Leonardo is dead, long live ME

The "Leonardo" construction kit was once the catch-all for all SAP's IoT activities (Industrie 4.0). Later, Leonardo was expanded to include artificial intelligence, blockchain and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) as well as many other buzzwords.

However, because most of the subject areas are not SAP's core competence, and the ERP group bought in and borrowed a lot (see AI and machine learning from Nvidia), Leonardo's success was also very modest. There was also a lack of personnel and competence, because in recent months almost all developers were busy with "cloud integration" and master data consolidation.

In this creative chaos, Manufacturing Execution (ME) grew into an amazing product. Anyone planning to update their production control system now almost always has SAP ME on the short list, along with Bosch, Siemens and others. Linking the production control system to the ERP back office brings efficiency and agility. And under the generic term "ME", SAP also very cleverly places future topics such as Digital Twin, IIoT, etc. on the shortlist.

Classic topics such as variant configuration, simulation and process modeling are also included. Leonardo is dead, but SAP ME is definitely worth a look!