Welcome to this blog post! Effective June 15th, 2026, SAP Integrated Product Development now supports direct integration with leading MCAD authoring tools. This marks a significant milestone for product-centric industries, closing a critical gap between engineering design environments and enterprise product data management.

Stronger Product Data. Stronger Supply Chain.

With these new integrations, SAP Integrated Product Development takes a major step forward for product-centric industries. Customers can now:

• Manage and govern product data in a single system of record
• Directly connect MCAD authoring tools to SAP Cloud ERP, without manual re-entry or version mismatches
• Seamlessly transition from EBOM (Engineering Bill of Materials) to MBOM (Manufacturing Bill of Materials)
• Improve cross-functional collaboration across engineering, sourcing, and manufacturing

These capabilities strengthen the digital thread across product development and supply chain operations, helping companies accelerate innovation and improve time-to-market.

What does the overall architecture for CAD integration with SAP IPD look like?

Which CAD Systems Are Now Supported?

SAP Integrated Product Development now provides dedicated plug-in adapters for three major MCAD platforms, with a fourth on the way:

• Autodesk Inventor
• SOLIDWORKS
• Solid Edge
• AutoCAD (coming soon)

These CAD plug-ins directly integrate CAD structures with design items and product structures in SAP Integrated Product Development, enabling seamless data synchronization and improving overall data quality across the process.

A Closer Look at the CAD Adapter Capabilities

Each CAD adapter is delivered as a plug-in that installs within the respective CAD environment, allowing engineers to work in their preferred tools while maintaining a direct connection with SAP.  The Product Data Integration SaaS application serves as the backbone for this connectivity, integrating data from external, non-SAP authoring systems as the authoritative source of product data.

Key capabilities include:

• Upload: Import metadata, structures, and files from external CAD authoring systems into SAP Integrated Product Development
• Retrieve: Read metadata and product structures from SAP and download the corresponding files back to the CAD environment
• Design item versioning: Each save action from the external CAD system creates a new design item minor version, providing full traceability
• Status lifecycle management: Define status profiles, assign them to design item types, and manage lifecycle transitions
• Search and visibility: Find design items using filters such as Design Number, Design Type, Status, and Version
• Collaboration integration: Assign design item versions to collaborations for cross-functional review and approval
• Product structure derivation: Derive product structures from uploaded CAD data for use in the Enterprise Product Structure application
• Visualization support: Derive 3D visualization from native 3D CAD authoring files associated to product structure.
• Configure design types: Create and maintain design types to differentiate integrations to external authoring systems and control behavior.

For full technical details, refer to the Product Data Integration Feature Scope Description.

Documentation and Download Links

SAP Help Portal – Admin and User Guides for each adapter:

Software Download Center – Download plug-ins from the SAP Software Download Center (search for “PDI” or click on the links below):

Pricing and Supplement

The CAD integrations are delivered as capabilities within SAP Integrated Product Development, with each integration representing a distinct capability.  They follow a capacity unit–based consumption model:

• Each CAD integration capability consumes a defined number of capacity units
• Users only consume capacity units based on the specific capabilities they actively use

This model allows organizations to scale usage based on actual needs while maintaining clear visibility into consumption.

For detailed information on capacity unit allocation per capability, please refer to the product supplement.

Conclusion

The availability of CAD adapters for SAP Integrated Product Development marks a key milestone in connecting engineering design with enterprise operations. By enabling direct, bidirectional integration between leading MCAD tools and SAP Cloud ERP, organizations can manage product data within a single system of truth – reducing errors, accelerating time-to-market, and strengthening the digital thread from concept to delivery.

Key benefits include:

• Integrate CAD tools directly with SAP Cloud ERP, eliminating data silos between engineering and operations
• Enable end-to-end supply chain transformation starting from the design phase
• Enhance user experience by allowing CAD users to work within their familiar tools while staying connected to SAP

Stay tuned for the release of the AutoCAD integration, and for further updates as the CAD adapter portfolio continues to expand.

Screenshots of the current CAD adapters

Autodesk Inventor

Solidworks

Coming Soon….

Solid Edge

Coming Soon….

More Information

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