As SAP EM 9.0 is expected to exit any day (or should we say jump out of..) ramp up, it is time to recognize, that from a solution perspective SAP EM and SAP TM are supporting an inherent desire and need for logistical, financial and physical visibility in supply chains. As SAP shapes its solution offering (from a left-behind product-centric approach) along the lines of networked and collaborative solutions, including Business Suite Solutions, Cloud solutions like SAP Information Interchange (SAP II), and now with ARIBA a real service and B2B network, in addition also Mobile extensions, there is an existing opportunity to establish a connected, collaborative strategy in modern supply chains and specifically in logistics and transportation.
The real value of an investment is certainly then showing direct impact, when the business benefits are directly related to requirements on the business side and these are related to a product feature or solution approach. From a communication perspective, the value add, introducing integrated processing combining not only a transportation management solution, addition a visibility layer, but also leveraging existing communication platforms like SAP’s ARIBA business platform and especially SAP Information Interchange, you introduce and address the critical success factor in supply chain execution, which is from my perspective communication and therefore the ability, the enabler to collaborate.
Process Example of collaborative information networks for Ocean Shipping with SAP solutions
Often, driven by individual implementation aspects, this is seen in relation to single transaction efficiency, savings, or improved productivity. As SAP EM 9.0 is out of the box connected and integrated with TM 9.0, and it feeds out of the box, not only execution information to TM, also Business Analytics immediately shows better information on carrier on-time performance, it helps to capture event information to influence accessorial costs like detention or demurrage and at the same time, not really recognized in the first place, it gives us feedback on geographical information, that is directly linked to freight and product details of orders sitting in SAP TM.
Stock in-transit visibility, reported with SAP Business Objects
Reading that sentence one more time, we should recognize that we have insights on stock and inventory in transit, material quantities that are qualified as currently in loading, unloading, in customs, moving in a truck or ocean vessel and we do get direct information on process and procurement costs, all based on TM requirement data, combined with event management process information.
Not only in High Tech, Chemicals, or Paper Industries, this is valuable information residing in one single source, which is as current as your status updates are reported back to SAP EM. In this release, you can now also monitor easily items in freight units and freight orders/bookings, which could be on container level or in fact also product items, specific as freight or order requirements.
Coming back to business drivers and benefits, this offers not only as an obvious benefit individual transactional transparency (order visibility), but using tools to visualize then e.g. aggregated material or process information for materials, product groups, and container data e.g. sitting in customs, in the port or currently being reported as arrived, but not yet unloaded, that will give you details on the stock in transit even on a material level.
Well, instead of checking in MD04 somewhat blindly stock in-transit inventory, SAP TM, together with SAP EM now allows e.g. by using either BI or Business Objects to monitor and qualify hidden inventory moving inbound to a production site, or also all stock transfers currently moving between locations.
SAP Event Management 9.0 offers the foundation for real-time processing and aggregated reporting on item level, which will add another layer in supply chain processing.
Don’t get lost in details, but see what’s going on. Drafting not only functional aspects like planning scenarios in Proof of Concepts but related process feedback such as tracking details back to related freight orders, does the job, to high light cost-process dependencies for e.g. stock in transit very easily. But you have to go the extra mile. Introducing aggregated perspectives on transactional data translates all that hidden detail into information. With SAP Event Management 9.0 you get the details, so let’s take a look.