japan’s collaborative research and development center, in collaboration with PSI, the Minano Digital Eco-Farm project was unveiled to utilize the newly developed digital supply chain platform that can visualize farm information and farm work in the increasingly dispersed small-scale agricultural industry. Some of the key objectives of the local project include streamlining the supply chain of distribution companies and connecting remote farms to urban residents and restaurants.

Merging SAP BTP and PSI’s DMC

The new supply chain platform merges PSI’s DMC IoT Start KIT for SAP BTP, an all-in-one compact Edge server that can easily build an IoT environment with extensive security functions, and SAP BTP, a collection of on-premise and cloud products that can be categorized into four pillars: database and data management, application development and integration, analytics, and intelligent technology. The new platform allows DMC to work with SAP BTP in real-time while ensuring data protection from various sensors. On the other hand, SAP BTP leverages AI and location information in analyzing and reporting the data received from DMC.

Part of Minano Digital Eco-Farm project is conducting a demonstration experiment to look into the aging process of the miso storehouse utilizing the SAP and PSI technologies. Critical to the maturation process of the handmade miso, the temperature and humidity of the miso storehouse are measured by a sensor wirelessly connected to the DMC. Then, the measurement results are transmitted from the DMC’s 4G communication SIM to the SAP BTP, which analyzes the data gathered utilizing machine learning.  

This technology integration provides real-time analysis, which empowers key individuals to take action as needed such as the proper management of temperature and humidity in the miso storehouse as well as timely miso container placement and movement. Moreover, regardless of miso-making skills, staff can produce high-quality miso guided by the detailed work instructions for the miso aging process derived from the new supply chain solution.

With the paramount goal of contributing to the sustainability and self-sufficiency of agricultural products in the country, PSI and SAP Japan intend to expand their project across other regions in Japan.

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Industry cloud solutions developed by SAP and its partner on an open platform offer enterprises easy access to innovative vertical solutions across industries– from automotive to telecommunications and high technology. Having solutions designed to be interoperable with SAP’s intelligent suite, businesses can embark on cost-effective business transformation and sustainable growth while managing disruptions and industry changes.

Specific to the High Tech industry, SAP has forecasted that there will be a significant demand for platforms and subscription-based services by high-tech companies to enable them to monetize intellectual property– ultimately allowing them to deliver excellent products and customer experiences. The SAP Industries whitepaper revealed that 60% of the top manufacturers will utilize digital platforms that enhance their investments in ecosystems and experiences and the value creation potential of manufacturers and suppliers implementing Industry 4.0 in 2025 would reach US$3.7 trillion.

Demonstrating the German software enterprise company’s efforts to expand its vertical solutions in the High Tech industry, particularly in the manufacturing space, SAP has added Instrumental Inc.’s AI-powered manufacturing optimization platform in its Industry Cloud Solutions portfolio.

Growing SAP Industry Cloud Solutions

Now available in SAP Store, the Instrumental AI Manufacturing Optimization solution integrates with SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud– a reflection of SAP industry cloud’s objective to create innovative solutions that would help customers extend the value of their SAP investments. Harnessing SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud’s capabilities to provide analytics, plant and enterprise-level Industry 4.0 execution, and machine/equipment modeling, among many others, Instrumental’s platform can empower companies by automatically discovering anomalies and maximizing their existing data while monitoring manufacturing programs. This, essentially, results in a faster launch of enhanced products.

Commenting on the latest collaboration with Instrumental Inc., Jeff Howell, Global VP, High Tech Industry Business Unit at SAP, said:

“The Instrumental AI Manufacturing Optimization platform complements our portfolio in the high tech industry and empowers manufacturing teams to accelerate new product introductions and improve quality on manufacturing lines.”

“This is a prime example of how collaboration between our organizations can deliver value for customers. We look forward to continued partnership with Instrumental to create innovative cloud solutions and applications for customers who want to drive cost-effective and sustainable growth in their industry,” he added.

The Instrumental AI Manufacturing Optimization platform leverages artificial intelligence to automatically find defects in images or data, automates root cause analysis, design and validate a solution, and establish a way to monitor for recurrence. In doing so, manufacturers can not only accelerate the new product introduction timeline but also enhance yield on their manufacturing line. In addition, the solution also provides the manufacturing team with simple dashboards and exportable build and issue reports for efficient communication among teams, factories, or chain of command.

Instrumental Inc. Founder and CEO Anna-Katrina Shedletsky explained that manufacturing teams, including individual engineers and their leaders, know that timely product launches and meeting yield targets would define their success. She highlighted:

“In an increasingly digital industry, they need data at all stages of new product introduction (NPI) and mass production (MP) to make that happen. We’re proud to launch our platform on SAP Store to help more manufacturing teams access the critical data they need to bring high-quality products to market.”

About Instrumental Inc.

Instrumental Inc. is known for its Manufacturing Optimization System specifically designed for engineering and operations teams to help them drive remarkable improvements to yield, uptime, throughput, efficiency, time to market, and end-user satisfaction. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company also has an office in Shenzhen, China and has been supporting global electronics brands’ core manufacturing data infrastructure.

