Full control over 67 GW: ENERCON masters the complexity of highly variant wind turbines
With SAP PPG as the central control authority, ENERCON makes the leap to Configure-to-Order Plus without putting existing processes at risk.
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The wind energy industry faces steadily rising product variance and complexity, dynamic market conditions, growing compliance requirements and rapid technological advances. At the same time, individual project requirements are increasing, coupled with the demand to deliver products faster, more flexibly and more cost-effectively.
Against this backdrop, and as many manufacturers switch to Configure-to-Order Plus (CTO+), the focus is shifting increasingly towards mastering product variability early on and with system support across the entire lifecycle.
ENERCON is one of the industry’s pioneers. Since 1984, under the motto “Energy for the World”, the company has supported its customers in delivering onshore projects. Its total installed capacity exceeds 67 GW. Today, ENERCON positions itself as a provider of integrated solutions for the connected green energy ecosystem, supplying high-yield wind turbines alongside complementary solution building blocks, such as hybrid systems combining wind turbines and battery storage.
The starting point
ENERCON, too, faced the challenge of developing and configuring complex, variant-rich products in such a way that engineering decisions could be made early on in a valid, consistent and execution-ready manner, without putting existing order processing workflows at risk. The goal was not to view product configurations in isolation, but to make them usable as a seamless control element from development right through to service.
The solution: PPG as an integrated, SAP-native extension
BDF EXPERTS carried out the implementation on the basis of the SAP Product and Process Governance (PPG) solution already in use.
Here, PPG acts as the mediating instance between the PLM-centric logic and the execution logic. The technical implementation comprised several components:
Flexible interface: implementation of the SAP-side Teamcenter connection with different process variants depending on the use case. Each of the three ways of working was given a tailored data flow.
Configuration distribution: PG handles the central distribution of product configurations into all downstream business processes, from manufacturing through to maintenance.
System integration: a complex notification system was completely overhauled so that the relevant employees are automatically informed of configuration changes.
Relationship-knowledge transformation: the complex dependencies newly defined in Teamcenter had to be reconciled with the existing logic.
The biggest challenge lay not in the technical implementation, but in understanding ENERCON’s processes, which had grown over many years. “Every customer has individual requirements, but ENERCON’s project delivery is exceptionally specialised,” according to BDF EXPERTS. This decoupling means the PLM remains the lead system for product logic and variant knowledge, while large parts of the existing ERP processes can continue to be used.
The ENERCON success story shows that cross-industry CTO+ principles can be implemented successfully even in a long-established, highly individualised system landscape. With this architecture, ENERCON has a robust foundation on which to scale product variability further, shorten development and lead times, and deliver future extensions, such as in the area of Bill of Process, in a structured and controlled way.
About ENERCON
As a provider of integrated solutions for the connected green energy ecosystem, ENERCON supports its customers in realising onshore wind energy projects. To unlock the full potential of each project, the company combines its high-performance, high-yield wind turbines with complementary solution components and services, thereby increasing customer benefit and the value contribution of wind energy. The portfolio ranges from planning and installation through management and control to service and maintenance, all the way to optimising plant performance. Thanks to innovative plant technology, high quality standards and an extensive service network, ENERCON is one of the world’s leading companies in the field of renewable energy.
About BDF EXPERTS
BDF EXPERTS is the brand of bdf consultants GmbH, a leading SAP Silver / SolEx partner with comprehensive end-to-end expertise in Digital Supply Chain and Corporate Finance & Treasury (CFT).
For more than 25 years, BDF EXPERTS has been helping companies, on the basis of SAP ERP and S/4HANA, to achieve measurable value creation through fully digitalised processes. In Digital Supply Chain, BDF EXPERTS has developed particular expertise in holistic data management.
With SAP PPG (Product and Process Governance), BDF EXPERTS offers an innovative solution for centrally managing all product and process data in SAP, thereby laying the foundation for data-driven business models.
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