SAP is advancing into hitherto-neglected areas of production control and closing the gap between SAP ERP and the machine control layer. This allows SAP MII to control production in real time.As a general rule, various systems are already in use in automated factories today, for plant data collection, process and machine data, quality systems, assembly instructions as well as for interfacing with underlying machine control systems. Often, these systems have developed over time and are usually based on different IT technologies.With SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII), SAP offers a standardized and highly flexible IT platform for vertical data integration that is precisely tailored to the requirements of the production floor. SAP MII (SAP Manufacturing Integration and In