Now as a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge, Instrumental Inc. can further develop high-quality, industry-specific applications with SAP providing access to enablement tools, resources, and services.

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it.calibration, NTT DATA Business Solution’s offering for the Life Sciences industry, has recently been added to SAP’s Industry Cloud solutions portfolio. The fully-compliant, straightforward mobile calibration solution integrates with SAP ERP, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Extension Suite and/or SAP Integration Suite.

SAP’s Industry Cloud enables organisations to embark on a cost-effective digital transformation while driving sustainable business growth through innovative, vertical solutions developed by SAP and partners on an open platform as a service using SAP Business Technology Platform. The industry-specific solutions such as it.calibration are interoperable with the SAP Business Network and the intelligent suite to enable organisations to accelerate business innovation as well as to adapt to industry changes and disruptions.

SAP – NTT DATA Business Solutions Industry Partnership

Both with a massive global footprint, German software enterprise SAP and NTT DATA Business Solutions have been helping organisations transform into intelligent, sustainable enterprises leveraging the former’s industry cloud solutions and the latter’s deep industry domain expertise and business services as well as integration content and accelerators. it.calibration is one example of the innovation partnership between SAP and NTT DATA Business Solutions in the Life Sciences industry. 

As a validated app on the SAP Store, it.calibration now has the global reach to help customers in the Life Sciences industry modernise their device calibration processes with an SAP-validated solution from a trusted global innovator such as NTT DATA Business Solutions. The vertical solution offers online result recording, fully integrated via OData services with the back end SAP ERP system. Whether on Apple iOS or the Android operating system, the native app for tablets can integrate to the SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA backend system through SAP BTP.

By automating documentation of measuring device calibration tasks, it.calibration is reported to reduce 50-60{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of processing time and significantly cut down release time for production equipment. It enables organisations to manage calibration results in compliance with GMP/GAMP (Good (Automated) Manufacturing Practice and CSV (Computer System Validation). Moreover, the latest SAP Industry Cloud solution offers cost-efficiency by not requiring a separate (non-SAP) calibration management application, essentially lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO).

“Companies reap the benefits of using it.calibration immediately. The device calibration’s quality forms the basis for further digitisation en route to a smart factory,” said Jan Ammann, Global Head of Industry & LoB Collaboration at NTT DATA Business Solutions AG. “The inclusion of it.calibration in SAP’s industry cloud for life sciences reiterates not only the quality of this product but also its strategic significance as a solution across all sectors. Reliable measurement data are an important success factor in the digitization process.”

Mandar Paralkar, Global Vice President, SAP Life Sciences, commented:

“Industry cloud partner applications running on SAP Business Technology Platform complement our intelligent suite capabilities to drive tangible business outcome.”

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In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, organisations are continuously striving to create holistically integrated processes leveraging technologies such as SAP BTP, dubbed as the Platform for the Intelligent Enterprise. As a unified, business-centric, and open platform for the entire SAP ecosystem, SAP BTP delivers a holistic experience that spans a wide variety of scenarios around integration, creation of value from data, and extensibility for processes in 25 key industries, including the life sciences industry. 

An article written by SAP’s Communication Director Susan Galer featured how Symetric, a Bengaluru-based startup that offers web based, end to end solutions for clinical research, is driving innovation in the life sciences industry.  Harnessing the power of SAP BTP, SyMetric Trial Analytics solution captures and analyzes historical and updated clinical trial data in one system. It has been used in various studies conducted by global pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organisations in a variety of therapeutic areas such as neurology, respiratory illness, oncology, and dermatology.

In India, Symetric’s cloud-based analytics solution has been used in the earliest clinical trials for COVID-19 plasma therapy and has completed 10 COVID-19 studies. Explaining the company’s mission to modernise the life sciences industry, Uma Janapareddy, Founder and Managing Director at SyMetric, said:

“We are providing a holistic solution for clinical trials management, what we call ERP for clinical research. Having easily accessible data on one unified platform helps researchers develop more effective drugs with stronger study results so they can bring pioneering medicines faster to people.”

SAP BTP-powered Analytics Tool

The SyMetric Trial Analytics solution helps users make informed decisions while planning a new Clinical Trial using insights from study data and performance analytics of stakeholders such as CROs, Investigation Sites, and Investigators. Built on SAP Business Technology, the solution can be integrated with the customer’s system to deliver insightful analysis while leveraging cloud initiatives from SAP in Life Sciences.

In one platform, users can access patient information indicating initial eligibility to participate in a clinical trial and progress monitoring through rigorous statistical analyses at trial completion for regulatory submission. The Analytics Tool also captures and analyzes electronic data from anywhere, including patient’s activities tracked on a mobile device or AI-based imaging that shows medical progress.

Here are some of the outcomes seen by customers using the SyMetric Trial Analytics mentioned in the article:

• Gave clinicians cost-savings foresight and flexibility
• Real-time data saved time in data clean up at the project completion stage
• Reduced clinical trial setup and completion timelines by 20{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}
• Some customers saved up to 30{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} wastage of drug supplies during the trial manufacturing phase

Inspired by SAP’s innovation ecosystem and her experience as an alumni of SAP Startup Studio at SAP Labs India, Janapareddy is looking into tapping the European market, expanding its customer base in India and the US.

