This blog provides you an overview of innovations in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1808 release for Manufacturing. Please check out also my video.

Demand Driven Replenishment

Visualize Buffer Positioning

Does following situations seems familiar to you as a Production Planner:

• Do you have little stock for the materials which you need?
• Do you have too much stock for the materials which you don’t need?
• Overall, do you have too much inventory?
• Can’t fulfill your customer orders in time and quantity?

Demand-Driven Replenishment is our intelligent approach to ensure best possible customer service levels at lowest possible inventory costs. Demand-Driven Replenishment  enables you to plan and manage supply chains based on actual customer demand, rather than through traditional forecast driven MRP procedures, but still being fully embedded into MRP. You can create the basis for a reliable material flow by defining buffers at strategically important points along a supply chain and by regularly adjusting the buffers’ limits. With our latest release, we offer the visualization of buffer positioning by a network graphic. This graphic enables you to easily display the position of decoupling points in a multilevel bill of material.

Fig. 1: SAP Fiori app ‘Buffer Positioning’ showing the ‘Buffer Analysis’ of a specific product

Predicted Lead Times for Stock Transfer Materials

One key input for the buffer levels recalculation is the buffer replenishment lead time. The buffer levels depend proportionally on this lead time. The more accurate the lead time can be determined, the better the buffer can be sized: big enough to ensure customer service levels, small enough to reduce bound capital.

For this purpose we deliver a machine learning service which supports the prediction of lead times for stock transfer materials based on historic lead times and their business context. This machine learning service improves the estimation of stock transfer lead time and sizing of buffer, means better service levels and potentially also lower bound capital in inventory.

Fig. 2: SAP Fiori app ‘Manage Buffer Levels’ with predicted Lead Time

Work Center Utilization Management

Manage Work Center Capacity

The new SAP Fiori app ‘Manage Work Center Capacity’ provides the capacity evaluation and adjustment. Using this app you can easily detect and resolve overload situations. Within a specific horizon, you can evaluate the capacity load situation of work center capacities, and also visualize the utilization based on bucket types such as shifts, days or weeks. By viewing the backlog of overdue orders and operations for work centers, you can now ensure that you’re optimally utilizing its capacity.

Fig. 3: SAP Fiori app ‘Manage Work Center Capacity’

Quality Management

Inspection Characteristic Analytics

In my past blog, I have highlighted the app Inspection Lot Analytics in Quality Management which enables Quality Engineers to analyze accepted and rejected inspection lots, as well as skipped and non-skipped inspection lots.

In 1808, we are enhancing the analytical skills in Quality Management by offering Inspection Characteristic Analytics. Within the new analytical object pages, the Quality Engineer can analyze accepted and rejected inspections on characteristic level with respect to different KPIs by plant, material and work center etc. The analytical capabilities of these pages provide high-level insights for the Quality Engineer to understand the key figures. The user can drill down to act on a variety of inspection-related information.

Fig. 4: SAP Fiori app ‘Characteristic Analytics’ is showing the Accepted and Rejected Inspections by Inspection Characteristics

The SAP Fiori app ‘Characteristic Detailed Analytics’ allows the Quality Engineer to build an analysis path by combining several charts as shown in figure 5. If the user opens the first chart and clicks on the rejected inspections of a material, this filter setting will be automatically applied to the other charts. With one click the Quality Engineer get insights about inspection characteristics which contribute to the rejection rate.

Fig. 5: SAP Fiori app ‘Characteristic Detailed Analytics’ combines several charts into an analysis path

Advanced Available-to-Promise

 Product Allocation Overview

Let us move now to Advanced ATP where we highlight the Product Allocation Overview page.With the new Product Allocation Overview page, you can

• Gain an overview of the product-allocation situation
• Readily analyze and solve problematic situations
• Drill down and analyze the product allocation situation for product allocation objects, characteristic value combinations and periods
• See order items of different ATP statuses which performed a product allocation check
• Drill down into order items and identify all consumed product allocation quantities and the order in which these quantities have been consumed

Fig. 6: SAP Fiori app ‘Product Allocation Overview’

Advanced Variant Configuration

Multilevel Configuration

Last but not least I want to share with you the next milestone in Advanced Variant Configuration, the enabling of Multilevel Configuration which allows you to model complex, multi-level configurable products in planning and production scenarios.The multi-level configuration is fully integrated into the simulation environment and into the Make-To-Order process.

Fig. 7: SAP Fiori app ‘Simulate Configuration Models’ shows the multi-level BOM structure

Configurable Routing

Moreover you can improve the quality for complex products and product changes by high-efficient simulation of the routing which is integrated into the simulation environment. The ‘Simulate Configuration Models’ screen provides an structured overview of alternative and parallel sequences and it visualizes the relationship between BOM and routing. The routing details are visible in trace and inspector view as well.

Fig. 8: SAP Fiori app ‘Simulate Configuration Models’ visualizes the relationship between BOM and routing

Integration into Purchasing

But that’s not all. We are continuously driving forward the integration of Advanced Variant Configuration. In the recent releases we have integrated Advanced Variant Configuration into sales order, sales quotation and production order. In 1808, the Advanced Variant Configurator is embedded into purchase order and purchase requisition.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

• Sven Denecken’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1808 Release Blog
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease
• Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud User Community: register here
• Feature Scope Description here
• What’s New here
• Help Portal Product Page here

Follow us via @SAP and #S4HANA, or myself via @GerhardWelker.