Product Mining by Soley Your questions, our answers.

Product Mining is a software category that turns complex product portfolios and supply chains into something you can actually analyze and steer, using a Decision Twin. The Decision Twin is a digital twin of your value chain, built by the Soley Product Mining Platform from the data you already have. It maps dependencies between suppliers, components, products and customers and turns them into clear, actionable recommendations, so margin and capital become manageable and risks surface before they threaten your ability to deliver. For a closer look, see the in-depth page.

Inside the Soley Product Mining Platform, AI automatically links data from your existing systems and spots patterns and dependencies across your product portfolio and supply chain. But AI only creates real value once it is paired with industrial business logic drawn from years of customer projects. That combination is what turns raw data patterns into recommendations you can act on.

Product Mining turns a non-transparent product portfolio and supply chain into something you can actively steer, instead of it being a black box. Teams spot hidden savings directly with the help of a Decision Twin and act on them right away, instead of waiting weeks for an external analysis. The impact is greatest wherever complexity is currently slowing or hindering decision-making. See examples on Soley's customer page.

Process Mining looks at event logs to show how processes run and where time or efficiency gets lost. Product Mining takes a different angle: it looks at suppliers, components, products and customers and how they structurally depend on one another. So instead of asking how to speed up a process, it asks whether the products moving through that process create economic value in the first place. The two approaches work well together: figure out what is worth doing first, then optimize how it gets done. For a closer comparison, see the in-depth page (German).

A Decision Twin is a connected, product-centric model of your value chain: a digital twin the Soley Product Mining Platform builds directly from your own system data. It ties together suppliers, components, products and customers. Unlike a static dashboard, it does not only show where things stand today, it shows how any single decision ripples through the whole system.

Soley began as a spin-off from the Chair of Product Development at the Technical University of Munich and has built its product-centric solution together with industry partners ever since. Its team of mechanical engineers, software developers and data scientists works with companies including ebm-papst, Viessmann Climate Solutions, Bosch Rexroth and Hansgrohe, wherever growing complexity has started to slow the business down. See real examples on Soley's customer page.

No. BI tools analyze and visualize data. Soley goes further: the platform turns analysis into specific, actionable measures. Instead of multidimensional data models, Soley works with a technology specialized in highly connected data, exactly the kind found in product portfolios. This lets you map dependencies from suppliers to customers directly, across complex bills of materials.

Technically, yes, but in practice three things make that a bad trade. The Soley Product Mining Platform is already proven across numerous industrial customers, its algorithms carry years of real-world business logic and building your own would tie up internal IT capacity for months. Teams that start with Soley get the benefit of that head start from day one, instead of spending it on development.

A traditional consultancy typically steps in to solve an acute problem within a fixed project timeline. The Soley Product Mining Platform takes a different approach: it turns managing your product portfolio and supply chain into an ongoing process with the help of a Decision Twin. Instead of a one-off, labor-intensive review, teams spot optimization opportunities continuously and act before a problem turns into an emergency.

Not without a solid decision-making foundation underneath it. Generic AI can summarize information and answer questions, but it does not know the full web of dependencies in a value chain, nor can it apply the industrial business logic and deterministic calculations that requires. The Soley Product Mining Platform builds that foundation with the help of a Decision Twin and scores every option depending on its economic impact. Generative AI is a great front end for that, but it is not a substitute.

At Soley, your company and product data is encrypted, kept separate per customer and used only for the agreed purpose. The Soley Product Mining Platform runs on Microsoft Azure, hosted within the EU. Processing follows GDPR, backed by a data processing agreement and documented technical and organizational safeguards and access is limited to authorized people in clearly defined roles.

No, your data is never used to train publicly available AI models. The Azure AI services used in the Soley Product Mining Platform only process the inputs a given feature actually needs. That data is never shared with other customers or model providers and it is never used to train base models without your explicit consent.

No, the Soley Product Mining Platform does not require SAP, though it integrates with it seamlessly. Your ERP and PLM systems stay the system of record; Soley connects the data in the Decision Twin and turns it into prioritized measures. The platform is listed on the SAP Store and supports SAP S/4HANA, SAP BTP and SAP Datasphere, among others.

Product Mining is built for industrial companies with multi-level bills of materials, large product and component counts and complex portfolios and supply chains. It is especially valuable when EBIT, working capital, or resilience are under pressure. Customers include ebm-papst, Viessmann Climate Solutions, Bosch Rexroth and Hansgrohe, among others. Concrete use cases are described on Soley's customer page.

Product Mining shows you the real impact of external shocks, such as supply shortages or volatile raw material prices, on your own portfolio before they spiral. Through the Decision Twin, teams can see at first glance exactly which suppliers, components, products and customers are affected and respond with targeted moves instead of scrambling in crisis mode. Without that visibility, these shocks usually hit companies head-on, simply because nobody can see the full picture.

What the Soley Product Mining Platform costs depends on how complex your product portfolio and supply chain are and on the scope you choose. Soley starts by working with you to prioritize your biggest pain points and identify which building blocks pay back fastest, a tailored quote follows only after that alignment. You can book a no-obligation intro call directly online.

Thanks to standardized processes, a full rollout of the Soley Product Mining Platform typically takes about three months, covering user training and a first complete analysis of your value chain with a Decision Twin. The exact timeline depends on the scope you choose and is agreed together in advance.

For Product Mining, Soley typically needs product data from your ERP system, your bills of materials and any other product-related data sitting in connected systems. With experience across numerous customer projects, the team already knows exactly where to look, regardless of what your existing IT landscape looks like. Data is handed over step by step, it is never a major IT undertaking.

The best time to start with Product Mining is now. Every month spent with an non-transparent product portfolio and an inefficient supply chain quietly eats into margin and competitiveness. The earlier a company starts with the Soley Product Mining Platform, the sooner it pays for itself, since savings potential and risks come into view before they turn into much bigger problems.