Questions
we get asked.
The ones that span the whole product. Each page has its own answers for its own subject.
What is Vianta PLP?
Vianta Product Lifecycle Profitability joins your costing structures — bills of materials or recipes, together with routings or process steps — to the costs that value them, and keeps the join current. On that foundation it answers four questions: what a new product will cost, what happens to cost when something changes, what a product or variant contributes, and whether a product earns out.
Who is it for?
Discrete manufacturers working in bills of materials and routings, and process manufacturers working in recipes and process steps. Inside those companies: cost engineering, cost controlling, sales and pricing, and strategy or investment controlling.
Is this an ERP or a PLM system?
Neither. It is a costing and profitability layer over the systems you already run — reaching into PDM for a structure that only exists there, and into ERP for the prices and rates that value it. It is built on SAP Business Technology Platform and integrates natively with SAP; other systems connect through an open API.
We already cost products in ERP. Why would we need this?
Your bills of materials and routings are maintained primarily for production planning, and product costing uses them to value semi-finished and finished materials for inventory. Both jobs are done well. Neither can cost a product that has not been created in ERP yet, and neither shows what a change does across the portfolio, what one product or variant contributes, or whether a product earns out over its life. PLP uses your ERP data and adds the costing view those questions need.
Do we need SAP to use it?
Native integration is with SAP, and that is where PLP is quickest to stand up. Other systems connect through the open API.
How it gets live
How does an implementation start?
With scoping — which products, which systems, and what a good first result looks like. Then PLP is connected to your landscape and the first costing structures come across. Then real calculations on real products, with hands-on support from the team that built it. Then rollout, at your pace.
How is it priced?
Pricing is based on a number of factors, including the number of active calculations, hot storage in HANA, and the number of users. We will be happy to provide a custom-tailored quote that fits your requirements.
Can we see it on our own data?
A demo runs on sample data — it is the fastest way to see what the product does. If you want to see it against your own data, we offer trial access for a small fee, where you can run the system on your own structures and costs.
