Personal Insights
Customer Engagement for Lot Size of One (MTO scenario) with Advanced Variant Configuration | Scope Item ’55E’
Objective:
Objective of this blog is to create awareness of Scope Item – Lot Size of One with Advanced Variant Configuration (55E) and to share the experience of the recent workshop conducted with customers and partners to walk them through the business process and evaluate whether the Best Practices outlined synergize with the actual business process at companies.
Target audience for this blog:
Any user who wishes to understand the basic End-to-End Business Process of Lot Size of One (Make-to-Order usecase) or users who wish to evaluate the Best Practices defined by SAP can go through this blog for a brief understanding.
About 55E:
Scope Item 55E is designed to describe End-to-End business scenario for Lot Size of One (MTO process). The test script flows with multiple personas/ user roles from receiving demand till fulfilment and dispatch of request using configurable materials. Scope Item – Lot Size of One with Advanced Variant Configuration (55E) was made available since S/4 HANA Cloud Edition – 2202 release.
Link to the Lot Size of One with Advanced Variant Configuration (55E)
The coverage of the business flow with classification based on user roles (persona) will be detailed in the following part of the blog.
About Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI):
Customer Engagement Initiative or what we in short refer as CEI, is a service provisioned by SAP, where the engineering / product management position innovation ideas for the product with customers and partners to learn their views and feedback. This engagement provides an opportunity for customers and partners to voice their thoughts to shape the roadmap of SAP’s products.
Registration to CEI:
Once the topic of discussion is approved from SAP’s central CEI team, customers and partners are made aware of topics via the influence portal (Influence SAP Software Development) . Registered customers and partners are checked for NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) and FBA (Feedback Agreement) before approving their participation in these workshops.
Picture#1: Logos of customers and partners participated in the CEI program.
Flow of the workshops:
- Workshop#1: Initial Call, stage setting for expectation (both sides).
- Workshop#2: Demonstration of end-to-end MTO business process flow.
- Workshop#3(offline engagement): Feedback workshop via Mural board.
- Workshop#4: Conclusion meeting – Response to feedbacks and queries.
Abstract on workshop#1:
The initial call was an ice breaker / introduction round. During this call, SAP presented the motive of the workshop and collected the expectation from the participants (feedback and queries).
Timelines for the workshop and brainstorming was shared for participant’s reference.
Picture#2: Timeline of the engagement model.
Picture#3: Introduction call with Point of Contacts.
Abstract on workshop#2:
The second workshop was predominantly the demonstration of the end-to-end business process flow followed by the business stories with classification based on user roles (a.k.a personas).
Business Story:
Picture#4: Business story illustrated with persona/ user role classification
The business story starts with a Sales Representative creating a sales order,
Picture#5: Sales Order creation
Details on Sold-to-Party, Ship-to-Party are entered followed by Customer reference and Customer reference date. On selection of material and entering the quantity details, the system understands the material selected is a configured material and Advance Variant Configuration screen is displayed.
Picture#6: Advance Variant Configuration screen.
In the AVC screen, the initial landing would show that the configuration status is ‘Incomplete’ as the configuration details of the material is not filled.
Picture#7: Variant Configuration determining the price after providing the required attributes.
On filling out the required details as per the values the Net value of the material gets displayed. The net value gets changed whenever any attributes are changed. For example, Inclusion of SLA agreement.
Variant Matching: We can also click on button to evaluate in case there are alternate configurable materials available for the same parameters. On clicking Done, RACR(Review Availability Check Result ) is displayed.
Picture#8: RACR screen displaying the confirmed date, plant, and quantity confirmation.
On return to sales order, costing of the component can be determined by navigating to ‘Extras‘ in menu. The details of the total costs, fixed costs, variable costs, and breakup of the component cost is depicted in the below table facet.
Picture#9: Costing information of the subassemblies are showcased.
On click on Save, the Sales Order is created. With this point the activity of a Sales Executive is complete.
Proceeding with the scenario flow, the next business role that performs the activity is Production Planner by executing MRP run for specific plant.
Picture#10: MRP run is scheduled with above parameter values.
Production Planner checks for the log for successful run of the job scheduled. Next steps are to evaluate stock and requirement situation.
