Supply Chain Enhancements in SAP S4 HANA 2021
Explore key capabilities in SAP S/4 HANA Cloud – for inventory and warehouse management, transport logistics, order promising, and more.
1. Advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP)
Internal sales representatives, order fulfillment managers and order fulfillment specialists require mechanisms to configure, execute and monitor availability checks and optimize the distribution of supply. This is particularly important when the availability of materials needed to confirm requirements is limited.
The advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP) capabilities can be used to confirm on which date and in which quantity a requirement can be fulfilled.
Review Availability Check Result
The Review Availability Check Result has improved when it comes to Intermediate Results display. The pop over provides an overview for basic method and offers navigation to a comprehensive explanation for product allocation and supply protection.
Alternative Based Confirmation in an ATP check
Product Substitution in Sales Order Requirements
In addition to plant substitution, Alternative-Based Confirmation (ABC) can be used to substitute products requested in sales order requirements. For this purpose, the substitution capabilities of Alternative-Based Confirmation (ABC) in advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP) have been enhanced to enable customers to replace requested products in sales orders with substitute products, also in combination with alternative delivering plants. Pre-requisite is to define a substitution strategy with substitution method,
Quantity Conversion in Product Substitution
To achieve higher delivery rates and reduce out-of-stock situations, configuration of product substitutions can be done. When a shortage of a product occurs, a different product can be used to substitute the originally requested product.
Managing Plant and Storage Location Substitution – Master Data
Master data for Location Substitution (Plant and Storage Location) can be defined and managed in the following 5 apps:
- Manage Substitutions
- Manage Exclusions
- Manage Substitution Groups
- Manage Substitution Controls
- Manage Substitution Reasons
The Manage Substitutions – Locations is the main app, where the substitution master data is managed and defined. The app depicts the substitution chain in both tabular and graphical mode.
Substituting storage locations on the basis of substitution master data
The storage location for sales order requirements with an alternative storage location can be replaced on the basis of:
- The substitution method source Substitution Master Data in the Configure Substitution Strategy app
- Substitution master data maintained in the apps for Location Substitution
Supply protection
Flexible Time Buckets in Supply Protection
Supply Protection enables an Order Fulfillment Manager to define protected quantities for defined groups based on specific characteristics. With the period type “Flexible”, it is possible to define time buckets with a flexible length.
Multiple Matches Alert in Supply Protection (Situation Handling)
With supply protection it is possible to define protected quantities for defined groups based on specific characteristics. It might happen that one demand occurs in multiple protection groups, although this was not intended. In case of a multiple match the real stock is reduced by the amount of the confirmed demand, but the protection is reduced by the amount of the confirmed quantity multiplied with the
number of matches.
2. Inventory Management
Manage Physical Inventory Count
Entering and changing physical inventory count results is an important step in the physical inventory process either as part of a cycle count or part of the annual inventory. A new SAP Fiori app, enabled for desktop and supporting a valuable user experience on mobile devices such as tablets and phones, o ers the following features:
- Barcode scanning via device camera or external scanner
- BAdI to process customer specific barcodes
- Draft mode
- Users can define counting variance
- Data source extensibility supported
Manage Reservations
The new SAP Fiori app Manage Manual Reservations enables a warehouse clerk to manually create and manage reservations for goods movements for a warehouse. Customers can search for reservations using different filters and display general information and details of individual reservation items. It’s possible to plan goods issues, goods receipts, and transfer postings.
Serial Number Handling in Inventory Management
With the OP2021 release, there are following enhancements in SAP Fiori apps to support serial numbers in the goods receipt process:
- Stock- Multiple Materials
- Stock – Single Material
- Material Documents Overview
- Manage Stock
- Transfer Stock – In Plant
- Transfer Stock – Cross Plant
- Post Goods Receipt for Purchasing Document
- Post Goods Receipt for Inbound Delivery
- Post Goods Receipt for Production Order
- Post Goods Receipt without Reference
This enhancement allows to:
- Track a material from the very beginning of the internal logistics process
- Streamline the tracking process by creating serial numbers automatically
- Keep a transparent picture of the serialized materials in stock
- Ensure that serial numbers are correctly maintained in internal goods movements
- Consider serial numbers during picking to track the material until the Goods Issue
- Track a material along the internal logistics process in a transparent and intuitive way
Subcontracting in the Goods Receipt Process
Subcontracting is a procurement process in which you instruct a supplier or subcontractor to process a finished material for which you provide the individual components.
It is now possible to post the goods receipts for the finished material and at the same time the goods issue for the related components in the SAP Fiori apps:
- Post Goods Receipt for Purchasing Document (F0843)
- Post Goods Receipt for Inbound Delivery (F2502)
The following movement types are now supported in the above-mentioned apps:
- 543 (Goods Issue Subcontracting Stock)
- 545 (Goods Receipt for By-Product)
- 546 (Goods Issue for By-Product)
Split Valuation in the GR Process
The Goods Receipt SAP Fiori apps can now support the process of split valuation
- Post Goods Receipt for Purchase Document
- Post Goods Receipt for Inbound Delivery
- Post Goods Receipt for Production Order
- Post Good Receipt without Reference
