Enterprise Resource Planning and SAP System Software – A Summary
1. What is ERP
2.1 Logistics
2.2 Accounting
6. SAP R/3 Custom Configuration & Implementation
7. Sources
Many key business applications are now implemented using comprehensive and complex Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. ERP software facilitates the flow of information among all the processes of an organization’s supply chain, from purchases to sales, including accounting and human resources. Process thinking is a key element in this business restructuring, differing from previous approaches with traditional application "silos", where departments within a company operated with poor interaction with other departments. ERP software eliminates the common problem of multiple incompatible software systems and databases in use in the departments or functional areas of many corporations. With one integrated comprehensive system (which could be distributed internationally) with one database, processes run more smoothly with up to date information availability throughout the corporation.
It is important for students to gain an understanding of the impact of ERP solutions in business today. Every business area is affected; implementing ERP systems in a corporation is a complex undertaking and has been likened to the effort required in merging two companies together.
ERP products are available from several vendors, including SAP AG, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and Oracle. The ERP software market leader is SAP AG with the SAP R/3 System.
There is great demand in industry for people that are knowledgeable about ERP and specifically about SAP R/3 System. The following sections present an introduction to SAP R/3 and other SAP products that work together with R/3 or may be separate products.
R/3 software allows the integration of all of a company’s business operations in an overall system for planning, controlling and monitoring. Over 1000 ready-made business processes are available, that include best business practices that reflect the experiences, suggestions and requirements of leading companies in a host of industries. New features are continuously being added to releases of R/3.
SAP R/3 System provides an integrated suite of business applications that covers a full range of processes used in almost any business. The main application groupings are:
The following sub-sections list the main applications and some of their components.
2.2 Accounting
2.3 Human Resources (HR)
The Human Resources module includes administration, payroll accounting, shift management, employee attendance, trip costs, training, and recruitment. It provides solutions for planning and managing the company’s human resources, using integrated applications that cover all personnel management tasks and help simplify and speed the processes.
2.4 Cross-Application Functions
The Business Workflow module contains functions that can be used in all application components, linking the integrated application modules with cross-application technologies, tools and services. A typical example of a business process that can be actively controlled using SAP Business Workflow is the complete processing of a customer order from its receipt through delivery of the goods and issuing the invoice. You can automate all the steps in this business process and define all the roles of the appropriate employees. You can check a customer’s credit line and creditworthiness, query the stock on hand, and automatically place an order. Clerical staff can process the individual work items in a working environment familiar to them, request information on the current status of specific workflows at any time, and trace the history of the work process. All these functions can also be accessed through the Internet.
This provides electronic mail messaging for users and also by SAP applications.
The Business Warehouse provides management reporting, including non-SAP data sources into reports. This independent data warehouse solution summarizes data from R/3 applications and external sources to provide executive information for supporting decision making and planning. Reports cover a wide range of information requirements, automated data staging, and standard R/3 business process models.
New Dimension Products can stand alone or be integrated with R/3. Some components are included in the above R/3 list; the following are components of New Dimension Products:
.
SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) is a tool for planning, optimizing, and scheduling software applications that enable the integration and synchronization of the supply chain on a global scale, from suppliers, agents, and production planners, to purchasers, customers and consumers.
This has been mentioned above.
This enables inter-enterprise procurement, including the creation and maintenance of requisitions, purchase orders and reservations with or without electronic catalogs, approval and rejection, desktop receiving and service entry, status and tracking, invoicing, and performance reporting functions. All end users are able to purchase goods and services straight from their workplace.
This is a comprehensive package for managing financial resources, and analyzing and optimizing business processes in the finance area of a company.
CRM provides a solution that enables companies to effectively manage customer relationships throughout the entire lifecycle, understanding as well as anticipating the needs of customers and prospects.
This is the cornerstone of SAP’s Knowledge Management solution for continuous knowledge transfer and life-long learning. It contains a repository for storing content and includes the tools to create, modify, distribute, and administer that content. The SAP HR components Personnel Development (PD) and Training and Event Management (TEM) provide functionality together with the Knowledge Warehouse. The Knowledge Warehouse provides unstructured information; the Business Information Warehouse provides structured data.