“We have a shared passion with SAP for the power of life sciences and integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) data on a single platform – where every company becomes an intelligent enterprise. SAP is a global leader in life sciences including pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and ERP, and its leaders generously share their expertise with us. We also appreciate the significant exposure to SAP customers from this partnership,” she said.

Delivering Cloud Innovations to the Life Sciences industry

In May, Symetric has partnered with Tenthpin, a global management consulting firm with deep expertise in Life Sciences, Agriculture & Chemicals and Diversified Industries, to jointly deliver cloud innovations for Life Sciences companies to build the data-driven and patient-centric value chain. The two companies will be working on marketing and implementing cloud solutions for clinical trials, specifically SyMetric’s Clinical Trial Platform (IRT, EDC, ePRO, CTMS) and their Clinical Trial Analytics solution.

The announcement came a few weeks after the inauguration of Tenthpin’s Global Life Science Innovation Center powered by SAP technology with locations in San Francisco, Walldorf, Bangalore and Shanghai. The new innovation center supports innovations for a number of industry cloud solutions with SAP such as the next-generation clinical trial supply management (CTSM) solution built on SAP Business Technology Platform and powered by SAP S/4HANA.

“Tenthpin and SyMetric joint offerings to the market and our current collaboration with them in developing SAP’s NextGen CTSM solution is a perfect example of our collective vision to build a future-proof Life Sciences Industry Cloud Platform for our customers,” Janapareddy highlighted.

SyMetric Trial Analytics and the SyMetric Clinical Trial Platform are available on SAP Store.

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An increasing number of organisations are turning to SAP solutions to help meet their needs in developing products and streamlining business operations. SAP’s collaboration strategy with other tech companies has been instrumental in advancing enterprises’ digital transformation journeys.

In an interview, SAP Korea CEO Lee Seong-yeol said that SAP has already established its name in the industry, not only as an ERP and cloud company but also as a partner for digital transformation in South Korea.

“Small and medium-sized companies lack the manpower or costs to independently design software and services they need for their companies. SAP’s solution could be a ‘comprehensive gift set’ for them. It’s cheaper than installation-type service methods in the past, and updates are also provided in real time,” he explained.

Adding to the growing cohort of companies utilising solutions from the multinational software giant is Clair — a fast-growing start-up that manufactures and sells air purifiers. Just recently, the South Korean branch of SAP has announced that Clair has deployed SAP BTP’s IoT technology for its latest non-face-to-face filter subscription service called MyClair.

Leveraging the Capabilities of SAP BTP and SAP IoT

Implemented based on the IoT technology of SAP BTP, the newly launched MyClair service gathers and analyses data using artificial intelligence (AI) sensors connected to the Clair Air Purifier. ​​The AI sensors check the filter status and automatically transfers the filter according to the replacement time. Deploying SAP BTP and IoT solutions ultimately helped Clair achieve automatic order processing after inventory checks and enabled the company to have user-customised smart services.

By delivering services such as database and data management, intelligent technology, application development, and analysis, SAP BTP — a cloud-based development and analysis solution — further promotes the transition towards becoming an intelligent enterprise. SAP Korea CEO Lee Seong-yeol said:

“SAP BTP’s IoT technology provides innovative data analysis capabilities to support the transformation of manufacturing companies into transformative intelligent companies.”

Meanwhile, Clair CEO Lee Woo Hun said that MyClair is a service co-developed using Clair’s manufacturing technology and ATNS Group’s IT capabilities. ATNS Group, an IT solution and SAP ERP consulting company founded in 2002, was the first to sign an agreement for SAP Connected Goods in the Asia-Pacific region. Lee added:

“In particular, the integration and effective analysis of air purifier usage data of each consumer with the SAP IoT solution is the key to implementing the MyClair service.” 

Co-Innovation with SAP AppHaus Korea

Even before MyClair came into fruition, Clair has already partnered with SAP AppHaus Korea to innovate their existing services and re-imagine their business model by applying a customer-centric approach. Clair CEO Lee Woo Hun shared:

“We gained confidence during our collaboration with SAP AppHaus who helped us advance our service model by deeply empathising with users and capturing their insights through the design thinking workshop and field research.”

Clair’s employees, industry experts from SAP Korea, and designers from SAP AppHaus worked closely together to create an IoT-enabled air purifier by interpreting and analysing field data then translating them into insights. Redesigning their business model to better fit customer needs, Clair’s innovation runs on SAP IoT and also leverages the SAP Cloud Platform. Additionally, the company has implemented solutions from Qualtrics to further enhance its user experience through feedback from customers.

Although Clair has already built its name internationally for its filter patents that aim to increase filter efficiency, Lee said that the company looks forward to expanding its services in global markets such as the US and Europe in the future.

Meanwhile, SAP Korea will carry on with its commitment to supporting the digital transformation of domestic companies. Recently opening its first data center in the country, SAP continues to deliver cloud services of SAP BTP directly to domestic clients.

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