SAP Field Logistics is a solution built on SAP S/4HANA. It is available on S/4HANA Private Cloud, Public Cloud and On-Premise Editions. This solution enables customers to leverage the best-in-class industry practices to manage their logistics movement between their supply and demand plants. These logistics items include own stock, non-stock, rental, and third-party items (supplies, consumables, equipment, tools etc.). This solution is primarily built for Oil and Gas Upstream industry operations. It can also be used by any other industries such as Oil and Gas Downstream, Mining, Wind Power and Agriculture which have similar logistics processes.
Rental Process Outline
Customers often rent equipment for their operations offshore. The demand for a rental item is always associated with the demand for a service operation. The request for a service operation can arise from a maintenance or project work. However, the detailed information for the rental equipment required to fulfil the service is often not known to the requestor in advance. In the scenario supported by Field Logistics, the exact information about the rentals such as dimensions, serial numbers, safety instructions, and certificates can be captured in the system after the purchase order is created or confirmed by the vendor. The solution flow is depicted in the Figure 01 below.
Rental and third-party items are together referred to as Supplier Items in Field Logistics. The logistical handling of these two types of items is identical.
Figure 01: A flow diagram with swim lane representation to indicate Supplier Item procurement in Field Logistics.
Supplier Item Repository
The rental items are costly and demand an efficient system to track their whereabouts. Their clear representation and visibility in the supply chain enables better planning. Hence, the solution aims at a central and singular representation of a rental item throughout its journey within Field Logistics - the 'Rental Item Repository'. This repository offers multiple facets of data storage to allow complete rental data representation and lifecycle tracking. It provides an out-of-the-box integration with all essential platform services like archiving, authorization and security, full support for data privacy, attachments, change log, CDS-based enterprise search, RAP business events, a migration object, ranges of extensibility, white-listed modern APIs, etc. The user will have access to the best of this bundle using an app called 'Manage Logistics'. The features are depicted in the block Figure 02 below.
Figure 02: A block diagram of Supplier Item Repository and its interaction with other features.
Configurable Milestones
The supplier item repository offers 'Milestone' features to record the main events in the supplier item journey. For instance, the milestone 'Received at Base' records the date and time of the physical receipt of the item at the base location. The milestone 'Ready for Dispatch' marks the completion of the cross-docking activities at the base and its readiness for onward journey to the remote. There is a set of standard milestones delivered out of the box to help customers track the logistics journey and lifecycle of supplier items. These milestones are fully configurable. New milestones can be introduced, and existing milestones can be modified or deactivated. The below Figure 03 outlines the milestone feature and its underlying framework.
Figure 03: A block diagram of Milestone Framework for the Supplier Items
Fully integrated and represented across Apps
The supplier items are integrated across the forward and return processes with Field Logistics and non-Field Logistics applications. The reusable CDS views make integration seamless within the Field Logistics applications. Any actions on the supplier item from other applications will trigger the appropriate milestones. This makes the solution traceable, end-to-end, and fully integrated. The below Figure 04 depicts the length and breadth of its interaction with other applications.
Figure 04: A block diagram showing the interaction of Supplier Items with other applications.
Reference Information for SAP Field Logistics:
SAP Help Documentation:
SAP Field Logistics for any-premise
SAP Field Logistics for the public cloud
SAP Best practice content for S/4HANA Cloud for Supplier Item:
SAP Best practice content for S/4HANA Cloud for other Field Logistics scope:
Base Field Logistics Scope - 40G
Field Logistics Analytics – 6VA
Review Credits: Content reviewed and enriched by Field Logistics product management and UA team
- SAP Managed Tags:
| User | Count |
|---|---|
| 7 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 4 | |
| 3 | |
| 3 | |
| 2 | |
| 2 | |
| 2 | |
| 2 |