SEM includes the following components:
The SAP Business Framework is a family of SAP and non-SAP products. It is an open, integrated, component-based enterprise business application solution for companies of any size in any industry. Business Framework provides flexibility in setting up enterprise-critical distributed IT systems using independent components. The R/3 System is an evolving family of application components, that can be combined into an integrated, continuously maintainable network solution regardless of the release of the components. Business Framework is an open design, allowing integration of components from third-party vendors.
The SAP R/2 System was developed to run on mainframe computers; SAP R/3 System has been developed to run with a distributed multi tier client/server architecture. SAP R/3 can be configured to run on a single computer, or it can be distributed among many different machines at different locations. There is a clear distinction between the presentation, application, database, and Internet-enabling layers.
The presentation layer is the user interface, and a number of different graphical user interfaces (GUIs) can be used. SAPGUI is SAP’s own user interface software (in over 20 different languages), but Microsoft Windows or Internet browser interfaces can be used in its place. Other examples of interfaces are kiosk systems, and telephone answering systems.
Application servers contain the complete business process logic of R/3 applications. These application servers can run on Windows NT systems, major UNIX operating systems, and AS/400 systems. A number of different application servers can be connected in a network, distributed geographically.
The database layer manages both the R/3 System application components and the enterprise’s working data. This task is performed using relational database management systems. Supported are IBM DB2, Informix Online, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle. Database servers can be on different servers from the application servers, and can include mainframes, Windows NT, UNIX or AS/400. The industry standard SQL (Structured Query Language) is used for defining and manipulating all data. Applications are fetched from the database as required, loaded into the application layer, and then run from there.
SAP also has an Internet layer (with access through a Web server) that works with System R/3 that enables a corporation to couple its systems with customers and vendors. Employees can access the system over the Internet or intranet, customers can place orders, and vendors can access their customers’ warehouse data to schedule deliveries just in time. See mySAP.com below, which is central to SAP’s internet strategy.
SAP Application Link Enabling (ALE) is used to manage widely distributed, loosely coupled systems, based on an exchange of messages controlled by business processes. Individual companies in a corporation can distribute their transaction workloads where data are distributed, while a common service is offered throughout the network. Individual tasks can be distributed across locations. The systems involved can be different R/3 systems or non R/3 systems. With ALE, applications are integrated using asynchronous communications mechanisms.
The R/3 System offers standard interfaces to enable integration of R/3 with the processes and data of business applications from other vendors. These object-oriented interfaces are called business application programming interfaces (BAPIs). BAPIs are compatible with Microsoft’s Distributed Component Object Model (COM/DCOM) specifications and the Object Management Group’s Common Object Request Broker (CORBA) specifications.
R/3 applications are modules that can be used alone or combined with other solutions. R/3 is scalable and can be used with from 30 to several thousand users.
Popular desktop programs such as MS Word, MS Excel, and MS Project can be linked to R/3 applications. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) between companies is also part if R/3.
The BASIS System is the fundamental software within R/3. Application modules listed above in SAP R/3 Functionality are added as needed.
ABAP is the SAP programming language that is used in the application modules. Custom programming with ABAP is possible for add on modules (but the standard SAP modules should not be modified).
mySAP.com is SAP’s term for its Internet offering and strategy. The mySAP.com portals are ways of accessing all of the services and benefits afforded by this strategy. mySAP.com is an open collaborative business environment of personalized solutions. According to SAP, it is a comprehensive basket of offerings that includes Internet-enabled applications, such as the Web-enabled core components of SAP R/3.
mySAP.com will be the interface to all SAP products: collaborative, front office, and back office. SAP’s vision is to continue to provide complete, integrated solutions. Users of all the software solutions will access their applications via the easy-to-use Workplace on their desktop. All of the applications will continue to work in an integrated fashion.
mySAP.com integrates seamlessly with existing R/3 functions, users of mySAP.com need not have R/3 installed, and R/3 can be used without mySAP.com. If R/3 is installed, then mySAP.com would sit on top of the R/3 applications.
mySAP.com is intended to incorporate all current SAP products in the form of components. From Release 4.6 on, R/3 will be a mySAP.com component. mySAP.com can interoperate with R/3 from Release 3.1 on. Earlier R/3 releases can be connected on a project basis.
R/3 Release 4.6 is also called the EnjoySAP Release with a new interface that has made SAP software easier to learn, tailor and use.
