We would like to throw some light on the S/HANA 1900 product fundamentals answering the question - What is the foundation for a Digital Core?
- Open architecture allowing connectivity and adoption of micro-services through “Cloud Platform”
- Architecture delivering scalable, concrete foundation; transacting at the best conceivable systemisation
- Intelligent system, supporting and steering the business enterprises with usage of embedded analytics, predictive analysis, simulating the business processes thereby providing and supporting the decision making process real time to run Live business.
- An end-to-end experience that is implemented faster, consumed, and adapted. Delightful complete cycle chain experience by users which is implemented quicker, put into use and adapted by the user to maximum
In todays’ business scenario, every company is looking for a must have solution to digitally transform the organization, and for this need the business is discussing about advanced analytics and the internet of things (IoT) to name a few technologies in vogue, but these technologies cannot shine on systems that are no longer agile or scalable enough to enable digital transformation & business. They require a digital core of pre-integrated, loosely connected cloud applications that sit on top of resilient data platforms. This core serves as the “ENGINE” driving customer engagement, accelerating acumen & comprehension and decision making events thereby endlessly augmenting enterprises business operations.
The digital core is dependent on an intelligent automation platform - preparing data for machine learning systems, neural networks, text to speech, decision-making and other advanced applications and building algorithms for business and IT.
- A digital age UX: Conversational UI´s and natural language processing allows business to target a hands-free ERP (robotics and automation).
- Automation of business processes: Automated systems principally & primarily address enterprises’ ROIs and TCOs. Striving for 50% of an automated process of most of ERP business processes.
- Next generation of business processes: Providing a rationalized architecture and a technology that did not exist before and is evolving continuously. Aiming to increase the top of line infrastructure allowing businesses to completely rethink value creation and service tasks.
With the introduction of SAP S/4HANA 1909 release, it is the Innovations in the 5th wave. Further expansion of digital core and continuous evolvement to restructure the data model. It is enabling customers to reap benefits from the state-of-the-art innovations.
A new predictive material and resource planning (pMRP) application is being delivered from SAP. In this functionality, the business is able to forecast component demand with predictive material and resource planning. The most important benefit was to Reduction in inventory carrying costs. A simplified MRP logic has been designed supporting the interactive planning with simulations, thereby deriving demand at all levels of component and capacity. From the operative data, the system creates simplified data to process simulations of forecast of material requirements - MRP.
Another highpoint in Production Planning & Control is the extended functionality for advanced Available to Promise (aATP). The current 1909 release permits new vertical consumption strategies within product allocation sequences. Usage of same product allocation objects several times in the product allocation sequence so that PPC can model further consumption strategies for the product allocation check. Additional feature is in the backorder processing, re-evaluation of alternatives is supported.
The first key innovation is the “group reporting”. Enterprises have been classically facing a number of holdups & challenges in the group close process thereby delaying the closure of the financial books and reporting the financial results. The current release addresses two of these major hurdles: intercompany reconciliation and matrix consolidation.
| New Key Features | 1909 |
|---|---|
| Consolidation validation result analysis | yes |
| Drill through from consolidation validation logs to the SAP S/4HANA company level | yes |
| Time dependent mapping between financial statement items and G/L accounts | yes |
| Account driven consolidation rules | yes |
| Group Data Analysis apps | yes |
| Matrix Consolidation | yes |
| Group Structure apps | yes |
| Streamlined master data maintenance with the Import Consolidation Master Data app | yes |
| Data Mapping apps to transform and load data from non-SAP systems | yes |
| Enhanced preparation for consolidation group changes | yes |
| Advanced intercompany matching and reconciliation apps | yes |
| Activity-based consolidation of investments | yes |
Second key highlight in Finance, is financial planning with SAP Analytics Cloud. A single point of access benefits the finance team in analyzing financial and non-financial data & information in a clear and crystal way, providing them an easier user friendly analytics to get real-time, actionable business wisdom.
Sales and Distribution – Area of marketing
Major highlight of SAP S/4HANA 1909 release is the enablement of workflow for sales documents. The key usage & value of this novel aspect is increment in efficiency of sales force marketing & sales activity like the implementation of workflows for sales quotations, sales orders and for credit memo requests. Sales personnel can receive notifications, manage approvals and also display in mail boxes, easy navigational & manoeuvrable. Using the predictive analytics feature in SAP S4 HANA 1909, monitoring delivery performance has significantly improved the in-time procurement supply processes, logistics & transportation planning, handling units, picking, packing, and shipping in the delivery process. This has improved the intelligence in Sales and Distribution processes.
Inventory Management
In regard to the new material future development, the new enhanced SAP Fiori app “Slow or Non-Moving Materials” benefited users to display a predictive report on slow or non-moving materials.
Additionally, SAP S/4 HANA 1909 has also released a new app-The “Dead Stock Analysis” for inventory analysis displaying obsolete stock. The app supports and benefits the inventory manager, to achieve maximum inventory accuracy and optimization of the inventory situation in the warehouse.
The enhancement has been done in the integration of processes production planning and Logistics & warehouse management processes. The seamless homogenization has been done between repetitive manufacturing and warehouse processes and management.
In the “Kanban process”, a new replenishment strategy has been made available for stock transfer process. Warehouse tasks are created to replenish the Kanban containers whenever a kanban container is set to “Empty” with the implementation of this strategy. This warehouse task confirmation can be done both in a kanban app and in extended warehouse management.
The new emissions forecasting capability as part of EHS functionality is helping to visualize environmental threats and dangers. The EHS system forecasts the emission data values via machine learning time-series predictive models, based on historical data.
SAP Fiori app “Impact of Monitoring Lists”, this app aids the enterprises to monitor materials & constituents, by analysing the impact on sales, purchase, and production processes. This integration of dangerous goods management study and real time reports is aiding the enterprises to verify and establish authorizations of compliances of the appropriate categorized products or materials during sales and distribution processing. If compliance is not authorised during order processing and distribution & transportation is possible, then automatically the sales items will get blocked.
The key feature and enhancement in the functionality in this Utilities area is the simplified management of sales contracts for utilities.