the very basic question is why
enterprise resource planning also called
ERP is required to answer let's examine
this typical business scenario
a client approaches the sales team to
buy a particular product the sales team
approaches the inventory department to
check the availability of the product in
this case the product is out of stock
the sales team approaches the production
planning department to manufacture the
product the production planning team
checks with the inventory department for
availability of raw material if raw
material is not available within the
inventory the production planning team
buys the raw material from the vendors
then production planning forwards the
raw materials to the shop floor
execution for actual production once
ready the shop floor team forwards the
goods to the sales team who in turn
deliver it to the client the sales team
updates the finance department with
revenue generated by the sale of the
product the production planning team
updates the finance department with
payments to be made to different vendors
for raw materials all departments
approach HR for any human resource
related issue that is the typical
business process of any manufacturing
company some key inferences one could
derive from the scenario would be a
typical enterprise has many departments
or business units
these departments or business units
continuously communicate and exchange
data with each other the success of any
organization lies in its effective
communication and data exchange within
these departments as well as associated
third parties such as vendors outsources
and customers based on the manners in
which communication and data exchange is
managed enterprise software systems can
be broadly classified as decentralized
systems or centralized systems which are
also called ERP let's look at
decentralized systems first in a company
with a decentralized system of data
management data is maintained locally at
the individual departments the
departments do not have access to
information or data of other departments
to identify the problems arising from
decentralized enterprise management
systems let's look at the same business
process again the customer approaches
the sales team for a product but this
time he needs the product on an urgent
basis the sales team do not have
real-time information access to the
products inventory so they approach the
inventory department to check the
availability of the product this process
takes time and the customer chooses
another vendor leading to loss of
revenue and customer dissatisfaction now
suppose the product is out of stock and
the sales team approaches the production
planning team to manufacture the product
- for future use
the production planning team checks the
availability of the raw materials
required raw material information is
separately stored by production planning
as well as the inventory Department
thus data maintenance cost goes up a
particular raw material required to
manufacture the product is available in
the inventory but according to the
database of the production planning team
the raw material is out of stock so they
go ahead and buy the raw material thus
material as well as inventory costs go
up once the raw material is available
the shop floor department suddenly
realizes they are short of workers they
approach the HR who in turn hire
temporary employees and higher than
market rates thus labor cost increases
the production planning department fails
to update the finance department on the
materials they have purchased the
finance department defaults the payment
deadline set by the vendor causing the
company loss of its reputation and even
inventing a possible legal action these
are just a few of the many problems with
decentralized systems some major
problems with the decentralized system
are numerous disparate information
systems that are developed individually
over time and are difficult to maintain
integrating the data is time and money
consuming inconsistencies and
duplication of data lack of timely
information leads to customer
dissatisfaction loss of revenue and
reputation high inventory material and
human resource costs
these are just some of the major
drawbacks for which we need a solution
well the solution lies in centralized
systems that is e RP in a company with a
centralized system of information and
data management data is maintained at a
central location and is shared with
various departments departments have
access to information or data of other
departments let's look at the same
business process again to understand how
a centralized enterprise system helps
overcome problems posed by a
decentralized enterprise system in this
case all departments update a central
information system when a customer
approaches the sales team to buy a
product on an urgent basis the sales
team has real-time information access to
the products in inventory which is
updated by the inventory department in
the centralized system the sales team
responds on time leading to increased
revenue and customer delight in case
manufacturing is required the sales team
updates the centralized database
production planning department is auto
updated by the centralized database for
requirements the production planning
team checks the availability of the raw
materials required via a central
database which is updated by the
inventory department thus data
duplication is avoided and accurate data
is made available the shop floor team
updates their manpower status regularly
in the central database which can be