The mySAP.com Workplace provides personal access to the business environment. It is a customizable, Web-enabled doorway into R/3, offering additional functions and services beyond the core R/3 functions. In addition, it provides integration with other ERP solutions and non-ERP information sources including financial market data, news tickers, and industry-specific content.
The mySAP.com Workplace is tailored to individuals, companies, and industries. It makes the business solutions, knowledge, and services they need in their daily business activities readily available. The users, through their browsers, can access functionality that is most relevant to their roles, and then configure their personal desktops to suit their individual work styles. The following are provided, or being developed:
The mySAP.com Marketplace is actually two things. It is the infrastructure that supports many SAP collaborative Business Scenarios, allowing many buyers and sellers to come together to exchange goods, services, and information. It is also the name currently used to describe the Web portal that SAP hosts at http://marketplace.mySAP.com. Anyone can access and use the Marketplace via www.mySAP.com. Buyers as well as sellers can leverage the Marketplace without the need for any SAP software.
The personalized Workplace is the employee enterprise portal, the Marketplace is the global e-business hub.
A Business Scenario offers the specific knowledge, functions, and services that one or more users may need to succeed in a business task. mySAP.com provides a host of e-business solutions, including purchasing, collaborative planning, employee self service, direct customer servicing, and inter-business knowledge management. Business Scenarios will provide access to all R/3 and SAP New Dimension functionality.
SAP has introduced the Internet Business Framework, which uncouples the integration technology from the development language and runtime. This means that the software module that calls a certain service need not be written in the same language as the software module that provides the service. Rather, the software providing the service can be implemented in virtually any language.
SAP also provides mySAP.com Application Hosting, where the IT services are outsourced to a hosting partner, with access to SAP products.
6. SAP R/3 Custom Configuration & Implementation
Implementing R/3 requires a team of IT specialists and business users. For the enterprise, this can result in business process re-engineering: less supervisory levels, better flow of information between business units, and a new business organizational structure. The process can be ongoing – change can be continuous. Applications from R/3 are usually implemented gradually in a progressive implementation, rather than everything implemented at once.
The R/3 System is highly configurable to suit the operations of the enterprise. SAP has provided tools to model business processes, configure the system, and manage the process.
The R/3 Procedure Model provides guidance through the different project phases step by step (from project generation to going live). A wide range of tried-and-true, graphically portrayed business scenarios and processes are stored in the R/3 Reference Model, from which the best possible processes can be chosen. The R/3 Procedure Model uses the following tools:
The R/3 Analyzer is a set of tools for selecting from the R/3 system the standard business programs that are needed for a particular enterprise. The results can be displayed in a graphical or list form. R/3 Analyzer prompts users to perform steps in the proper order.
The R/3 Reference Model is a tool that is provided to support configuration activities. It contains over 1,000 business processes that describe the functions of the R/3 System, and provides over 100 basic business scenarios. Five views are provided by the Reference Model:
The configuration that is chosen by the users is represented by parameters in tables; the R/3 tools create the tables as the users specify their requirements, without the need to modify any software. Requirements that are not available in the standard R/3 Reference Model are documented by the tools, but must be programmed with the ABAP/4 language (with the ABAP/4 Development Workbench). Thus the enterprise can extend, and have their own version, of the R/3 Reference Model.
With Release 4.0, a business component can be implemented independently of the release of R/3. Thus the entire system does not need to be implemented or upgraded simultaneously.
SAP has also provided AcceleratedSAP (ASAP) as a methodology and tools for more rapid implementation of R/3. With Release 4.0, the Business Engineer draws upon the Reference Model to provide guidance through the implementation, in analyzing, designing and configuring the business processes. The Business Engineer can be used in a graphical or tabular form and is the recommended method of implementing or maintaining R/3.
7. Sources
Downloadable pdf files through SAPs Internet emedia site: http://emedia.sap.com/usa/default.asp
Other downloadable SAP pdf files: from http://wwwext03.sap.com/usa/aboutsap/ selecting SAP R/3:
August 1999 News Release: http://wwwext03.sap.com/usa/press/1999/Aug99.asp
Books:
For questions or comments about this file contact Peter Pille ppille@acs.ryerson.ca
February 10, 2000