EWM Functionality

Yard management is a function of EWM as we discuss in other posts on this blog. While doing research into yard management we came upon a good white paper by Catalyst International. Here are some interesting quotations from their paper.

On the state of many yards..

The first and last place a distribution center sees product is in the yard. However, for most, the yard is a blind spot where time is wasted searching for the right trailer and matching its requirements to the right resource at the right time. These resource and time delays can affect productivity, impact customer satisfaction and increase overall costs for both the yard and any warehouse that it supports. In fact, most shipping delays are in the yard and not on the road.

On the integration with cross docking…

In its most basic form, cross-docking is simply moving goods directly from an
inbound shipment to meet the demand of an outgoing order. Sounds simple? Add
in mixed trailers, dynamic scheduling appointments, limited dock space or material handling, customer requirements, and a labor force and the simplicity suddenly transforms into a challenge. The following sections are meant to provide an overview of SAP’s functionality in handling these challenges while integrating with your already self-functioning SAP warehouse management system.

On the different types of cross docking in EWM..

SAP’s solution breaks up into two main areas of opportunity: Planned and
Opportunistic. Planned cross-docking allows management opportunities to link
inbound and outbound demand together before actual stock arrival. The planned
cross-docking method is an option for your warehouse, whether at the transfer
requirements, delivery or shipment level. Once you are comfortable with the design, SAP provides a planning tool to perform the optimization analysis for you
decreasing the effort for optimal optimization. Opportunistic cross-docking creates
similar decisions, but on a real-time basis in the case of unexpected inbound or
outbound demand. Combined with RF, your floor operators are system-directed to
the optimal location, including incoming purchase orders.

The paper is available here and is recommended reading for anyone interested in yard management or cross docking in EWM.

http://www.catalystinternational.com/Content/KnowledgeCenter/Downloads/whitepapers/YMCrossDockingWhite_Paper.pdf

Coordinating the EM Project

As we described in out book on SAP SCM, events must be agreed upon and tracked through implementation during an Event Management projects. Events are different that other SCM objects in that the events come from a variety of sources and partner systems. There thus needs to be a method of sharing the event capability and status during the implementation. Our solution has been to create one entry per event in a password protected blog, like this one. The next step is to provide the password to the invited parties, and manage the documentation on the objects in this way. An example would look like the following:

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EM Event Description: Item Scan At 3PL Warehouse
EM Event Location: San Jose, California
EM Event Projected Frequency: Daily
EM Event Providing System: Penske Logistics Warehouse System
EM Event Message Format: XML
EM Event Message Transmission Begin Date Partner Committment: Jan 10 2010

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These are a sampling of the necessary fields and the feild set would certainly grow. However, the concept would stay the same.

Cross Enterprise Projects Requires Cross Enterprise Project Tools

As cross enterprise projects become more common, companies have going to have to come up with new ways of coordinating these projects with groupware.
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Caught in a Timewarp

Many companies implementing cross enterprise projects have done nothing to change or update their project tools and methodology. Many companies seem to think they can simply graft on tools and methods that are top down and hierarchical onto implementations that are based upon the voluntary cooperation of a variety of supply chain partners. Large consulting companies are not of much assistance as they themselves are extremely hierarchical. Several years ago we tried to explain the benefits of WordPress to a major consulting company and they needed to convene a committiee to analyze the “cost benefit” on software which is..

• Free
• Has an enormous benefit
• Can be brought up in 30 minutes and can allow contributors from anywhere to add and read content

This large company decided instead to stay with its current information management solution – sending PowerPoint and Word documents by email. By the way, this company consults others on how to “use technology.”

The commonly praised collaboration project was Wal Mart in the retail replenishment space. However, Wal Mart is a special situation, they can force their suppliers to go with their program because their suppliers receive such a high percentage of their overall sales from their relationship with Wal Mart. Other companies that are less dominant over their suppliers, which is most companies, will need to take a collaborative approach in order to get collaborative software installed.

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WordPress and SharePoint

WordPress is an excellent blogging platfrom, and there are project coordination tools like Huddle that manage both data and have project tools. The problem is not enough companies use them, because not enough companies care to learn about them. The document management standard is becoming Microsoft Sharepoint. Companies that elected to go with SharePoint will have a serious problem in implementing collaborative projects, and can not be used effectively across enterprises. However, the software is just part of the problem, companies are by in large still not thinking in terms of collaboration.

What Is It?

A tracking ID is a method of differentiating between different events. Tracking IDs are associated with event handlers. (to read about event handlers see this post)

http://www.scmfocus.com/sapplanning/2009/05/24/event-handlers-in-event-management/

Tracking IDs is made up of two pieces of data:

• Tracking Code
• Tracking Code ID

Tracking IDs to Event Handlers

The relationship between event handlers and tracking IDs is many to many, that is one event handler can have many tracking IDs, and one tracking ID can be associated with many event handlers. This makes sense because you can use the same tracking ID in different event lists. This highlights the configurability of event management.

Return Management in EM

Little discussed in supply chain, and not something many companies, particularly companies that need to receive returns through shipping, returns management is a function within EM. In addition EM supports returnable transport items or RTIs. RTIs include:

• Pallets
• Crates
• Various Containers

What Is An Event?

Event Handlers are a representation of a process. For instance a manufacturing process has an Event Handler in EM. Event handers are made up of:

• Data
• Milestones or events
• Process information

Flexibility

Event handlers are extremely flexible, and there are even handlers that can interpret voice messages.

