Ask a Fixer: Ensure Greater ROI From Your Production Planning Component In SAP ECC

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Tuesday, February 21st, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

The Production Planning (PP) component allows you to plan the procurement, manufacturing and sale of your products. It also enables you to use different planning strategies such as make-to-order or make-to-stock so that you neither overproduce nor face an out-of-stock situation. Production processes such as discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing and repetitive manufacturing, as well as replenishment using Kanban are all available within the PP module. Also, the PP module offers several reports and analytics tools to enable planners to constantly optimize and fine tune their planning parameters.

Attend this live Q&A with Jawad Akhtar, PP Expert and bestselling author, where you can ask your most pressing questions, such as:

• What are some of the important reports or reporting tools available in PP component?
• What is the significance of cross-modular integration of PP component with other logistics components?
• How do I differentiate a co-product from a by-product in the manufacturing process, and map these in SAP ECC?
• How can XSteps (Execution Steps) benefit my business processes in process and discrete manufacturing?
• Why effective materials planning in SAP ECC is still an elusive goal for many companies?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER" WEBCAST SERIES?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speaker:

Jawad Akhtar, author of the following books:

• Production Planning and Control with SAP ERP
• Quality Management with SAP
• Materials Management with SAP ERP: Functionality and Technical Configuration
• S&OP with SAP ERP Production Planning
• Configuring Kanban in SAP ERP MM PP

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

To register, please login to your ASUG account.

3 Essentials for the BASIS Administrator

If you’re new to BASIS administration then you’ll know that this specialist role is a key one in the running of SAP systems...

You personally, may have come from the software developer side of IT or you may have been a database administrator or a systems administrator of UNIX or Windows operating systems. Whatever your background, there are many functions that you will need to be familiar with in your new role but here are three particularly important ones that you should master and remember the purpose of.

SE16N – The Data Browser

This is your fastest way to inspect a database table through the SAP application layer. You can use SE16N to browse legacy formats as well such as transparent, pool and cluster tables. Of course you probably don’t have access to SE16 (older version) or SE16N in your productive SAP system but under exceptional circumstance you can be granted approval to use this transaction. Data is displayed in a grid format and you have the option to use variants also with SE16N. Since the introduction of HANA as a database alternative to Oracle and SQLServer you can now also use the SE16H alternative. SE16S and SE16SL are also new TCodes for use with HANA databases and allow you to find any values in any tables. You can learn more about these new capabilities by checking out SAP KBA article 2002588 - CO-OM Tools: Documentation for SE16S, SE16SL, and SE16S_CUST

SE37 – The Function Builder

This is principally targeted at the developer or functional consultant who wishes to examine the functionality of a BAPI or function module. An added benefit of using SE37 is that you can use test data and save it for use with a given BAPI or function module. Even if you are not an ABAP developer, often, as a BASIS administrator you will be tasked with trying to work out why things are not quite going according to plan – using SE37 to set things like breakpoints and debug functions in the system will become an indispensable aspect of your role. This is also a transaction that you typically won’t have access to in production 

ST03N – The Workload Monitor

This is a transaction used to examine system workload and performance statistics and is principally use to verify system performance at the SAP instance level. You can also access the data associated with ST03N from the SAP collector logs using function module SWNC_GET_WORKLOAD_STATISTIC (execute this with SE37) – although the collector logs are not a 100% guarantee of all SAP events being logged, it does give you, as a BASIS administrator,  insight into users. You can determine their activity and the transactions that they are using along with the frequency of use. ST03N should also be seen together with UPL – a new piece of functionality available in any ABAP based system and which is based on the core functionality of the SAP Coverage Analyzer.  UPL stands for Usage and Procedure Logging and has full reporting capabilities with enriched information sets in the Business Warehouse of Solution Manager 7.1 SP5 and higher. UPL complements ST03N ABAP workload statistics.

PP-REM and Cost Control

Repetitive production is a special type of production that can be used in integrated production scenarios or for a specific situation. This article explains some uses and configurations regarding PP-REM.

For a long time, industries have been using PP-REM to obtain a continuous flow of production. PP-REM is highly recommended for production because it provides product stability and low complexity. This type of production is well used in automobile industries, but it can also be employed in other industry types, such as for wires and nails manufacturing.

The main goal is to reduce the cost control and simplify the completion confirmation via back-flushing process.

SAP provides a PP-REM area by means of OPP3 transaction – please check information on PP-REM configuration here. 

