Strategy update on Product Safety and Stewardship Solutions from SAP
Today, many chemical companies create labels and safety data sheets on their SAP ERP system. Moreover they manage dangerous goods and track substance volumes for regulatory purposes such as REACH to proof and document the registered tonnage band and to follow inventory update rules and low volume exemptions in many chemical regulations all over the world. All these are unique ERP capabilities of SAP of specific relevancy for the chemical industry and increasingly important for all other industries handling chemicals.
But how will this be in future when moving to S/4? For the time being S/4 customers have all these capabilities available as is. But we are now going to modernize it. The newly updated Product Safety and Stewardship Solution shall cover and consolidate all existing capabilities, including:
- Safety data sheet management, global label management, dangerous goods management, and substance volume tracking of our product safety solution in SAP ERP and
- Product compliance for discrete industries solution of the EHSM component extension
We also plan to add Product compliance for process industries to the S/4 HANA core. Therefore the SAP Cloud for Product Stewardship is also no longer available as a separate solution; parts of the solution shall be leveraged within the new simplified PS&S solution.
Some of the key benefits of this change include the coverage of all PS&S processes in one system, covering all product and raw material information as well as the ability to leverage synergies between product safety and product compliance. All PS&S areas in SAP S/4 HANA shall have strong business process integration and support of customers’ SAP s/$ HANA implementation strategy. The provision of the PS&S solution as part of SAP S/4 HANA shall allow to provide a strong business process integration of all PS&S areas out-of-the-box and will reduce customers’ TCO.
This new simplified PS&S solution is planned to be available in the SAP S/4HANA On Premise and Cloud Editions so that customers shall have the option to choose their preferred deployment option. It is also planned to make use of the cloud for content provisioning. With that, we plan to provide up-to-date content and regulatory logic on an ongoing basis for quick and easy consumption by customers.
Hi Marko,
Indeed very important update and thank you for posting it. It may also be very helpful to know the approximate time frame of the new simplified PS&S solution availability, would you be able to share any rough timelines at this time?
Thanks,
Akash
Akash,
that is still in discussion and I have to point out that plans can always be subject of change anyway. But here some boundaries: Most of the transition shall be done until 2020 starting with product compliance and modernization of dangerous goods management and having product safety improvements later in the process. Until modernization of product safety has been completed users of SVT, SDS and labeling can continue with existing EH&S capabilities on S/4 migrating to the new stuff later.
Dear Marko
focusing only on the "Dangerous Goods Management" part of your comment.
I would assume this: most of companies using EHS classic start the DG story with EHS BD to set up the master data for SAP EHS DG.
As a kind of "interpretation": if you talk about "modernization of Dangerous Goods Management": is this focusing on the topic if "simplification of data model" or what is behind the term "modernization"?? Or is this as well looking on the "printing" of DG data in SAP SD process? (may be in S/4 Hana the job wil be done more or less with Adobe products as embedded in current SAP approach and not using classic SAP techniques as SAP Script etc.)
Reason: In current situation; big part of DG is: to uses phrases. This capability is a "must to have" for whatever solution future solution or most of the SAP customer will loose all the integration options which currently exist. As well the strong interaction of SAP SD process to SAP EHS DG process can (and should not) be lost in S/4 HANA environment. The lines of code to work on for many companies would need lot of manyears if we loose the capabilites to link these two modules as they are linked now. Imaging: You have lots and lots of "Form" routines (in most cases SAP Script routines)to support print out of many kindein SAP SD process (e.g. delivery note) for which there is a clear need (and not only a legal one) to print DG information.
So if i interpret your comment correct this might be true:
Currently: Prodcut COmpliance for Process indeustry as a term is in many cases linkled to "Component Extension for SAP EHS Management).
Can you comment here,. What kind of "modernization" can we expect in this area?
I assume, based on your comments, that SAP will deliver step by step a "modernized" SAP EHS classic solution. As currently we have one S/4 HANA release per year and in 2016 we have only 6 months to go as a kind of interpretation:
Wave one of approach might be finished 2017 etc. So SAP has more or less 4 waves in front (starting with 2017; one per year per S/4 HANA release) ; as explained by you starting with the modules you have mentioned. And end of 2020 "most of the transition" should be done. But most does not mean all.. Once again: kind of interpretation: I assume SAP will try to do the job based on kind of survey at customers using EHS (so which modules is used to which extent at customer side): So end of 2020 the most important topics are "modernized"; but what is left (or could be left)?? As we know: we will not have EHS waste or EHS OH solution in S/4 HANA any more.
