CAD Integration & SAP ECTR
Design data belongs where the bill of material, the engineering change service and production already are: in SAP. The only question is how much manual work that takes – and what the CAD side costs.
Engineering and SAP without a media break
The SAP Engineering Control Center (ECTR) is the standard bracket between the CAD world and SAP PLM. It links drawings and models to document info records, material masters, classification and the engineering change service. Whether it holds up in daily work is decided by the small things: is the title block populated automatically from SAP? Does saving produce the right version? Do assemblies land in the right context together with their dependencies?
Besides the process question, a second one is on the agenda in many engineering departments: licence cost. With BricsCAD there is a DWG-native alternative to the established systems that is considerably cheaper for many use cases. It only becomes interesting once the SAP connection works just as cleanly as before – which is exactly what we built an integration for.
Our role covers both: consulting on the ECTR rollout and its interplay with the rest of PLM – and the concrete connection of BricsCAD to SAP S/4 ECTR. The product site for this is cad-integration.de (German); here we place it in the wider picture of document management, engineering change and product structure.
At a glance
- SAP ECTR as the bracket between CAD and SAP PLM
- BricsCAD integration for SAP S/4 ECTR
- Document info records & original management
- Automatic title block population from SAP
- Classification & versioning from within CAD
- Lower CAD licence and process cost
Documents & originals
The basis: every drawing as a properly managed document info record.
- Creating and maintaining document info records
- Check originals in and out
- Links to material and BOM objects
- Filing into the connected content repository
Title block & classification
Less typing, fewer discrepancies between drawing and SAP.
- Title block populated straight from SAP data
- Maintain classification and characteristics from CAD
- Consistency between drawing and master data
- Multilingual descriptions
Versioning & engineering change
Keep design states clean – including via change numbers.
- Versions and states fully traceable
- Integration into the SAP engineering change service
- Release processes from PLM
- Interplay with MOC
Business case
The reason the topic usually arrives from the cost side.
- DWG-native alternative to expensive incumbent licences
- Less manual double maintenance
- Shorter lead times in engineering
- Online demo on our systems available
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does SAP ECTR do?
It is the integration platform between CAD systems and SAP PLM: drawings and models are managed as document info records, linked to material masters and BOMs, classified, versioned and tied into the engineering change service – all operated from within the CAD system.
Why BricsCAD?
Because it works DWG-natively and causes considerably lower licence cost than the established systems for many engineering tasks. The precondition for switching is an SAP connection that matches the previous functional scope – which is exactly what we provide.
Can we see it beforehand?
Yes. We show the integration in an online demo on our own systems – including title block population, classification and versioning using a realistic example.
How does this relate to document management and archiving?
Closely. The originals reside in the content repository you already use for SAP – classic archive, SharePoint or cloud storage. The CAD integration creates the metadata, archiving takes care of audit-proof storage.
Does this match your project?
Talk directly to our consultants — no detours.