Efficiency Issues With SAP Configuration - Brightwork Research & Analysis

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Executive Summary

Why configuration is so problematic in APO.
What are some of the major issues?
How the configuration effort in APO compares to the best of breed solutions.
A far superior approach to configuration, which could significantly improve implementations.

Pre Reading

The previous article I wrote highlights an issue I am increasingly noticing in SAP configuration.

Introduction

I have long felt that the configuration screens in SAP could be significantly simplified and improved. On the IMG side, essentially, all that is being done is parameters are being defined. However, there are far too many screens and objects to navigate to configure what are nearly simple items. Most of the screens in the IMG are either text entry or a drop down, which connects to a different field in the IMG. I have documented roughly 700 configuration areas of SAP EWM. I can say that most of those screens are simple data mappings that a few columns in a spreadsheet would easily represent. On the SAP Easy Access side, at least in the SCM space, most of the activity is just connecting specific product, location, and or product location combinations to different options set up already in the IMG. Overall, as the solution’s complexity increases, this issue is getting worse and is making SAP SCM a less and less sustainable solution. Also, the focus is changing in terms of skill sets. It is not more important than the person configuring the system to understand simply the particularities of the configuration setup rather than understand the business reasons for these configurations. This is a sign of exceedingly poor interface design. The configuration is not supposed to consume so much effort from the configuration consultant that they do not have the bandwidth to match the configuration requirements.

How the Configuration Effort in APO Compares to Best of Breed Solutions

I have over ten years of experience in different supply chain planning software and have configured several systems. SAP SCM is at least 5x more involved and time-consuming to configure than any other methods I have ever worked with. I have heard about some new modules in the past few years. However, I have not seen any effort on the part of SAP to improve their system’s configuration management. SAP development is wasting my time by requiring that other consultants and I expend enormous effort to set up even elementary to set up in other systems. Clients end up paying for this inefficient design. I would like to see SAP move people from doing things like coming up with glossy PDF documents and terms like “Netweaver” and place those people onto, making the infrastructure more usable and maintainable.

A Better Configuration Approach

Setting up configuration from a spreadsheet or relational database is something SAP should consider. Demand Works sets the standard in this area by allowing entire models to be created in spreadsheets with different tabs representing different tables in the ProgressSQL database. After initial modeling is complete and the company is ready to move to production, an intermediate database can be created to feed the application database. To read about how Demand Works allows its system to be configured, see this link. If SAP were to follow the simple principles outlined by Demand Works, their implementation success would increase dramatically.

Conclusion

These configuration issues are why I never recommend to clients performing any prototyping or simulation in SAP SCM as the effort is both too large and too error prone. The money that can be spent on the configuration is far easier to model in a third-party application. This also helps validate the results in the SCM system. Many third-party vendors offer their software desktop solutions (ToolsGroup, MCA Solutions, Demand Works, among many others). While executives often cannot tolerate using third-party systems for production, they are often more amenable to buying these systems as an adjunct to the SAP SCM system. Generally, this approach needs to be more widely utilized because the current approach of trying to use SCM for either supply chain simulation or modeling is retarding companies’ supply chains. The fact is that the configuration management in SAP SCM is demanding that neither modeling nor simulating in SAP SCM is cost-effective or sustainable.