Globalization of projects makes an efficient exchange of information between project teams at different locations, with different technical environments, essential.

CEP uses the power of the Internet for business processes that involve your company and external partners (manufacturers, sub-contractors).

The purpose of CEP is to facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge between the person responsible for a project in your company, referred to as the "owner", and external partners, referred to as "participants", who are all involved in a common project, for instance planning a new plant. T he owner can select documents, projects and product structures in the SAP System and send them using the Internet to chosen participants for further processing. The participants comment on and modify objects that then can be evaluated and if desired, transferred to the SAP System.

Project manager Silvia Smith needs a list of all the materials required in the current project from the project team and the business partners supplying various parts. She creates a folder in the SAP System in which she places an Excel spreadsheet (with a detailed overview of costs and dates) and the specifications from the customer. She makes this folder available to the project team and the external business partners using the Internet .

These people can then download the folder to their PCs, add data to the Excel spreadsheet, add further documents describing the necessary materials, and return the folder to the project manager.

She is automatically informed about the changes and forwards to folders that have been returned to the responsible Controller for internal review.

Together with her team Silvia compares the comments from the Controller with those of the external partners and transfers the data she considers important to the SAP System.