Learn it Here: 2009-11-15

11.20.2009

Planning, Execution, And Collaboration Across The Responsive Supply Network

Post under SAP SCM

You face enormous pressure to reduce costs while increasing innovation and improving customer service and responsiveness. SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) enables collaboration, planning, execution, and coordination of the entire supply network, empowering you to adapt your supply chain processes to an ever-changing competitive environment.

SAP SCM is part of the SAP Business Suite, which gives organizations the unique ability to perform their essential business processes with modular software that is designed to work with other SAP and non-SAP software. Organizations and departments in all sectors can deploy SAP Business Suite software to address specific business challenges on their own timelines and without costly upgrades.

SAP SCM can help transform a linear, sequential supply chain into a responsive supply network – in which communities of customer-centric, demand-driven companies share knowledge, intelligently adapt to changing market conditions, and proactively respond to shorter, less predictable life cycles. SAP SCM provides broad functionality for enabling responsive supply networks and integrates seamlessly with both SAP and non-SAP software. The application:

* Delivers planning and execution functions that are integrated by design.

* Supports best practices and provides preconfigured software for enabling collaborative business, accelerating implementation, and reducing costs.

* Is recognized by key industry analysts as the market-leading SCM application.

Supply Chain Planning and Collaboration

Post under SAP SCM

Supply Chain Planning and Collaboration

SAP SCM includes features and functions to support collaborative supply chain planning processes, including strategic, tactical, and operational planning as well as service parts planning.
Strategic, Tactical, and Operational Planning

With SAP SCM, you can optimize a full range of planning activities, including:

* Demand planning and forecasting – Forecast and plan anticipated demand for products or product characteristics. Use state-of-the-art forecasting algorithms for product life-cycle planning and trade promotion planning.

* Safety stock planning – Assign optimal safety stock and target stock levels in all inventories in the supply network. Meet your desired customer service levels while maintaining a minimum amount of safety stock.

* Supply network planning – Integrate purchasing, manufacturing, distribution, and transportation plans into an overall supply picture – so you can simulate and implement comprehensive tactical planning and sourcing decisions based on a single, globally consistent model. This can involve heuristics and capacity planning, optimization, and multilevel supply and demand matching.

* Distribution planning – Determine the best short-term strategy to allocate available supply to meet demand and to replenish stocking locations. To achieve this, planners can determine which demands can be fulfilled by existing supply elements.

* Supply network collaboration – Work with partners across your supply network. Using collaboration features that improve visibility into supply and demand, you and your partners can reduce inventory buffers, increase the velocity of raw materials and finished goods through the pipeline, improve customer service, and increase revenues.

Service Parts Planning

With SAP SCM, you can also handle service parts planning activities, including:

* Parts demand planning – Improve the accuracy of forecasts through better modeling of demand quantities, events, and their respective deviations. You can select sophisticated forecast models and optimize model parameters to improve forecasting for slow-moving parts or for parts with irregular demand patterns. Through aggregated forecast-parameter profile maintenance, you can make data maintenance more efficient.

* Parts inventory planning – Reduce inventory levels and achieve retail service levels by providing more precise demand modeling. You can distribute inventory optimally within the multi-echelon supply chain to ensure high service levels while keeping inventory levels at a minimum.

* Parts supply planning – Reduce inventory in the supply chain by improving supplier alignment, increasing automation, and developing accurate supply plans. You can also reduce operational cost through efficient purchasing practices.

* Parts distribution planning – Set up stock transfers for parts within a service parts network to reduce stock-out situations and operational costs.

* Parts monitoring – Work with suppliers and customers to exchange information and handle alerts collaboratively.

Features & Functions of SAP Supply Chain Management

Post under SAP SCM

SAP SCM delivers a complete set of features and functions for building adaptive supply chain networks.

The application enables:

* Supply chain planning and collaboration – With SAP SCM, you can model your existing supply chain; set goals; and forecast, optimize, and schedule time, materials, and other resources. Supply chain planning functionality enables you to maximize return on assets and ensure a profitable match of supply and demand.