There are only four requirements for PP-REM implementation:

• REM Profile (OSPT / OSP2)

• Material Master Configuration ( MM01 / MM02)

• Production Version (C223 / MM02)

• Product Cost Collector ( KKF6N / KKF6M - Collective)

The main question regarding CO is the Cost Collector (KKF6N), which will allow the material to be continuously settled without a specific production order. However, before initiating the cost collector, we need to follow preceding steps:  

1. Create a BOM and a Routing (rate routing)

2. Define the standard cost estimate for current date and period (CK11N)

3. Release this standard cost estimate (CK24)

Here, there is a crucial point of discussion: WIP. Normally, it is possible to avoid WIP when using PP-REM, but this is linked to the routing configuration. If this is configured with Report Point and with a different point of confirmation (report pointing) until the final confirmation, WIP will be possible [KKAT / KKAQ – WIP Display & KKAS / KKAO – WIP Calculation]. The reason lays between one point and another, since the process will generate more work – of course, these points must be aligned with the production and there is no impact in the Cost Collector configuration (but the production manager must ensure the correct production confirmation).

Another important factor is regarding COGI. We have noticed the same problems with no row material available when confirming the Production Order, rather than with PP-DIS. It is possible to avoid COGI via SAP configuration. COGI is a big problem and we know that it must be “zero” by end of the day.

There are many reports to use in PP-REM, for instance to track the confirmation point by point using the report MF26. There are other reports as well, such as product costs [MCRK], product cost collection [KKBC_PKO], preliminary costing for cost collector [MF30] and so on.

The production confirmation occurs through the specific PP transaction (MFBF), where there are some additional functionalities, such as reversal, scrap, change of row materials used, etc.

PP-REM uses the movement type 131 to confirm production order, which differs from PP-DIS SAP that uses the movement type 101. Like this, the material movement presents different account information.

After confirming, is possible to analyze variances [KKS5 Collective / KKS6 Individual – the variances calculated with the version 0 will be evaluated to COPA.

At end of the month, it is critical to execute the order settlement [CO88 / KK87]. In this stage, the order balance can be balanced transferring the differences to FI and to the Profit Center Accounting. Additionally, it is possible to verify the contribution margin in COPA.

Below we can see some important tables behind PP-REM:

• Cost collector [AUFK]

• Reporting point quantities [CPZP]

• Reporting point documents [CEZP]

• Document log [BLPP]

PP-REM offers an easy way to integrate CO and Production and should be considered whenever possible mainly to scenarios with low complexity but keeping the information and responsibilities that you can see in other scenarios.

Ask a Fixer: Options for Analyzing Profitability in ECC and S/4 HANA

EXCLUSIVELY FOR ASUG MEMBERS!

Start: Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

End: Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 1:00 PM (CT), 2:00 PM (ET), 12:00 PM (MT), 11:00 AM (PT)

Analyzing Profitability is a key task in any organization. It helps shed light on sales and profit information on various aspects of the market such as customers, geographic regions, product lines, and many more. There are several tools that can be used to analyze profitability in SAP, the most common being CO-PA (Controlling Profitability Analysis). However, many companies still resort to using spreadsheets and other manual methods (despite their plethora of issues) to accomplish this task. Is your company using the system to effectively analyze its profitability data?

Attend this live Q&A with Paul Ovigele, FICO Expert and Founder of ERPfixers, and Janet Salmon, Chief Product Owner for Management Accounting at SAP, where you can ask your most pressing questions, such as:

• Can we use costing and account based CO-PA simultaneously?
• What are the S/4 HANA implications of using CO-PA?
• Is there an easy way of ensuring that CO-PA reconciles with the general ledger?
• How do we do allocations within CO-PA?
• Is there an advantage of using CO-PA over PCA (Profit Center Accounting) for Profitability Analysis?
• What is the Top-Down Distribution in CO-PA and when should we use it?

WHAT IS "ASK A FIXER"?

Ask a Fixer is a live ASUG-hosted Q&A session with one of ERPfixers’ top-rated SAP experts (“Fixers”) in a specific module or topic. In this real-time discussion session, you have the opportunity to pose your specific questions to a Fixer, who will provide an immediate answer during the forum. This is a great way to get quick answers to your pressing issues, as well as learn from questions posted by other users during the forum.

Speakers:
Paul Ovigele, Author: Reconciling SAP CO-PA to the General ledger
Janet Salmon, Author: Controlling with SAP - Practical Guide

If you cannot attend: The webcast will be recorded. The link to the recording will be posted here and emailed to all registrants.

To register, please go to ASUG.