Communication between SAP ECC and Inventory Optimization

[Former Member]

My customer is currently thinking of buying a 3rd party Inventory Optimization tool (something like SmartOps or Optiant) that would interface to their current ECC 6.0 system, and I would like to get more information about what interfaces are used to send data between ECC and any IO system.

Do we use IDocs or BAPI's?

If anyone has experience integrating SAP ECC with SmartOps, Optiant, E3 or other Inventory Optimization tools, can you describe what interfaces were required?

I realize some vendors will provide 'out-of-the-box' interfaces, but the interfaces still need to be configured and possibly extended.

Just thinking about this Inventory Optimization scenario, I would assume the 3rd party systems would need the Material Master (MATMAS) and possibly other master data like Vendor (CREMAS) and Customer (DEBMAS)? I would also assume that the 3rd party system would send new Purchase Orders to SAP ECC, using PORDCR?

How do we send things like demand or sales orders, or stock balances to the Inventory Optimization system?

Many thanks,

Mark

[Former Member]

Hi Mark,

We have a problem at one of our clients in trying to adjust the execution system in sync with the suggested safety stock targets from SmartOps. We are trying to interface SmartOps Safety Stock targets directly into ECC Material Master to the Safety Stock field.

Because SmartOps suggests SS numbers for the next 52 weeks for e,g, how would it update the SS field with a time varying bucket giving the supplier the visibility of SS for the next X number of weeks? Because there is only one field for SS, we can only update it with the suggested SS target for the current week.

Any thoughts/suggestion on how this is going to be handled?

Thanks

Ashvin

[Former Member]

if u have APO SNP installed can u not update the time varying SS into the time series key figure for the SS in the planning book ?

[Former Member]

Yes I know its possible in SNP. But we are not going to implement it until like 3 yrsdown the line. For now the scope is only for ECC. So I was wondering if you had any thoughts to solve this issue of updating SS into various time varying buckets.

Thanks

Ashvin

[Former Member]

Ashvin, there are several ways to take the SAP EIS (formerly SmartOps) time phased safety stock output and convert that into one safety stock value for ECC.  As you pointed out, you can take the one value for the current week and use that but a less volatile idea might be to average the SS recommendations for several time periods going forward, depending on your business details.  If you have a frozen period with your factories or vendors, or if you get order lead time from customers, those parameters would impact the number of periods to average.  You could take the highest SS value over that period instead, depending on your customer service targets and if you're planning safety stocks throughout your supply chain  (multi-echelon)with EIS or just for finished goods.  As you can see, a lot goes into the decision about how to take time phased safety stock values and convert them into one value.  Many EIS customer are doing that now successfully.  I suggest reaching out to your SmartOps consultant for guidance.   I am currently working for SAP as a Solutions Consultant on the EIS application.

[Former Member]

SAP Enterprise Inventory Optimization by SmartOps provides for a standard interface between SAP ERP and APO. If your customer is not yet using APO they can still take advantage of SAP Enterprise Inventory Optimization.

EIO is an SAP Solution Extension. Please see the SAP EcoHub site for more information or contact you SAP Account Executive to learn more about SAP Enterprise nventory Optimization by SmartOps.