* Supply chain execution – SAP SCM enables you to carry out supply chain planning and generate high efficiency at the lowest possible cost. You can sense and respond to demand through an adaptive supply chain network in which distribution, transportation, and logistics are integrated into real-time planning processes.

* Supply chain visibility design and analytics – SAP SCM gives you networkwide visibility across your extended supply chain to perform strategic as well as day-to-day planning. The application also enables collaboration and analytics, so you can monitor and analyze the performance of your extended supply chain using predefined key performance indicators (KPIs).

Business Benefits of SAP Supply Chain Management

Post under SAP SCM

SAP SCM can help you transform a traditional linear supply chain into an adaptive network with the following benefits:

* Faster response to changes in supply and demand – With increased visibility into the supply chain and adaptive supply chain networks, you can be more responsive. You can sense and respond quickly to changes and quickly capitalize on new opportunities.

* Increased customer satisfaction – By offering a common information framework that supports communication and collaboration, SAP SCM enables you to better adapt to and meet customer demands.

* Compliance with regulatory requirements – You can track and monitor compliance in areas such as environment, health, and safety.

* Improved cash flow – Information transparency and real-time business intelligence can lead to shorter cash-to-cash cycle times. Reduced inventory levels and increased inventory turns across the network can lower overall costs.

* Higher margins – With SAP SCM, you can lower operational expenses with more timely planning for procurement, manufacturing, and transportation. Better order, product, and execution tracking can lead to improvements in performance and quality – and lower costs. You can also improve margins through better coordination with business partners.

* Greater synchronization with business priorities – Tight connections with trading partners keep your supply chain aligned with current business strategies and priorities, improving your organization's overall performance and achievement of goals.

Supply Chain Visibility Design and Analytics

Post under SAP SCM

SAP SCM supports supply chain visibility design and analytics with features and functions that enable supply chain design and analytics processes, including:

* Strategic supply chain design – With visibility across the entire supply chain network, planners and key decision makers can perform strategic and tactical business planning. They can test scenarios to determine how the supply chain network can address changes in the market, the business, or customer demand.

* Supply chain analytics – SAP SCM enables you to define, select, and monitor KPIs to get an integrated, comprehensive view of performance across the supply chain. You can also use predefined KPIs based on the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model to monitor sourcing, planning, production, distribution, and returns processes.

Supply Chain Visibility Design and Analytics

Post under SAP SCM

Components & Tools of NETWEAVER

Post under SAP Netweaver

SAP NetWeaver includes a comprehensive set of components and tools.

Components

* SAP NetWeaver Application Server – Supports platform-independent Web services, business applications, and standards-based development, enabling you to leverage existing technology assets for Web-services-oriented solutions
* SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse – Enables you to integrate data from across the enterprise and transform it into practical, timely business information to drive sound decision making
* SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management – Provides tools to help you model, execute, and monitor business processes based on a single, consistent process model
* SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management – Allows you to create and maintain business rules to ensure that processes conform to business policies.
* SAP NetWeaver Process Integration – Delivers SOA-based technology that supports process-centric integration across the extended value chain
* SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management – Ensures cross-system data consistency and helps integrate business processes across the extended value chain
* SAP NetWeaver Mobile – Provides a "future-proof" mobile runtime environment based on open and flexible technology standards and a powerful development environment for building integrated mobile solutions with native or browser-based user interfaces
* SAP NetWeaver Portal – Unifies critical information and applications to give users role-based views that span the enterprise, enabling you to take full advantage of your information resources
* SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure – Gives you all the capabilities you need to integrate all automated sensing devices – including RFID readers and printers, Bluetooth devices, embedded systems, and bar-code devices
* SAP NetWeaver Identity Management – Addresses access and provisioning issues facing a typical enterprise, creates a new opportunity for integrating business processes, and helps you to integrate systems in a heterogeneous IT environment
* SAP NetWeaver Information Lifecycle Management – Allows you to archive data in a readily accessible format according to regulatory retention rules that you define