Is there the risk that we will loose more functionality?
But may be we have to wait for news (that means more details on timeline aspects) in next months to get clear picture on the SAP roadmap here.
C.B.
Christoph,
I have to admit that my blog leaves room for interpretation. But this is by intention since we talk about plans and those can change. I am pretty limited in being too explicit and detailed right now.
Just some remarks:
Modernization can mean different things. One is simplification. But simplification cannot be translated as taking things away. Yes, there are things we realized that became obsolete. Those will be deleted. But simplification means doing things smarter and more efficient making use of HANA technology. Those things can be better user experience mainly in terms of better user support for process exection or simpler data models by getting rid of aggregates. Simplification definitely does not mean to reduce integration between existing SAP modules - our core strength.
The EHSM component extension mainly supports discrete industries when it comes to product compliance. So we are talking here new stuff which is not yet available. But discrete industries will benefit as well since the component extension is intended to become technically an integral part of S/4 getting rid of an own technical component.
Yes old EH&S OH and waste are not available on S/4 any longer (but an OH interface exists to integrate SAP with non-SAP solutions) and EH&S IHS is replaced by a modernized Health & safety management already. The rest sits in compatibility pack and shall be modernized in the above mentioned sense step wise until 2020.
Dear Marko
thanks for your update on the topic. But some "wording" in your comment could make some persons using EHS classic quite "nervous".
I hope that, reading between the line of your feedback, we can assume that old EHS BD and new EHS DG will still interact in phrases and other critical steps to generate dangerous goods master data. It is not only the very good and very helpful integration of EHS in the other SAP processes which is of high interest of companies using EHS it is the quite "deep" integration of EHS BD (as the foundation) to EHS-SAF, EHS-GLm, EHS -DG etc. which is on the "radar" and expectation is that SAP will deliver, as announced by you, a modernized solution; removing topics which are obsolete and utilizes the best from S/4 HANA and e.g.gain: Speed..... Here the "digital transformation" is one key to succeed in future.
In a parallel document discussion was running if HANA can "integrate" to other e.g. EHS "search platform"; answer is based on best knowlegde: yesI check Chemical structure search)
A new key competence is not only to deliver a SDS ready to use or a label;a key competence in future is to answer quickly the questions of the customer (and authorities) using "state of the art up to date data" and "state of the art and up to date documents). So data management is the success factor in EHS; the ability to "aggregate" EHS data with logisitc data is a success factor etc.
A further key component in future is to answer questions. can I exchange component x by y getting the "same" from user perspctive (and use) but more compliant and safer to use in daily live. Here SAP has shown that solutions are possible in HANA (as published by you here: Givaudan Boosts Its Compliance with HANA ).
The potential options of the use of S/4 HANA are clear; We have now to wait for full blown solution (and not only looking on SAP EHS running in compatibility mode, this can only be an interim solution)
C.B.
Christoph,
the importance of integration of EHS into business processes but also in itself based on EHS-BD is well taken and a key success factor of this solution. So however the new solution will look like - and since we are still in the process to define that I do not want to drill down too much into details yet - we absolutely have to take your concerns into consideration. The plan is to invest into this mature area to come to something better which is fit for the future. And this should make the many customers we have in this area happy not nervous...
Dear Marko
yes we have a SAP Idea Place to nominate "wishes" (which might be the deployed by SAP in some SAP version of SAP ERP or S/4 HANA); i know: But if SAP could support some wishes in the new solution this would be great. One important wish is: IMPROVE THE EXISTING IMPORT/EXPORT functionality.
With current version of OCC a good next step was done by SAP (but only for Import purposes). But please. don't stop there. One still challenge for many companies is to deal with "data management" topics. And including IMPORT/EXPORT of data (for many purposes): And please do not neglect the IMPORT/EXPORT of Reports (e.g inbound) in future solution.
C.B.
hi Marko
What are the different product compliance processes are covered in PS&S solution on S/4 HANA?
Hi Anand,
always a question of how granular do you want to look at those. On high level we distinguish between
Product Marketability and Chemical Compliance
Dangerous Goods Management
Safety Data Sheet and Label Management