Continuing the series of interviews with attendees of the last CWG conference, we thought it would be very interesting to the CWG membership to see what a new attendee thinks about the CWG and its direction.

Here is another in a series of CWG member reactions to the conference help in St. Leon-Rot in May, 2005.

This contribution is by Rainer Failenschmid of Festo. He has been driving a configuration project for several years. He is an experienced IPC user, far from being a "newbie", but also not one of the grizzeled veterans.

Here is what he took away from the most recent conference:

The CWG Plays Question and Answer with SAP

The next CWG conference - in Salzburg - is coming up over the horizon. If you ever wanted to ask SAP management directly - what's the plan? What's coming up for us? When will you address my particular issues? - there's no better place. When last we all gathered on Marco Island, those of us fortunate enough to be there got to ask our questions. Now you can listen in ... almost as if you had had a seat in the room that day.

System Landscape

Even the smallest SAP environments usually include at least a Development environment, a more comprehensive Quality Assurance platform, and the Production system itself:

A little reflection ...

It had occurred to me, after writing my last two articles about some of the possibilities now available for making use of Advanced Mode in ERP2005 and later releases, that perhaps I should turn the two articles into a series.

Gathering Clouds

Those Configuration Workgroup members who've been participating for more than a year might remember that, before this last European CWG Conference in May, there were always pre-meetings devoted to the work of one or more of what were then called "Focus Groups."

Working as designed? Who thinks it's designed?

An editorial comment, Copyright © by Steve Schneider

Training? How Much is Enough?

On Top of That, How Should You Do It?

I'll never forget the first 2 things I was told in my long, long journey learning SAP's version of configuration. Looking back on it, I'm still not sure which was funnier.

Round, Square or Flat. What Shape is Your World?

More Importantly, What are YOU doing about it?

I've been working for the same company for almost 28 years. I've seen a lot of programs come and go, just like product lines. Some of these programs have been flash in the pans, others have been long term and good for the Company.