Tools

* Adaptive Computing Controller – Provides a central point of control for assigning computing resources and optimizing their use
* SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment – Provides a robust environment for design, deployment, and running of composite applications that comply with a service-oriented architecture
* SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio – Offers a convenient user interface and rich functionality for developing J2EE applications
* SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer – Simplifies the creation of portal content and analytics applications, enabling business analysts to build or customize applications using a visual user interface rather than manual coding
* SAP Solution Manager – Facilitates technical support for distributed systems with functionality that covers all key aspects of solution deployment, operation, and continuous improvement

Applications

* SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search – Provides a simple and secure gateway to enterprise objects and transactions
* Duet – Enables seamless access to SAP business processes and data via Microsoft Office
* Alloy – Simplifies interaction with people, processes, and information by providing intuitive access to SAP software and information via the familiar IBM Lotus Notes
* SAP Central Process Scheduling application by Redwood – Helps companies manage, monitor, and execute business-critical processes from a central location by delivering adaptive, real-time, event-driven job scheduling and process-automation capabilities across distributed and heterogeneous platforms. Designed to integrate process automation for non-SAP and SAP applications, such as SAP Solution Manager, SAP Central Process Scheduling by Redwood provides a central point of control for all processing.
* SAP Enterprise Modeling applications by IDS Scheer – Deliver Web-based components that support the process life cycle for business process design, analysis, optimization, and implementation

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration

Post under SAP Netweaver

Over 3,000 organizations are using the SAP NetWeaver® Process Integra-tion (SAP NetWeaver PI) offering as their enterprise-class, service-oriented architecture (SOA) middleware to per-form application-to-application and business-to-business (B2B) integration and accelerate composite application development. SAP NetWeaver PI includes:

* Enterprise Services Repository(ES Repository) to build, model, and manage Web services.

* A high-volume enterprise services bus that supports distributed integration.

* Principal propagation for trusted communication and for helping ensure compliance.

* B2B integration functionalities.

* Support for predefined integration scenarios and adapters to jump-start integration projects.

Unique Business and IT Benefits with NETWEAVER

Post under SAP Netweaver

Business benefits

SAP NetWeaver is the open integration and application platform that aligns people, information, and processes. Business benefits include:

* Flexible business strategies – With SAP NetWeaver, you have the flexibility, visibility, and control to effectively execute, monitor, and refine corporate strategies.
* Innovative business processes – The platform powers innovative, industry-specific software and allows you to recompose existing systems to support innovative processes.
* Superior business value – SAP NetWeaver provides a business-focused infrastructure that supports continuous improvement of processes. It minimizes the risk and cost of introducing new processes, because existing systems remain unchanged while you leverage them for end-to-end enterprise processes.
* Improved business performance – SAP NetWeaver helps you aggregate and analyze information across the organization, so you can gain the insight needed to make the right changes.
* Unmatched user experience – Solutions built with SAP NetWeaver provide an efficient user experience through a role-based portal interface. With SAP NetWeaver, you can extend business processes to all employees, suppliers, and customers.

Unique IT Benefits

SAP NetWeaver also delivers a broad range of IT benefits, including:

* Sustainable cost structure – SAP NetWeaver reduces total cost of ownership across the IT landscape. It enables you to leverage your existing IT investments, including SAP and non-SAP systems. Flexibility reduces the cost of change, while integration knowledge reduces the need for consulting services.
* Improved development – With SAP NetWeaver, you can compose new business processes on top of existing systems by using an enterprise service-oriented architecture based on Web services, Java, and other industry standards.
* Reduced TCO across the entire IT landscape – SAP NetWeaver technology components are integrated in a single platform and come preconfigured with business content, which reduces complexity and supports IT standardization and consolidation. The components also integrate readily with SAP applications, which reduces the need for custom integration.
* Easy development of extensible best practices – SAP NetWeaver supports communication, knowledge management, and collaboration across existing systems. You can take advantage of existing skills to improve current practices or develop new functionality.