accessed by the HR department in case of
a shortage of workforce the HR team
starts recruitment process with
considerable lead time to hire a
suitable candidate at market price thus
labor costs go
vendors can directly submit their
invoices to the centralized enterprise
system which can be accessed by the
finance department
thus payments are made on time and
possible legal actions are avoided the
key benefits of the centralized system
are it eliminates the duplication
discontinuity and redundancy in data it
provides information across departments
in real time it provides control over
various business processes it increases
productivity provides better inventory
management promotes quality reduces
material cost allows for effective human
resources management and reduces
overhead while boosting profits better
customer interaction increased
throughput and improved customer service
hence a centralized enterprise
management system is required si P is a
centralized enterprise management system
also known as enterprise resource
planning
into the evolution of si P product sweet
sap r/2 it was a successor of RM one a
materials management module it was a
packaged software application that
processed in real time on a mainframe
computer it integrated all of an
enterprise's functions such as
accounting manufacturing processes
supply chain logistics and human
resource SAP r/3 successor of SA PR to
be 8 is regularly updated and his market
leader in ERP till date has many modules
such as HR finance mmm
covering all enterprise functions 3
stands for three-tier architecture
presentation tier logic tier and data
tier also known as s ap ERP my SAP is a
suite of products from s AP including sa
p r3
in the suite our SRM CRM PLM SCM
netweaver it is sa P integrated
technology platform and is not a product
in itself it is the underlying
technology for all the products in the
my SAP suite all the products in my SAP
suite can run on a single instance of
net weavers sa P web application server
also known as sa P web a s netweaver
makes possible access of s AP data using
simple HTTP protocol or even mobile this
eliminates the need of installing and
more importantly training an SI p
client-side software
one of the principal reasons why s AP is
so popular is that it is very flexible
and customizable it is said that if you
have the time and money you can make sa
P software to drive your car on
autopilot one way to achieve this
flexibility is to break s ap system into
different modules like HR finance and so
on which emulate business processes of
that particular department or business
unit you can integrate one module with
other or even third-party interfaces now
depending upon your organization you can
have just one module
of s AP implemented
have integration with third-party
systems
it is also possible
able to integrate modules from different
ERP vendors
so you can integrate PP module from s AP
with HR module of PeopleSoft
the various si P modules available our
financial modules like financial
accounting controlling etc logistics
modules like materials sales etc human
resource management modules cross
application modules which essentially
integrate si P with other software
applications for our learning purposes
we will focus on Si pH or module SAP HR
provides comprehensive business
processes which map all HR activities in
an enterprise highly customizable and
can support very large number of
employees the various sub modules or
functionalities supported by ASAP HR
recruitment training and development
time management
employee benefits
payroll
planning
reporting ESS and MSS we will look into
the details of the sub-modules later in
the tutorials
to access s AP double click on the S AP
logon pad you are shown a list of
servers that you could log into
depending on your system settings you
will see multiple servers listed like
one for production one for QA
one for development and so on
select a server
in the next screen enter your user ID
S word
you are taken to us AP's easy access
menu
at the top you will see the menu bar
next you will see the standard toolbar
where you have options to
print
find
scroll etc
in SA P system in order to view our
maintain any data or access different
business processes you need to know the
corresponding transaction every
transaction has a unique code for
example transaction code to maintain
personal data is PA 30
the transaction in the command prompt
enter PA 30 and hit enter
taken to personal data maintain and
screen
if you notice the titlebar changes in
accordance with the transaction you are
currently in
back to the initial screen click the
back button
turn it of Li if you do not want to
remember the transaction codes a tree is
provided with all the transactions
available
navigate in the tree
double-click on the corresponding
transaction name
to the same screen as earlier
suppose you do not want to navigate so
much to access a transaction right-click
on it and select add to favorites
the transaction is added to your
favorites
at the bottom of a screen you will
notice a message bar this bar has three
colors
for errors yellow for warnings green for
success
if you double-click on the bar detailed
information of the message is reflected
at the bottom you will see various
system related information like the
client or the program you are currently
in to get help in SA P select the
corresponding screen element and press
f1 suppose I want help on command prompt
pressing f1 gives me a very detailed
help document
that is it to the sa p GUI