cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

SAP's Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) functionality

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hello Friends,

Has anyone worked with or implemented SAP's Vendor Managed Inventory i.e. VMI functionality ?

I have read the 1. Help Documentation on the subject as well as 2. VMI Building Block Configuration Guide (Q38) for Best Practices. It appears to me that the Configuration Guide has more to do with the config that goes into the Vendor's SAP system.

1. Is there any document or steps that list the configuration for VMI from the customer's perspective ? To elaborate, if a new SAP customer implementing SAP ECC 6.0 wants to utilize the VMI functionality so that its vendors can plan and replenish materials on behalf of this customer, what are the necessary steps that need to be taken to implement this VMI functionality ?

2. SAP documentation assumes that both the customer and its vendors who plan the VMI use SAP ERP. In case the vendors have their own legacy or ERP systems, will the VMI functionality still work...since most data transfer happens via EDI ?

Any thoughts or suggestions are most welcome. Thanks for your inputs in advance.

Swap

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (1)

Answers (1)

Former Member
0 Kudos
Former Member
0 Kudos

Thanks, but I had already gone thru the available documentation prior to entering my question in this forum. I am looking for inputs from anyone who has actually implemented the VMI functionality to better understand the effort involved alongwith the pros & cons.

Swap

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi,

I have previously implemented a simple VMI system using SAP, but no VMI specific functionality in SAP was used. The way it worked was that the vendor came on site to replenish the VMI stocks on a weekly basis, and provided a list from their system of the items consumed. This was then either disputed or signed off by the warehouse manager who then created a one line PO in SAP for the total cost of the items that it was agreed were consumed. The warehouse manager then created a GR and then the vendor submitted a invoice and got paid. The detailed invoice from the vendor was scanned into SAP and attached to the one line SAP invoice so that it was possible to see the detail through the system if required.

This was implemented on the basis that the whole point of VMI from a business perspective is that the vendor takes on the responsibility of managing supply so that the business doesn't have to. This therefore means reduced visibility of detail of spend in SAP line items, but the vendor provides the detail in their invoice. In my experience, most companies who use VMI do so in order to remove the cost of tracking and invoicing purchases of high volume, low cost items in SAP.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi Daniel,

My client currently prints a report of the Sales Forecast out of the existing legacy system and sends it to the vendors. Based on this Sales Forecast, the individual vendors plan their own production and replenish the material stocks for my client.

As I understand SAP's VMI functionality after going thru the help documentation, the above process is handled exclusively via EDI.

1. I therefore want to know if anyone has used this EDI functionality to convey the Sales data & Forecast to the vendor(s) and have the vendor(s) send in acknowledgments of the sales orders (created in the vendor's system based on this forecast) to trigger the Purchase Order(s) in the client's SAP system ?

2. Also, does the standard SAP VMI process using EDI work as stated or does it need any additional configuration and / or customization ?

Swapnil