Stock availability can be evaluated by running app Monitor Material Coverage. Select the components that needs to be managed and click on the Manage Material button.
On clicking on Manage Material, cross app navigation is initiated, and the user can see the Manage Material Coverage object page with details of the dependent requirements, purchase requisition and planned orders.
Picture#11: Manage material coverage depicting shortage of components
Product Planner can simulate depiction of material shortage and accept the proposal by pressing on apply button.
Picture#12: Graphical view – depicting shortage of component and its replenishment.
Next steps are with the Purchaser receiving external procured sub-assemblies. App Process Purchase Requisitions. In the list report, scroll to the material components for which Purchase Order needs to be generated.
Picture#13: Purchase Requisition to Purchase Order via app Process Purchase Requisitions.
Picture#14: Purchase Order generated for Sales Order.
On clicking on confirmation section, the column with name Inbound delivery, the user is taken to cross app – Inbound delivery.
Picture#15: Purchase Order app in confirmations section for inbound delivery.
At the menu, user can opt for serial numbers by clicking on Extras.
Picture#16: Inbound delivery in confirmations section for inbound delivery.
By clicking on create serial number, automatically a new number is generated. Select the sub-assemblies and click on Post Goods Receipt.
Picture#17: Post Good Receipt.
In the next step inhouse planned orders are converted to production orders using Manage Material Coverage app.
Picture#18: Converting Planned Orders to Production Orders.
As the Purchase Order and Production Orders are ready, the materials can be staged now for production. To initiate this process, launch Stage Materials for Production app.
Replenish the Net requirement and stage the materials for production process.
Picture#19: Material staging using Production Orders.
On staging the production order, now the production order can be confirmed.
Picture#20: Confirm Production Operations.
Components and activities like setup time, machine and labor time can be verified at this stage and the material can be posted and set to complete. Goods can be now got to the warehouse by Goods Receipt.
Picture#21: Goods Receipt for Production Order.
The next business process step is Quality Inspection, here the Quality Engineer inspects the lot of finished goods to approve stocks to be transferred for unrestricted stock. The Quality Engineers starts this process by launching Record Inspection Results app.
Picture#22: Capturing quality check in Record Inspection Results app.
Post capturing the quality inspection and results, the Quality Engineer can also categorize the buckets which the product stock needs to be positioned.
Picture#23: Movement of Goods post quality inspection to unrestricted stock.
The final step in this business process is outbound delivery, The shipping specialist would launch the app Track Sales Order Details to create a delivery.
Picture#24: Creating Delivery via Track Sales Order Details app.
After creation of delivery the next step for the Shipping Specialist is to execute picking and to select the serial number followed by posting of Goods Issue for product dispatch to fulfil the requirement.
Picture#25: Picking Outbound delivery and tracking the process flow.
With completing the above process, the business story reaches the last part of the segment Billing and Invoicing.
Picture#26: Invoice created in Track Sales Order Details app and the process flow depicts green.
Next step is on creating Supplier Invoice for payment initiation for accounts receivable and accounts payable.
Picture#27: Supplier invoice creation.
With this step, the business story showcases a complete End-to-End Make-to-Order scenario with Advanced Variant Configuration.
Conclusion:
Demo of E2E business process flows concluded in the second workshop, initiated an offline idea / feedback collection phase via Mural (Design Thinking collaboration working board) completing the third phase of the engagement.
The fourth or final workshop ended with open house and clarifications, next steps for the feedback collected was shared to conclude the Customer and Partner Engagement for our scope item 55E.
Thanking the participants for their active participation and feedback to mature the E2E process flow, I conclude this blog post.
Points to Note:
(a) Topic identified enhancements to the End-to-End scenario as per participants request can be observed during upcoming future releases,
- New Process Variant with Stock Transport Order leveraging Advanced Variant Configuration
- Include a process path of a negative Quality Inspection in addition to the happy-path
(b) Advanced Variant Configuration roadmap
Great article Arvind! Congratulations on this insightful feature set and the details you have discussed on this blog... well done!
Great work Arvind, congratulations for great success, it is all due to your focused approach and all your hard work.....congrats once again !!!