Status

Each event handler has status attributes defined for it. These are for the different degrees of completion. These status attributes are completely configurable.

Sets

A sequence of event handers that represent a complete business process are referred to as an event handler set. Sets can be thought of as synonymous with expected event, however more formalized and applied specifically for event handlers. The sets are organized into groups by the event handler set relation. They can be related according to:

• Control Parameter
• Tracking Code ID Set
• Query ID Code Set

How They Related to Events

Events are discreet activities in the supply chain that can be tracked. Event handlers are referred to as application objects. Events occur in a specific sequence with specific time considerations. One of the main functions of EM is to compare the expected time vs. the actual and vs. events that have not yet, but should have occurred.

The Interface

The Event Handler List shows the expected events, and which have been completed, and which remain to be completed.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain_management

What Is It?

Event Management has its precursors in the Alert Manager. It is a module which has the ability to connect up both SCM and SAP ERP, as well as multiple external partner systems into a comprehensive monitoring system that can keep both the company implementing EM as well as their partners up to date on activities in the supply chain.

Its History

Alert management goes back to the origins of SAP SCM, however, the Event Manager is a relatively new module. While housed within SCM, it is less planning than execution oriented. To see the problems EM is attempting to solve see this post:

http://www.scmfocus.com/fourthpartylogistics/2009/05/23/the-problem-scm-event-management-is-attempting-to-solve/

Thought Process Behind EM

EM is part of a larger concept in supply chain management that proposes that the real benefits lie between organizations – so called cross-enterprise integration. This has been a very strong development focus of SAP in SCM for several years now.

Implementation Hurdles

Much like SNC, which we consider its sister module, EM is dependent upon data from a multitude of sources, many outside the implementing company’s control. Therefore the biggest challenge for cross enterprise software like this is always the same:

• Technical Integration Challenges
• Organizational Challenges in Motivating Partner Participation and Compliance
• Documentation

Implementation History

EM is only lightly implemented as of the writing of this post. It also happens to be tackling one of the most difficult areas that there is, which is intracompany coordination and integration. For anyone who doubts this, see this post on the challenges that lay ahead.

http://www.scmfocus.com/fourthpartylogistics/2009/05/23/the-problem-scm-event-management-is-attempting-to-solve/

Documentation

EM is also one of the most lightly documented of all of the SCM modules. The SAP Help documentation is problematic and needs both a re-write and must be made far more comprehensive. We do recommend the book Supply Chain Event Management, however most the book is in German. It does have several English chapters.

This is a good book on the topic, although it is focused on supply chain event management generally and had only briefly mentions of SAP EM.

How to Begin

Event Manager can add value simple monitoring the data that the company controls, and this is the scope we would recommend for the first roll out. Secondly, after a company has a proven internal solution, it is in a better and more credible solution to simple incorporate the partners in the currently existing system.

Precursor

Business is increasingly moving towards an outsourced model. _________________________________________________

Outsourcing Positives

Outsourcing, enhanced by technology, allows a company like Amazon.com to manage the front end experience and to allow other companies perform the fulfillment. This ads value because Amazon’s web shopping and supply demand matching service are so superior to other companies. We document Amazon’s available to promise capability vs. GATP in this post.

http://www.scmfocus.com/sapplanning/2009/05/07/gatp-atp-trees-and-amazon-com/

We discuss subcontracting in GATP and at Amazon.com in this post.

http://www.scmfocus.com/sapplanning/2009/05/15/subcontracting-in-snp-and-gatp-vs-amazon-com/

Outsourcing Negatives

While lauded by various pro-business types, the trend is not all positive. Outsourcing often becomes a way for those companies with strong brands, to spin off functions and jobs to weaker supply chain intermediaries and keep more of the profits for themselves. This can also lead to labor abuses as well as environmental degradation of other countries (i.e. the Nike model where people in Honduras or China get 9 cents for a shirt that sells for $30.) This atrocious behavior is defended as “good capitalism” and anyone who disagrees is told to go and live in Sweden.

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EM = Outsourcing Engine?

One of the issues which decreases the ability to outsource is cross-enterprise information sharing. EM can be seen as an outsourcing enabler. Companies do not feel as if they need to own many of their fulfillment operations as much as they simply need access to the capacity as wel l as the information about supply chain activity. The poor state of supply chains management at most companies compared to firms that specialize it — most notably UPS, indicate that perhaps outsourcing logistics is a good idea.

Event Management and Fourth Party Logistics Providers

The concept of a fourth party logistics provider is a company that only manages supply chain information, but does not have any logistics assets (i.e. trucks, warehouses, etc..), and essentially specializes in supply chain monitoring. EM enables this new concept and we discuss the concept more fully in this post.

Few Real Outsource Capable Companies

It should be noted that there are few real total supply chain companies like UPS that can be said to handle an entire client’s outsourced supply chain. The third party logistics industry is filled with impostors, most notably Ryder Logistics – which are just trucking companies masquerading as “solution providers.” To handle complete supply chain outsourced clients you must display operational excellence.

Wal Mart as an Outsourced Logistics Provider?

One day, when Wal-Mart’s retail growth begins to slow, they would be a prime candidate to become a third party logistics provider because of their outstanding warehousing and fulfillment capabilities. To learn more about Wal-Mart and fulfillment see this post.

http://www.scmfocus.com/sapplanning/2009/05/19/replenishment-in-sap/

Reference

http://www.amazon.com/Supply-Chain-Event-Management-Erfolgsfaktoren/dp/3790817392/ref=sr