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Invest in YOU! Be in niche job market. Anyone new to SAP or considering implementing will learn the fundamental capabilities and uses of the Logistic components of SAP for your organization.
Dear SAP pros:
Author has been leading the Master Data maintenance and distribution for
several years. Master Data is so much integrated with other components
that accuracy and sync of MD are very critical for successful SAP
Implementations.
Please see Process Diagram presented here, and I hope this will give you
a simple and clear understandings for SAP professionals.
Processes:
1.ERP to SCM, EWM
CIF (Core Interface) distributes major Master Data objects
such as Materials, Plant, Customers (location Master in SCM), Vendors (location
Master in SCM), Scheduling Agreement (External Procurement Relationship), MRP
areas.Depending on the situation of company,
CIF can run in either Batch mode or Immediate mode.Multiple CIF jobs can be set up to send to many
destinations as described in diagram.Generation of CIF (CFM1 for instance) and Activation of CIF (CFM2) are
major steps in CIF processing.
2.ERP to CRM
Materials are distributed from
ERP to CRM via BDOC.
3.CRM to ERP, SCM, EWM
BP Master Data (Customers and
Vendors) are distributed from CRM to ERP via BDPC.At the same time, these BP master data are
sent to SCM and EWM via IDOC.Distribution is taking place immediately.Transaction SMW01 is available to monitor
queue record in CRM.
4.SCM to EWM
Pack Specs are created in SCM
and these are also distributed to EWM via RFC queue.Queue records are monitored by SMQ1 and SMQ2
command.
5.XI
XI primarily governs all external
inputs from Legacy or External systems. Each record can be monitored XI command
SXMB_MONI, and the records can be reprocessed when error happens.
It is an undeniable fact that SAP gains more and more customers such as big US and global Corporations and government.
SAP’s greatest opportunity probably lies beyond Microsoft or IBM or Oracle. SAP AG is a global software company headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. SAP simply stands for Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing. It will be highly worthwhile to go over the essential components of SAP System as more and more companies are moving toward using ERP package such as SAP rather than relying on traditional in-house development of Corporate Application Systems.
First, there is R/3 or ERD or ECC. The name of this component has been evolved, but the essential function of system component has not changed much. ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning Software product SAP AG.
This component has its own several sub-modules such as MM (Material Management), SD (Sales Distributions), FI/CO (Financial and Costing and Billing), PM (Plant Maintenance/Production Planning), WM (Warehouse Management) and HR (Human Resource Management). It has Workbench environment where staff can develop customized program using ABAP programming and database tables to support companies’ own internal business processing. Each sub modules support many screens/transactions and reporting transactions to easily keep track of inventory, orders, movement of goods. Either Business customers or traditional IT staff can relatively merge together to design and develop various business processes. ECC (Enterprise Central Component) is recent name for R/3 or ERD. Even huge company can be sufficiently supported by this one component.
Second component is called APO (Advanced Planning & Optimization). This component is all about planning using demand data and the power of forecasting. Forecasting is one of core sub-modules, and Planning is based on sophisticated planned data which is forecast data. The name SCM (Supply Chain Management) is also used interchangeably to refer APO component. However, please remember that SCM itself is a generic term and discipline that is taught at major university or institution. DP (Demand Planning, i.e. Forecasting) and SNP (Supply Network Planning) are major sub-modules of APO/SCM. It is interesting to note that as the SAP gains more popularity among companies, SAP is currently adding Industry-unique modules called SPP (Service Part Planning) with cooperation of major US Auto Industry (Ford) and CAT-Logistics.
Third piece is CRM (Customer Relation Management). This component is most likely corresponding to Traditional Customer Order Processing System. Customers can place orders, and orders are processed by CRM. Customer data and Order data and material data are keys to manage this component.
There are also many layers/tools that are interfaced with above three components. For instance, ICH (Inventory Collaboration Hub), EWM (Extended Warehouse Management under SCM), XI (Exchange Infrastructure), BI (Business Intelligence) and EP (Enterprise Portal) could be those. SAP connects above three components using CIF (Core InterFace between ECC and SCM) and CRM Middleware (between ECC and CRM) to enhance data integrity and connectivity.
Author attended several SAP classes in MM, SCM and Customizations provided by SAP AG. There are still strong demands for SAP system and classes, and it is hoped that more affordable training classes and materials will be available by other training agencies very soon. It is noted that there are also hands-on training site which provides CBT and self study.
Please note that EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) component of SAP landscape is getting popular, and please do not miss looking at this component if you have a project to improve Warehouse Management.
Thank you!
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This article describes the essential aspects of SAP system development.
The resources and materials will be abundant like a sea, but the
sole purpose of this writing is to give bullet points of major
development using SAP or other ERP packages in a major huge corporation.
First, analysis of current business process should be done in a very detail level. This is so called AS-IS analysis.
Next, current process should be mapped into SAP versions of process
and run environment. SAP is great and very expensive system. There are
virtually hundreds of Online screens (such as Material creation, Order
creation, Delivery note generations, Inventory movement, Good issue or
receipts, Forecasting, Inventory Planning, and much more) in SAP. Any
kind of process or business scenario can be mapped and executed using
one of the existing SAP screens or tools, manually. I mean ‘Manually’.
For instance, you can lay out new processes using SAP screens or
objects to perform the current AS-IS functions and processes. However,
volume of business of major corporation will be huge, and huge volume of
transactions (especially repetitive operations) can not be done by
human manual processing. This is where the challenges will come, which
will require the automation of repetitive processing.
SAP is transaction driven systems, and it will be a major dominant System in US and globally.
Anyone new to SAP or considering implementing it will discover the fundamental capabilities and uses of the Logistics components. You'll learn what's available, and how it works to help you determine if Logistics with SAP is the right tool for your organization. This book is written in a clear, practical style, and uses real-world examples, case studies, and insightful tips to give you a complete overview of the SAP logistics offerings.
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