How does BlueWorx stack up?

How well does BlueWorx stack up against its competition? BlueWorx is highly competitive with other SAP Plant Maintenance options, including SAP's own Work Manager and Asset Manager. 

Some Points Worth Considering

While organizations may value different things when selecting their solutions, there's obvious commonality when it comes to choosing an SAP mobile asset management product. Here are some criteria to consider: 

Exactly what are you getting and what do you need to operate it?

Sometimes is can be hard to understand in the jumble of options and requirement responses just what you're getting and what else you might need to make it operate as you need. BlueWorx is a very simple technology and licensing scenario to understand.

Do you really know what you are buying? Is it a Product or an Accelerator?

How open is the vendor on the information they provide? Do they gloss over the depth of functionality involved or, like the information on this site, do they give you very detailed descriptions of what their solution does or doesn't do as standard?

Accelerators are what we would call several competing products that require the vendor to be fully involved in the solution implementation, often technically to a high degree, and do not offer the resources and materials required for others to implement and support. BlueWorx is a product, meaning it can be deployed and used, technically without change and further Accenture involvement. So while Accenture has the advantage of deployment experience, we have customers who have implemented BlueWorx themselves. And we have several partners that implement and support BlueWorx with our (joint) customers. That's not to suggest that 'just anyone' can do this, it takes skills, knowledge and experience to be successful. 

Breadth and Depth of Functionality

At first glance, it may not be apparent when looking at your options just what the differences are between various products. You might be tempted to think that they all pretty much offer the same functionality. If you look a little deeper, you'll soon see that in many areas we offer a broader and deeper range of functionality and options.

For a summary list of features to assist in your own evaluation please see: BlueWorx Functionality Outline

Great SAP User Experience - on Mobile device and Desktop

BlueWorx delivers a responsive SAP user interface. It provides the same look and feel as next-generation SAP Fiori applications and with the ability to operate offline without needing additional servers and 'black boxes'. 

BlueWorx is designed to work the way that field workers want and removes the complexity of standard SAP Plant Maintenance and paper-based processes. It supports use on mobile devices and leading desktop browsers. That's one codebase providing the same great look and feel that automatically adapts to your screen size! The majority of our competitors do not support both mobile and desktop and in the case of SAP Asset Manager they have a separate code base for their iOS and Android versions which, at the time we last checked, do not deliver the same functionality. 

Configurable Inspections

The need for flexible, easy to use and configure asset inspections is a core part of most mobile asset management requirements. BlueWorx delivers powerful, flexible functionality to replace manual processes and a sometimes overly high reliance on SAP Measurement Points. All BlueWorx inspections, from configuration to completion reside inside SAP, and produce a number of configured SAP outcomes in terms of updates. BlueWorx provides an audit record of what got asked (in detail), what the answer was, who answered it and what happened in SAP as a result. For more information see Inspections Explained

Spatial Integration

BlueWorx allows you to map your asset as point, linear, and polygons. crucially you can map work against assets spatially, again as points, linear and polygons, and include annotations. That functionality, as far as we know, is unique to BlueWorx. BlueWorx also integrates with ESRI Arc GIS and Google Maps. For ESRI you can take map, asset location and layer information offline. 

Robust and efficient synchronization with SAP

BlueWorx syncing functionality is fast and robust. The delta sync option saves on time and cellular data, and good data compression on-device means that we maximize the use of available device resources. And BlueWorx offers automatic silent syncing too, so your workforce can get the latest updates as soon as possible.

Innovative Functionality

The innovation doesn't end with Inspections and Spatial. BlueWorx provides extensive functionality that users and businesses demand. While some of this functionality, to varying degrees, also exist in competing products, we believe that BlueWorx is unique in its approach in a number of areas. Examples include:

  • Online searches for SAP Functional Locations and Equipment for retrieval from SAP to then work offline
  • Online search of SAP Functional Location Work Order, Notification, Measurement Document and Inspection history an then (controllable) download of Orders and Notifications
  • Parking Notifications and Order. Either so you can continue to work on it and or identify assets from SAP when next online
  • Work Order and Operations status updates, that truly are user-specific
  • Fuzzy search capabilities exist in all major lists to provide users with the kind of search functionality we experience every day in our browsers
  • Mass entry of Measurement Documents and Time Confirmation
  • Optional Crew functionality to assist supervisors in the field to view their teams work and allocate as appropriate
  • User ability, where enabled, to select and activate from assigned profile to dynamically change work or asset data according to their business requirements
  • Product configuration and monitoring give easy access to configure and monitor all aspects of BlueWorx operations
  • Customer assets reports. Need additional data about your assets, order or notifications - simply deliver through SAP forms developed to meet your requirements and data the data offline into the field

Low implementation and support costs

The technical and functional implementation of BlueWorx is simple. The ongoing support of the solution uses readily available marketplace skills (SAP ABAP and JavaScript). The licensing costs are very affordable given the addressable process savings, increased efficiency, and data accuracy that mobile asset management can provide.

Talk to the people that know the solution

We aren't going to ask you questions you've already answered in a support ticket, or frustrate you from getting to the people who can actually help. When you request help from the BlueWorx support site you're dealing directly with the people who build and maintain BlueWorx. 

SAP platform incorporating Neptune Software DXP SAP Edition

BlueWorx is fully delivered from within your existing SAP ERP or S4 Hana system. There is no requirement for SAP SMP, SAP Gateway, or proprietary 'black box' servers. The use of SAP Web Dispatchers or similar to secure your ERP access is recommended. BlueWorx is built using SAP Certified Neptune Software and developed in a namespace we own namespace in SAP. This means that the BlueWorx development is independent of your own customer-specific developments.

No SAP upgrades required

BlueWorx is supported from SAP ERP 6 to S/4 HANA. No support packages or upgrades are necessary.

Technology you already have, understand and trust

Uses SAP's own user interface (SAPUI5) and development language (ABAP) and common technology standards (HTML5, JavaScript, AJAX, JSON, Cordova). All maintenance is done from within your SAP system using the change control procedures that you're already used to - SAP transports.

A solution with a Clear future

BlueWorx is set to continue to deliver additional functionality based on a roadmap that is focused on customer feedback. As of mid 2023 we have delivered 13 Support Packs for BlueWorx at a rate of two per year. In between Support Packs we deliver patches with bug fixes and sometimes minor improvements. 

Fully Extensible

Readily adjustable to delivery functionality the way your business needs it, using the language and terms that your people speak. This is not restricted to BlueWorx - Neptune offers the ability to provide your people with other mobile apps to support your field workers and desktop personnel. This is a crucial capability for you to deploy other applications through the same mobile application channel - for example: Stock Look-Up; CATS Time Sheets; Create Requisitions; etc

Developed by Accenture

For 25 years Zag provided exceptional customer innovation including the development of BlueWorx in 2016. In 2020 we became part of Accenture, transitioning from being the most successful SAP Partner in New Zealand to being one of the global leaders in the IT and business consulting space.